Helle Mardahl looking relaxed just a few days before her first NYC show opens up

 It's not often that you meet someone who says she gave up her successful career to become an artist because she was sick of working so hard for so little money. But that's how Helle Mardahl came to be an artist. In fact, she told me, "I believe in destiny and destiny told me to calm down a bit."

 I met Mardahl recently at LaViolaBank Gallery, where she was preparing for her upcoming show, The Largest Possible Audience. She was white-washing a canvas in preparation for a projection, which seemed more like a Zen exercise than work. We discussed her art and her previous career in fashion and I noticed that she certainly had the energy, passion and vigor of someone in fashion, but at the same time I also noticed an air of relaxation and even contentment about her. The satisfaction she seems to have found in developing the complex and intricate works she was putting up might have surprised her a few years ago, but her drive and determination didn't mean she had the manic furvor I've seen in so many fashion designers.

 Despite the complexity of her works, she explained her ideas and inspiration in very simple terms. People's obsession with the royal family, which inspired her last show, and people's desire for attention which inspired this show, are so simple that you don't have to be a 'tellectual to understand what she's talking about.

If there's more to life than having ten dogs and designing retro bathing suits, Sheila Frank doesn't know what it is.

When I came across Sheila Frank, I immediately took notice of her retro bathing suits. These suits would look right at home on Betty Page (or if you're young and hip like that, let's say Katy Perry), but her other looks are thoroughly contemporary. They are simple, unique and elegant. We here at Chick tee dot com love the fact that her looks aren't just designed for barbie dolls, either: most of them will fit women of various body-types equally well, so you don't have to look like a model to, well, look like a model.

Sheila Frank's World

After trying to pose Sheila Frank (above, right) with makeup artist Sam Lennon (above, left) and their model (above, center, and below), Sheila just chilled out with them and had a laugh.

I visited with Sheila recently when she was in New York for a photoshoot. Crammed into a tiny bed-stuy appartment converted for use as a photo-studio, Sheila had assembled some amazing tallent. Interacting like seasoned pros, I was surprised that they had all met online and that they were all working for free in exchange for the right to use the photos in their portfolio. Sheila, on the other hand, hardly had to do anything, and when I asked her to stand next to the makeup artist and model for a picture she got uncomfotable and didn't know what to do -- it wasn't her place to be tinkering with makeup and so on. Eventually they just chatted and teased each other. Sheila said that on some occasions she would have the work sent away and not even gone to the shoot herself.