Issue 18, October 2018

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Dragonfly Out in the Sun

Tracey Dean Widelitz

Hold On To Me,
Sunlit Beauty,
and Rose Petals and Golden Wings

Refugees DRC

Despair Paintings

Owen Brown

The world seems to carry on as if there aren’t a million reasons to be shocked. But because I don’t want to go numb, I try to paint them, at least a few. For these, I paint figuratively, as I was trained, even though now, often, my desires, and my output, is abstract. Still, how can we ignore the drought in Afghanistan, the strife in Sudan, the war in Gaza, the invasion of Ukraine? Or even what goes on in our own lives?

Finding a Pathway

Finding a Pathway

Mark Rosalbo

As an emerging artist, the art form I work with is primarily abstract painting and large-scale installations. My artistic process involves using various mediums and techniques to create physical manifestations of internal dialogues and personal judgments. In my abstract paintings, I use house paint, various tools, and textured canvases. The technique involves creating overconfident brushstrokes that mask my imposter syndrome, with multiple layers of paint partially hidden under the surface. The inner turmoil arising from self-doubt is expressed as geometric shapes woven together with texture.

In Between

Wholeness Through Fracture: Sculpting the Human Condition

Aleksandra Scepanovic

Three works in clay by Aleksandra Scepanovic.
Each of these works tells a story of the complexity and beauty found in life’s fractures, embracing the wholeness that emerges through resilience.

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Coastal Grey

Miki Simic

This series of photographs, titled “Coastal Grey,” depicts elements of summer themes. My goal was to capture a vibrant setting and allow the viewer to realize it remains vibrant even though color is lacking.

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Symphony in Green

Patrice Sullivan

I paint landscapes, interiors, exteriors, still life’s with figures interacting and posing for the camera displaying memorable moments with families, friends, and neighbors.

friends

Friends, Triplets, and Family Narrative

Tianyagenv Yan

Tianyagenv uses light clay to make miniature figures and wishes to capture the characteristics of femininity, vulnerability, and resilience in potential.

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Green Canyon Bridge 1993, Thrive, and Tarot Deck: The Moon

Robb Kunz

My paintings explore the abstract simplicity of ordinary life and the deductive impulse to see ourselves reflected back in art.

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Metamorphosis

Marianne Dalton

The photographs are from the series, Metamorphosis. Each painterly creation constructed from dozens of layered photographs is driven by my reaction to nature’s extreme seasonal change.

La Huasteca

La Huasteca, Roots in Nuevo Leon, and Frames

Tee Pace

La Huasteca, Roots in Nuevo Leon, and Frames

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Cherry Blossoms

Annika Connor

Cherry Blossom Forest

Les Femmes Mondiales Black and White

Les Femmes Mondiales Black and White

Janet Brugos

Les Femmes Mondiales Black and White
Hurricane
Chicago Ice

Sunset over the Pacific

Three Photographs

Lawrence Bridges

UNDER THE PIER, MALIBU CA
SUNSET OVER THE PACIFIC
and POOL, POST RANCH INN, BIG SUR

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Joshua Tree Project

Holly Willis

The images are part of a larger series created in the Mojave Desert around Joshua Tree in the fall of 2023 that explore the shifting state of the desert.

October Still Life

Chasing Paradise

Marianne Dalton

This series, Chasing Paradise, draws upon my work as a fine artist in painting, as I create stylized photographs of flowers and plants found in my rural environment.

Turtle Light

Ocean Sleep and Turtle Light

Maite Russell

Turtle Light and Ocean Sleep are works of multimedia and sculpture mediums, respectively, depicting the natural world with fantastical elements.

Issue 18, October 2018

Featured image for ““To Braintree”, “To Bowdoin” and “To Lechmere””
Julia Lattimer

“To Braintree”, “To Bowdoin” and “To Lechmere”

If this train car were mine, I’d hang plants from the / metal bars. I’d stain the windows—blue, yellow, / pink, blue again, green. When I ride above this / Dorchester, the orange sky will pour onto my white / curtain lace, my stacks of books, my blushing skin.

October 2018
Featured image for ““Dear Girl”, “Her Face” and “Yes I Am in High School””
Davis Mathis

“Dear Girl”, “Her Face” and “Yes I Am in High School”

Dear Girl,
You anxious broken queer girl.
You waterfall you crystal ball your future bright and clear, Girl.
Lips painted red, head high and proud, they’ll tremble as you near, Girl.

September 2018
Featured image for ““The Charter Boats”, “Changing Time” and “Peace””
Edward Ahern

“The Charter Boats”, “Changing Time” and “Peace”

The boats string along the seam
of green and blue waters,
white mites on a fish vein,
trailing thin proboscides
that must be bitten to succeed.

September 2018
Featured image for ““The Unliving Louis Jackson and Living Me”, “The Clouds Are Mountains” and “Shackles””
Mallory Rader

“The Unliving Louis Jackson and Living Me”, “The Clouds Are Mountains” and “Shackles”

He lived a long life—a normal span of / 9 to 5 and bright eviction notices on front doors. / He would tell his wife every night before bed, / “I will wake up tomorrow and do better.”

September 2018
Featured image for ““Potpourri”, “Capturing the Moment” and “City Bird Sounds””
Michael DeMaranville

“Potpourri”, “Capturing the Moment” and “City Bird Sounds”

Days like blossoms
Some, green buds
Reluctant to push away
The wooden bed frame
On which they rest

September 2018
Featured image for “Me and the Milkman”
Pam Munter

Me and the Milkman

Each morning at dawn, he would stealthily enter the house through the unlocked back door. In the early 1950s, no one in our neighborhood locked their doors. I was sometimes awakened by the tinkling noises of glass and the opening click of the refrigerator, but seldom by any human voice.

