Issue 49, May 2021

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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 49, May 2021

Featured image for “What You Know”
Mary Vensel White

What You Know

Jasper wasn’t the sort of man who liked to share his food, never had been. This did not sit well with women. They always wanted “just a bite” of this and “a taste” of that and sometimes, he knew, they wanted to share an entrée to stay on their diets even though afterwards, they’d order a rich dessert and he would go home hungry. But these are lessons you learn, especially over the course of a sixteen-year marriage.

May 2021
Featured image for “Weigh Her Down, See How She Moves”
Margaret Spilman

Weigh Her Down, See How She Moves

Shadrach, Ohio, remembers my family. Remembers me. On the rare occasions when I come back to visit the museum that once was our house, more than one hand has found its way to my shoulder to pat comfort. It’s a rhythm I’ve known since I was five years old. Since the day my little sister Dorothy was born.
She wasn’t the first baby born with Mylar’s Syndrome, not by a long shot.

May 2021
Featured image for ““The Comforts of Gravity,” “Daydreamer” and “Resonance””
Dennis Perry Clark

“The Comforts of Gravity,” “Daydreamer” and “Resonance”

I see the autumn leaves falling. I ponder chance as they release.
Watch as they glide, then gently come to rest. A shading life,
clung to a branch, in the final moments breaking free.

May 2021
Featured image for ““Intrepid Dreamers,” “Meanwhile” and “Variations on Nineteen Words””
Alison Jennings

“Intrepid Dreamers,” “Meanwhile” and “Variations on Nineteen Words”

Starved for art,
we were made for poetry;
we are mad for poetry.

Study this hunger;
learn how to feed it.

May 2021
Featured image for ““Fossils,” “Equinox” and “a beautiful thing””
Melissa LaDuc

“Fossils,” “Equinox” and “a beautiful thing”

250 million years ago
an ancient cephalopod
once stretched upon granite
and Time remembers
a tail dragging in thirsty sand.

Meanwhile, She is getting away from us:
a child no one sees

May 2021
Featured image for ““What is Poetry?,” “Tongue Fire” and “Faucet Father””
Olivia Klein

“What is Poetry?,” “Tongue Fire” and “Faucet Father”

Mindset, free flowing, thought exploding
Sunsets,
Seasons, and syllables wrapped into one
Tiny perfect package
But also, great plains
Limitless at face value
And deeper when it’s said

May 2021
Featured image for “The Prodigy”
Walter and Margaret Munchheimer

The Prodigy

I don’t recall exactly when it first occurred to me that I might be gifted at what I was doing. Others seemed to have noticed, and there were the occasional third-person references to potential—to a bright future. It all felt pretty normal to me, so I just kept doing what I was doing. The assignments quickly became more demanding, the challenges exhilarating and always thoroughly mastered.

May 2021
Featured image for “A Very Innocent Man”
Edward Belfar

A Very Innocent Man

On Monday, at the end of his session with Boadecia, the doctor, leaning back in his chair with his hands crossed behind his head, inquired, with affected nonchalance, “So, you can bring me some business?”
Boadecia, springing from her chair, jumped six inches off the floor, clapped her hands three times, and grinned.
“I can bring more business than you’ll know what to do with.”

May 2021
Featured image for “Like Snakes Among Vines”
Brenna Hosman

Like Snakes Among Vines

In college, she learned about rape myths, the misconceptions and excuses created to downplay the crime and blame the victims. Dani saw the myths plastered on poster board and in the margins of flyers hanging on the walls of every campus building, myths that she didn’t even know she had believed until they were spelled out for her in words and, one by one, debunked.

May 2021
Featured image for “Parents and Children”
Linda Heller

Parents and Children

The twin sisters are fraternal to the sorrow of Peg, the eldest born just before midnight and therefore on an earlier day than Hillary. Their separate birthdays aren’t what riles her. When they were young, Hillary’s parties coming on the heels of Peg’s were forced reruns, neither child getting the celebration she wanted. The trouble is that Peg actually resembles a peg…

May 2021
Featured image for “The Leak”
Norbert Kovacs

The Leak

The tank had worn thin with rust since no one maintained it and more was stored inside than it was designed to hold. Pressure had built high in the oversized vessel and now a jagged crack opened along its exterior. A purple liquid, the secret ingredient in a successful line of chemical preservatives, oozed from it with a noxious smell and pooled on the linoleum floor.

