Issue 55, November 2021

Image

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.

Image

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.

Image

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.

Image

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.

Image

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

Image

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

Image

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 55, November 2021

Featured image for “Pat”
Quin Yen

Pat

“I’m not going to help you! Look at him! He has the same surgery and he’s older than you. He can walk to the washroom by himself. Why can’t you?” The voice sounds like it’s coming from a grinding saw, piercing into my ears. My heart trembles. I am a coward.

November 2021
Featured image for “Pasteboard Houses”
Rebecca Jung

Pasteboard Houses

In the 1950s, you could tell you were getting close to Akron before you saw it—an acrid smell of burning rubber and sulfur permeated everything. Tall brick smokestacks above dark, dingy tire factories coughed up oily black soot that coated everything—your clothes, your hair, even the insides of your nostrils.

November 2021
Featured image for “The Grace That Comes By Violence”
Joanna Acevedo

The Grace That Comes By Violence

Lorrie called it “The Lost Weekend.” Roger called it “The Last Weekend.” Annabel was pregnant, so she wasn’t drinking. Designated driver, everyone said. Lou didn’t say anything at all. They met on a Friday at a bar none of them had been to before. It was a dive. Roger was getting married a week from Tuesday. He had a reckless, harried look about him,

November 2021
Featured image for “The Procedure”
Polly Richards Babcock

The Procedure

When blonde, angelic-looking Annie asked if she could stay with me while she recovered from her intended abortion, I concealed my shock and said, “Sure. You can sleep on the sofa.” At nineteen, a decade before Roe v. Wade made abortion legal, I naively relied on inconsistent condom deployment and boys’ assurances that withdrawal was effective. This was the first time I had been confronted with the consequences of my bohemian carelessness.

November 2021
Featured image for “House Hunting with Castro”
S. Blair Jockers

House Hunting with Castro

1962. Eddie and Percy crouched on the wood floor of their private fort, a three-foot deep pit in Eddie’s backyard, destined to be a small pond after the next serious storm. The plywood roof Eddie’s father Raymond built from an old drafting table in his architect’s office was braced six inches above the edge, providing views in all directions like the rotating gunner’s station on top of a tank.

November 2021
Featured image for “Feast”
Emily Corak

Feast

The first time I decided to uproot my life entirely came after a lazy morning lying in bed and watching reruns of How I Met Your Mother. I’d recently moved to Portland right after college because of a boy, and I had settled in nicely. I had an apartment, a job, and this boy and I were on the verge of cohabiting.

November 2021
Featured image for ““Bernadette at Lourdes” and “Lolita Condemned””
Robert Eugene Rubino

“Bernadette at Lourdes” and “Lolita Condemned”

Sister Mary Rose (so young she could’ve been your actual sister)
marched you and her other seventy-two second-grade students
(no teacher aides, no volunteer parents, just the good nun)
eleven blocks west toward the Fifty-Ninth Street Bridge
to the palatial Hobart Theater

November 2021
Featured image for ““Intact,” “Bloom” and “Return””
Alex Starr

“Intact,” “Bloom” and “Return”

Whatever anyone
tells you know
it is possible
common in fact
to exist
in one place in
another two time
transience one
location contains
many dancing

November 2021
Featured image for ““PhD Friends,” “I Let Myself Feel” and “Kamloops Garden””
Johanna Donovan

“PhD Friends,” “I Let Myself Feel” and “Kamloops Garden”

You’d think 2AM conversations would be nonsensical and funny,
not rational and sober avenues to despair. Round and round
and round we go, down the looped rabbit hole all new methods,
medicines, discoveries have to go to become less… detrimental.

November 2021
Featured image for ““Activated,” “All Things Considered” and “Drugstore Backpack””
Corie Johnson

“Activated,” “All Things Considered” and “Drugstore Backpack”

There isn’t such thing as flat emerald and agreeing to a suicide pact with a falsely familiar stranger is not worth the novelty. We are all children of divorce. Olive, teach me the art of being quaint. Show me how to construct the soundproof walls you’ve built for proper use to love as loudly as we do.

