Arts Mashing: Creating Unimagined Compositions with @csallquist

To discover more of Chris’ transformative photo mash ups, follow @csallquist on Instagram.

“I couldn’t shake the feeling that I wasn’t doing what I’m meant to do,” recalls Chris Sallquist (@csallquist), a Seattle-based editorial director, of his life 10 years ago. A late-night experiment of warping and bending a magazine cover eventually evolved into what he calls “Arts Mashing” – a style of collaging where he mashes up photographs on his smartphone. Now, Chris says he finally feels like he’s doing what he’s supposed to: Making art.

Chris generally starts his process by looking for an evocative portrait. “Then I search for a secondary image that transforms the person into someone else,” he says. “Each piece reveals the unseen stories that lurk beneath the beautiful façade of the people featured in fashion magazines across cultures. These stories have always been there, but no one has revealed them until now.”

Artist @michinara3 Shares his Sensibilities Through Photos

For more photos by Yoshitomo Nara, follow @michinara3 on Instagram.

Yoshitomo Nara (@michinara3), a Japanese artist whose cartoonish paintings and sculptures have a cult following, shares personal inspiration as well as the colorful process behind his work on Instagram. “While my work is often easy to understand, there are times when people can only see at the surface level and misunderstand what’s really there,” he says. “I hope that the accumulation of these shots of my everyday will eventually shed light on my sensibilities, even more than my paintings ever will.”

As a music lover, Yoshitomo collects albums, which contributed to his early bond with Instagram. “I find joy in being able to crop and upload the images in the square format, just like LP covers,” he says.

Turning Food Into Something Unexpected with @seriousdesign

To see more of Matija’s unusual mashups, follow @seriousdesign on Instagram.

It was the steak flip-flops that gave Matija Erceg (@seriousdesign) the idea. He was a little bored with his day-to-day job as a web developer, and when he saw a picture of a pair of flip-flops with soles made out of steak, inspiration struck him.

“I imagined what it would be like to wear them,” says Matija, who is based in Vancouver, Canada. “I wanted to evoke the same reaction of delightful disgust in other people, so I set off on a mission to pair food and everyday objects into ‘serious designs.’”

Matija started with some shrimp headphones. “Imagine the feeling of putting them into your ears, as you would earbuds,” he says. “I think that seeing them on the ends of the wires helps imagine the sensation.”

From an iPod made of cheese to a banana gun, there is seemingly no end to Matija’s tweaks. So far he has confined himself to Photoshop, but says he’s considering making real sculptures. “I’ve been studying the art of fake food, like you see in some restaurant window displays,” he says. “Maybe a trip to Japan is in the cards?”

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Transforming School Lunch Into an Incredible Art Project with @dailynapkins

For more cartoon napkin creations from Nina, follow @dailynapkins on Instagram.

Nina Levy (@dailynapkins) estimates that she has made over 2,000 different drawings on the napkins she packs with her children’s lunches. These days, the New York-based artist and professor makes elaborately whimsical color sketches, but she says the saga began much more simply.

“I began doing napkins in the fall of 2006, drawing simple pictures in black Sharpie on napkins for my son when he started staying at nursery school for lunch,” Levy explains. “I was just including a caring message from home and hoping to get him a little extra attention from the teachers supervising his lunch.”

In the beginning, Levy’s two sons would actually use the napkins for their originally intended purpose. Now, they serve a more decorative function. Levy says that even though she doesn’t always make napkins for both boys, they are still usually involved in selecting the subject matter for each drawing.

“If I don’t have a request, I usually try to draw something that I know they have been thinking about recently,” she says. “I am, however, often wrong about what is cool or even acceptable in the minds of seven- and 11-year-old boys.”

For Levy, the drawings are more than just a product of motherly love. They’re also an extension of her craft.

“I view them as a sort of compulsory nightly drawing practice, an enforced pop culture update, and, in my most pretentious moments, a form of sustained performance art,” she says.

Upside Down Travel Photography with @stolbyshkin

To see more of Anton’s upside down travel photography, follow @stolbyshkin on Instagram.

“When I travel, I don’t want to post the same old ‘me-and-something-beautiful-in-the-background’ photos,” says Moscow Instagrammer Anton Charushin (@stolbyshkin). “I like to share something unique, so I use my ability to stand on my head.” Anton posts photos of himself doing hands-free headstands in the hashtag series #stolbyshking(#stolbyshking), a Russian word he invented to describe performing the move in interesting places. He says he is constantly on the lookout for a new creative approach for his series. “I look everywhere for a place to stand on my head: rocks, roofs, castles, trains, cornfields, elevators,” he says, adding that all he needs is a small flat area for his head and a friend to take the photo. Anton picked up his skill in high school when he got into break dancing. Later, he discovered other benefits to being upside down. “Headstands promote blood flow to the brain,” he says, “which improves my mood and sharpens my mind.”