May 2021
Featured image for “Don’t Be Like Bluebeard’s Wife”
Carol Pierce

Don’t Be Like Bluebeard’s Wife

The Y is around the corner from his architectural firm, and I would see Les in the pool every weekday from 1:30-2:30 p.m. That’s why, this fall, I thought it odd when he wasn’t there for a whole week.
Eating in the middle of the day made him sleepy, he said, so he forfeited lunch for ten laps of freestyle followed by ten laps each of the back, breast, and sidestrokes.

May 2021
Featured image for “A Leaf Falls”
J. K. Marconi

A Leaf Falls

Kevin sat alone in the dappled sunlight beneath a towering oak tree surrounded by gravestones. He gazed fondly at the sculpture of a young woman stricken with grief. Death, like love, obsessed him. The noonday sun etched deep shadows in the mourning bronze figure that knelt on one knee with her head bowed. Despite being covered with the patina of age, it was lovely in its depiction of sadness.

May 2021
Featured image for “Arrows”
Summer Hammond

Arrows

“Can we do a drive-by?”
When Chris gets home from work, after he’s changed, but before they’ve eaten, Molly asks him. She clasps her hands under her chin, like she’s praying. She tries to keep her face from doing that grimace thing that Chris can’t stand. He says it’s her panic, her pain. It makes him want to curl up in a ball.

May 2021
Featured image for “Hunger”
Chiedozie Dike

Hunger

The afternoon sun burned a seal on the floor, the single hung window casting a parallelogram shadow onto the cream vinyl sheets near the foot of Laifa’s hospital bed. A crosshatch of metal bars and the grid pattern of the mosquito net framed the window’s outline, an otherworldly manhole Laifa could fall through into an eternity of light where she’d float weightless in the air as if in space. At peace.

May 2021
Featured image for ““A little light,” “Si-ghting 53” and “Letter—for Fernando Pessoa””
Ray Malone

“A little light,” “Si-ghting 53” and “Letter—for Fernando Pessoa”

As for the darkness of eternity
a little light by your bed
might do as the wind
flings itself against your wall
weathering all away

May 2021
Featured image for ““Stone Pillow,” “Gold Rush Girl” and “#TrashFries””
Eric Lawson

“Stone Pillow,” “Gold Rush Girl” and “#TrashFries”

I can’t quite make normal work for me.
The angle, the navigating, the placement.
I’ve lost the how to manual for contorting
my body to use makeshift MacGyver skills
and filthy underbrush to survive on.
I’m not sure how it happened.

May 2021
Featured image for “Baptism”
Joanna Grisham

Baptism

Instead of confessing my sins at church, I found salvation in my bedroom. Like my father, I wasn’t a fan of altar calls or public confessions, though some kids reveled in the extra attention they got from adults when they participated in the praise and worship service. I felt like an imposter, and the attention made me uneasy. I felt closer to God when I was away from everyone else, alone in the woods or in my tree house.

May 2021
Featured image for “Full”
Natalie Kim

Full

The way that this forty-something-year-old blonde wearing turquoise cat-eye glasses thwapped my stomach – you’d think she was picking out watermelon. Her pinkish, Anglo-Saxon phalanges bounced off of my ballooned belly. I lay atop the medical exam table, under the singe of fluorescent lights, thinking about the belly I wanted back, the belly I had only a few hours before. A belly that melted into the interstices of my ribcage.

May 2021
Featured image for “Carmen and the Boys”
Andrew Sarewitz

Carmen and the Boys

If you walk the West End on Commercial Street in Provincetown, inevitably you’ll pass Joe’s Coffee and Café. Early morning, there’s a line out the side door for takeout and inside, the structure that had originally been designed as a bank, has seating throughout. Outside, in front, are a number of wrought iron tables painted wet-black, some under blue umbrellas for shade.

May 2021
Featured image for “Hadaka No Tsukiai: A Natural Communion”
Robin Lash

Hadaka No Tsukiai: A Natural Communion

While I stared in awe at a huge spider sitting atop a thick, ropy, sparkling cobweb, light filtering down through Meiji Jingu’s forested path, Annie, back in our rented apartment, was fuming, wondering where the hell I was.
My sister and I had chosen to travel to Japan for ten days, neither of us knowing the language.

May 2021
Featured image for “Querida:”
RC Hopgood

Querida:

Maria Collins used to be so childish, such a baby. Oh yeah, she was going to change the world, take down the man, destroy the machine, let freedom bells ring and then tra-la-la happily ever… never. Such kiddie fantasies. Juvenile righteousness… Right. Juvenile stupidity is more like it. She kicks off her worn-out blanket, sits up and adjusts the straps on the leg, and ties up her boots as tight as she can.

May 2021