September 2018
Featured image for “Negotiating the Narrows”
Mike Tuohy and Susan Zimmerman

Negotiating the Narrows

Cold steel. I should have worn gloves. What I thought a shotgun blast turned out to be the massive metal hatch slammed shut by the wind. As I rose from the deck, another gust pushed me toward the edge like a hockey puck until I fell to my knees. When it passed, I forced myself to stand upright and join my friends. This was no place for a woman to look weak.

September 2018
Featured image for ““Vow”, “Three Variations” and “November””
Tasha Cotter

“Vow”, “Three Variations” and “November”

The doves find a spot
Of shade under a bench
And sit together, quietly
Speaking about the world
Of people and rain.

September 2018
Featured image for “The Weight of the Words”
Sayword Eller

The Weight of the Words

Three stories up from the rue Vielle-du-Temple is a tomb. It was never intended to be so still, so empty, but life has a way of changing in an instant and so, it seems, do apartments. There is no body interred here. Only memories. Only echoes of laughter and whispers from a life once lived.

September 2018
Featured image for “Angelus”
Paula M. Rodriguez

Angelus

Johnny gets up in the morning and goes straight to the bathroom that he shares with his mom, his two little sisters, an older brother that works at a bakery, and whoever else happens to be around on any given day. There is a stale smell to onions gone cold and greasy hamburger from Danny’s place that he ate last night. The leftovers are probably still somewhere in the room, but it is hard to tell with all the stuff lying around.

September 2018
Featured image for “The Arachne Gene”
Darryl White

The Arachne Gene

He had a pocketful of possibilities scribbled on napkin backs. The perfect recipe was like DNA, it held the answer to who he was and where he was supposed to be. He wasn’t found yet, he was on his way, and he’d get there, wherever there was, if the bus driver didn’t kill them first.

September 2018
Featured image for “Praying to the Porcelain God”
Steven Mayoff

Praying to the Porcelain God

Dani walks alongside M. Francoeur, who pushes his wheelchair, balancing on it as he would a walker. Today is her usual Saturday morning visit, and together they follow the oval footpath that surrounds the Mount Olive Senior’s Home, employing a pace similar to that of a wedding procession marching through molasses.

September 2018
Featured image for “Every Silver Lining’s Got a Touch of Grey”
Benjamin Mast

Every Silver Lining’s Got a Touch of Grey

Without knowing any of their music, I didn’t like Grateful Dead. Call it a mother’s instinct, call it blatant ignorance and close-mindedness, it must have played in my house for days, weeks, maybe months before I found the album cover under Second Daughter’s bed.

September 2018
Featured image for “The Monsters of Our Minds”
Natasha Mileusnic

The Monsters of Our Minds

Kate concentrated on the jingling of the wind chimes. If she could hear the soft bell tones, their accidental melody, that meant she existed and was present on the solid earth, walking the pavement past the imposing Victorians. Alive in her body, here and now.

September 2018
Featured image for “Simulation Theory”
Aaron Buchanan

Simulation Theory

“There is no permanent self,” he’d whispered louder than he’d intended. It was only in that moment he finally became aware of himself, what he was doing, and that he never meant to say anything out loud at all.

September 2018
Featured image for “5 Rules for the Problem Dog Owner”
Jennifer Jarman

5 Rules for the Problem Dog Owner

Small, dark, almond eyes blinking eagerly at me through the thin grid of fencing, a narrow head just reaching my knees, ears perked forward like twin radar dishes, his entire sleek, black body wobbling from side to side in an unthreatening display of welcome and happiness.

September 2018
Featured image for “Driftwood”
Keith Wilson

Driftwood

As a student at Northern Michigan University, I ran for hours on the wooded trails and the paved bike paths along the shores of Lake Superior in Marquette, Michigan, where driftwood accumulated on the sand. I wasn’t a collegiate athlete or even a competitive one. Running had nothing to do with school except for keeping me from studying.

September 2018
Featured image for “Lonely in the City”
Sabrina Qiao

Lonely in the City

The first week I moved to Manhattan, I was so excited I couldn’t eat. I lost two pounds and gained a Metrocard, an apartment sublet, and a new internship. I was supposed to be living at home, working the same internship I’ve had since I was a college freshman—not out of loyalty, but out of love for my father.

September 2018
Featured image for “Quilted Northern”
Taylor Riley

Quilted Northern

Lying on a pile of blankets in my grandmother’s upstairs bedroom on a breezy, October night, I was feeling both chilly—the window was open to my left— and mentally exhausted after an eight-hour drive from our home in central Kentucky to western Pennsylvania. I rested beneath my grandmother’s patchwork quilt where my boyfriend Heath and I were bedded down. I clung to the warmth of the quilt, its scent a mix of musk and mothballs.

September 2018
Featured image for “The Sandy Diary of Susu Aisin Gioro”
Susanne Lee

The Sandy Diary of Susu Aisin Gioro

In a flash, I went from living in a neighborhood of $15 grilled cheese sandwiches, $19 meatloafs and $400 skin creams to a developing country with cold water, no electricity and waiting in line at a public park for dry ice from the electric company and to charge my phone from a CNN truck. And I am one of the lucky ones. I have a roof and windows.

September 2018
Featured image for “Summer Haze of Weston Days and Her Eyes”
Julia Edinger

Summer Haze of Weston Days and Her Eyes

When I look back on that summer, I remember everything in a blue-tinted haze. Everything was blue. The sky was perpetually sapphire; I don’t think it rained at all for three months. Even the murky water from the neighbor’s pond was cerulean, or at least that’s how it appears in my memories. But the bluest of all was in her eyes.

September 2018