ACCENT / BLOG

Our Accent^® Opaque Portfolio Exchange may have taken an unexpected turn, but we’re along for the ride, and we hope you are, too!

First up in our series of conversations with the participating exchange artists: Sarah Dudek, an artist based in Somerville, Massachusetts who designs and screen prints art and home decor with a conceptual focus on food. The art that Sarah created for the Accent^® Opaque Portfolio Exchange features two of our favorite things: a giant pie in the middle of an orchard. We asked her about that, along with what she’s doing to nurture her creativity during these wild times. 

Have you heard about Google’s Paper Phone? An experiment launched as part of the company’s Digital Wellbeing initiative, the Paper Phone consists of an app that lets you select the most crucial bits of information you’ll need for your day and print a “phone.”

Sylvamo recently teamed up with illustrator Kyle Beckett to create the original children’s book Apollo the Spacedog. This adventure story introduces young readers to Apollo, a shelter dog who longs to find a home, and Andi, a 7-year-old girl who’s into astronomy — two daring characters who team up to outrun a space monster. Apollo the Spacedog gives readers a glimpse of Andi’s vivid imagination, with action scenes brought to life through the magic of augmented reality. 

Max Mahn is a printmaker and illustrator working between Montana and Wyoming under the pseudonym Twin Home. He’s passionate about the art of the gig poster, and he spoke with us about how he got his start and what’s inspiring him today.

Kelly Bjork is an artist and illustrator based in Seattle, Washington who works mainly in gouache, a type of paint like watercolor made of natural pigment, water, and a binding agent like gum arabic or dextrin that is used to make the paint opaque. The word most often used to describe her gouache paintings is intimate, not only because it often features people in their homes but also because Bjork gives the viewer a glimpse of the tiny moments in our daily routines that are often overlooked: drawing a bath, doing the dishes, cuddling the cat.