Why We’re Introducing Original, Collectible Art in Airbnb Magazine
Now, readers will receive a frameable keepsake artwork in every issue. Here’s a behind-the-scenes look at how the art card came to be — and why it’s so important to the magazine.
In our latest issue, we’re debuting the first in a series of original, pullout art cards — part of an ongoing effort to celebrate illustrators and other creatives in Airbnb Magazine. The card is a piece of artwork created just for readers to take out and keep. “We wanted a few more moments in the magazine where you could just appreciate art, where there isn’t really an agenda or specific story we’re trying to tell — it’s more of a space for the artist,” says Airbnb Magazine Design Lead Sally Carmichael. “We want to be working with artists of all types of media — fine artists, painters, fiber artists, the whole gamut — and the art card is a great place to start doing that.”
The art card also presents an opportunity to tell more stories behind some of the amazing art and illustrations that make up Airbnb Magazine. The flipside of the card includes a brief note on the artist’s background and their intentions behind the art.
We sat down with Airbnb Magazine Art Director Nick Mrozowski to learn more about how the art card came together and why we chose Tokyo-born, Brooklyn-based Naomi Okubo to create the first one.
What was your vision for our first art card, and what were some of the challenges you faced initially?
We do a lot of illustration in the magazine, so the first challenge was understanding what the art card is, how it’s different than an illustration for a specific story. One of the early decisions we made was to go more in the fine art direction than the commercial art or illustrator direction.
We started looking for fine artists, primarily painters but also other mediums — people whose work exists for a purely artistic purpose, rather than being commissioned for editorial. That was a challenge because my experience, as with most magazine art directors, is working with commercial artists. It was nice to be able to look outside of that realm for other types of artists who normally wouldn’t have a piece in a magazine.
How did you carry out a search for the artist with so much freedom on what the art card could be?
In terms of who we could look for, any artist doing any type of work on any topic from anywhere in the world is a lot. So I decided to focus my search on artists who represented places and people in their work. I steered clear of abstract artists just for the first [art card], and I was looking for things that had an emotional connection. I was looking for people who had a sense of place, and something interesting happening in their work, some kind of theme I felt could be applicable to the magazine in general. Naomi’s connection to the solo travel theme was a big reason why we worked with her in the end.
What drew you to Okubo’s work?
It was very personal. Almost all her paintings have an individual figure in them, and usually this person is not looking at the viewer; they’re looking away. The person, who is always a woman, is situated sometimes in interior rooms, sometimes exteriors, always in a location that has a great amount of detail.
This issue of the magazine celebrates solo travel, and the art card seems coordinated with that theme. Did you have that in mind from the onset?
Because her work dealt with different locations, but from the vantage point of this one person, it was applicable to our fundamental topic of solo travel. And when I did a little bit more research into her work, I found that really that person in her art is her, and it represents her internal experience of the world, and not always feeling accepted.
The idea of dovetailing with the theme of the issue was not something that I started out with as a mission, but as we were looking at the artists that was something that we found in Naomi’s work, and we thought that could be a good reason to do it.
What did you learn about Okubo’s process from working with her?
Naomi collects images from fashion magazines and other media sources and collages them. Based on that digital collage, she paints a very detailed final piece. So images are painted, but they are painted from the little bits and pieces of ephemera she collects from her interaction with media in the world. One of the things I really liked about her work is how detailed it is: the amount of little textures and patterns and things that she incorporates into the finished work as a painting.
What do you want to accomplish through this first art card?
I hope readers appreciate the art first and foremost, and that they take the time to examine the details that Naomi has included. One thing Naomi said to me about this image was that she included the map that the woman is holding, and the map doesn’t really line up with the location that she’s in. I asked her about that and she said, ‘Well, I like that, because I’m on this one trip and I’m still thinking about where I’m going next.’ She imagines this person that is in this lovely setting, enjoying traveling on her own and also thinking about the next destination. That’s a personal thing of hers, but this idea of enjoying the moment, but always being ready for the next adventure, is a nice sentiment.
So, what’s next? What can readers expect from these art cards?
We have an open mind about the different mediums that could appear. I think it’s unlikely to be photographic, but I could see a sculpture or something [made into a two-dimensional photo]. For this one we tried to do “Art you hang on the wall.” As with everything else at Airbnb Magazine, I think there’s always room to surprise ourselves with something different down the road; the door is wide open.
About the author: Christine Lee is a San Francisco-based writer and editorial assistant at Airbnb Magazine. When not writing, she can be found hunting for the best bowl of ramen or her next read in used bookstores.