November 2021
Featured image for ““The Yolk of the Neighborhood,” “Afraid of Your Sobriety” and “Rented Halves””
Monica Viera

“The Yolk of the Neighborhood,” “Afraid of Your Sobriety” and “Rented Halves”

I was walking in the hot, still LA heat
That blows nowhere, so your own thoughts begin to circulate
And you go mad
And upon walking on some particularly rocky asphalt,
I lost my footing
And hit the back of my head and heard a
CRAACK

November 2021
Featured image for ““Windsong:  Grand Opera,” “Full-ness of Time” and “Shadow Play””
Russell Willis

“Windsong: Grand Opera,” “Full-ness of Time” and “Shadow Play”

The first strains of the overture
Intrudes on the calm of normalcy.
Several measures of gentle breeze
Slowly crescendo into true wind.
The key and rhythm suddenly change,
Then revert to the original.

November 2021
Featured image for “Three”
Steve Biersdorf

Three

The three little pigs enjoying an elegant repast on the waterfront, quiet water reflecting neon from high-rise resorts. Sequestered at a table with a Lazy Susan, each partaking of the abundance by turns, washed down with a discriminating Pouilly-Fuissé with white flower accents.

November 2021
Featured image for “The Bicycle Crash”
Adrian Fleur

The Bicycle Crash

Once it was June it was hard to remember the despair of March. The winter was always slightly too long, the dark skies and short days lingering just past what was reasonable for any human to endure. It was a despair which infused all former pleasantries with an unexplainable sourness; you could hardly bother with hellos or how are yous.

November 2021
Featured image for “Second Best”
Dave Wakely

Second Best

‘Every time I see you, Mr Woodcock, you look a little taller.’ Unaccustomed to displays of diplomacy or flattery, and still learning to acquire the habit of booking restaurant tables, Bernard smiled shyly at Sergio’s greeting. Back in England, his expectations had been distinctly lower.

November 2021
Featured image for “Wealth”
Linda Heller

Wealth

Sharon asked Daniel, a young ceramist—they were at a month long glazing workshop in upstate New York—how he supported himself. Most ceramists didn’t earn much and she wondered how he managed to drive a brand-new fully loaded Land Rover.

November 2021
Featured image for “Handprint”
Andreas Hasselbom

Handprint

Three helicopters flew overhead, seemingly pulling the clouds across the sky as they went. Jake knew the sound very well and didn´t bother looking up. Instead, he looked at the road ahead of him. The tall pine trees on either side created a corridor which covered the dirt road he was on. The forest fanned out in every direction. It wasn´t old, though.

November 2021
Featured image for “Glass Houses”
Victoria Costello

Glass Houses

No one, not even Sunny Fox, knew that Sunday, December 22, 2019, marked the start of the final week of the before times. Leading astrologers around the world, Sunny included, had seen and discussed among themselves the fact that the planetary transits due in 2020 signified a terrible reckoning. They could not agree on the precise kind of comeuppance they expected to be visited upon humanity—just that it would be very, very bad.

November 2021
Featured image for “A Virtuous Man”
Joyce Myerson

A Virtuous Man

I lied to her. Again. Will it be the last time? Can I go back and make it all right? I know, you’re always telling me to make up my mind before. Do I want to impress or do I really want to know someone for longer than a week? How come I haven’t learned?

November 2021
Featured image for “The Snitch: Lonzo”
M.D. Semel

The Snitch: Lonzo

The elevator doors were almost closed when Lonzo jammed his foot between them. He was late. The doors reversed themselves and slid back open. He squeezed in, compacted his body and side-eyed the crowd. It was like riding the subway at rush hour except all of the occupants were men and most of them were white.

November 2021
Featured image for “Curious Fictions”
Seth Kristalyn

Curious Fictions

Before you regretted voting for that one president, but after your favorite sports team fell out of relevance, all the books were digitized. All the publishers became E-Publishers. The presses stopped. A few libraries remained open as museums, and you remember going to one with a woman you thought you would marry.

November 2021