Meet Ian Solaski of BLESHÜE in Allston

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ian Solaski.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Ever since I was a kid, I’ve had a fascination and attraction towards the other. Whatever was outside of the norm, tough to find, and misunderstood, I was drawn to it. Spending most of my childhood in Connecticut, a place where diversity and culture is hard to come by, I turned towards the arts as a way of communicating with and learning about all that was outside of my immediate surroundings. Graffiti, skateboarding, punk, hip-hop… these became my best friends and greatest educators, and I wanted to contribute to it all in some way. This lead to the creation of BLESHÜE in 2012, a clothing company I ran out of my mother’s basement with the intention of exposing some of these subcultures I was passionate about to a wider audience. Around that same time, I moved to Boston to attend Massachusetts College of Art and Design to study Interrelated Media and Art History. While at MassArt I was able to expand upon and redefine what BLESHÜE and my artistic practice could be. Since leaving MassArt in the spring of 2017, I have been working towards transforming BLESHÜE into a vessel for all of the mediums I operate within, expanding the scope of the brand while simultaneously rearticulating its intentions.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
There are always obstacles when trying to sustain a passion project, especially in the arts, where over-saturation and elitism can diminish the potency of even the most compelling work. A lot of what I do with BLESHÜE contains within it an urgency to help dismantle the systems put in place that hinder the democratization of the art world. And when you intentionally go against the prescribed modus operandi, you accept the fact that any commercial success you may have is fragile and fleeting. You accept the fact that you have to work multiple part-time jobs and sacrifice normalcy in your everyday just in order to keep your passion afloat and alive in your heart. I am surrounded by a community of young creative people in Boston who go through the same ups and downs, it’s just the nature of following what you truly believe in.

Please tell us about BLESHÜE.
BLESHÜE is a project I started back in 2012, initially just making t-shirts and editorials with my friends. It’s now 2018, and I’ve expanded it from being just a clothing brand into more of a cultural curatorial agency, with an emphasis on how commodity can be used as way of educating. I’m interested in how pedagogy presents itself within consumer culture, and this stems from my love of art history. My method for creating a project or product for BLESHÜE usually starts with me feeling the desire to share a reference or piece of information which wouldn’t otherwise be made visible to a mainstream demographic. I then embed these references into the products I make, and in doing so essentially create a mobile art history lesson, where if someone is so inclined to use my product, they then take on the task of sharing the information they’ve now been exposed to with their social circles.

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
My fondest memory from childhood was when I received an M.C. Escher book for my seventh birthday. I would look at his illustrations everyday in amazement and bewilderment, and from this book I realized that with the power of art and your imagination, you are able to bring literally anything you want into reality.

Contact Info:

• Address: 113 Toddy Hill Road
• Website: bleshue.com
• Phone: 2034171869
• Email: bleshuecrue@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bleshue/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BLESH%C3%9CE-330616130363143/

Image Credit:
Mike Boyle

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