I’m seated across from Sarah Cain and in the course of our conversation it dawns on me that I’m talking with a real and true artist, which admittedly is an odd thing to think. I’ve spoken with a variety of artists, each and every one of whom I could describe in the same way: as a real and true practitioner of the arts. With others, however, it’s possible to separate their work from other aspects of their life and still capture something of their essence. With Sarah there is little separation. It’s as though any number of seemingly disparate facets of her world — yoga, cats, vegetarianism, or rap music — are also fueled by the need to paint. Or that all of her motives are imbued with the same “it” that permeates her work. This singular focus is testament to how fully her work is an exploration; a means to mine deeper one’s own essence. 

I met with Summer Rayne Oakes during a strange period in my life — shortly after launching Deviation in its new form, yet having no answers as to how I would provide for myself going forward. I had a mission but little stability in which to pursue it. (Instability is a reality for all missions, I’ve come to believe. Lacking risk, it’s not a mission so much as it’s a hobby or fleeting fancy.) Summer is also on a mission, I would learn.

It was a discovery, even though I was looking for it. While scouring the streets of Manhattan, a total outsider to the city’s art scene on a quest to write about the people in that scene, I encountered a simple black and white banner that said Postmasters Gallery. It was pinned to construction scaffolding near two understated, residential-looking doors. A plywood interior wall obstructed the view through the bottom half of the gallery’s front windows, above which a flatscreen displayed an image of a shadowy man standing in a street. The caption “…Art is lost in this town…” was stamped along the bottom of the frame. Despite my lack of familiarity with the terrain I knew enough to recognize an outlier. Inside was Magdalena Sawon, one of the gallery’s founders.

Devon Rodriguez is fresh from a studio visit when we sit for our talk. The twenty-year-old painter has been getting much attention these days. It’s been building, the way a snowball grows in mass and speed as it careens down a mountain. One thing led to this which led to that which triggered another thing over there, and on and on in a chain reaction of positive reinforcement for one overriding message: keep doing what you’re doing.