Issue 88, October 2024

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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 88, October 2024

Featured image for “Wholeness Through Fracture: Sculpting the Human Condition”
Aleksandra Scepanovic

Wholeness Through Fracture: Sculpting the Human Condition

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.

October 2024
Featured image for “The Canvas of Memory: The Art of Living with Yesterday”
Anne E. Beall

The Canvas of Memory: The Art of Living with Yesterday

I often woke up disoriented, emerging from dreams where everything was as it once was. My former spouse and I were happy again, sharing meals in our favorite restaurants or running together along the Chicago lakefront.

October 2024
Featured image for ““The Region,” “Shapes Of The Word,” and “Wedding””
John Hamel

“The Region,” “Shapes Of The Word,” and “Wedding”

To drive past Coop City late on Saturday night
Is to see what the human worm can weave –
The coral towers stand out their lights against
The pitch-night Sound

October 2024
Featured image for “The Shadow of a Gentleman”
Carson Harris

The Shadow of a Gentleman

The gentleman was always a man of contradictions. Born in the quiet, unassuming town of Nowhere, Tennessee, his early life unfolded amidst the slow rhythms of rural America, where the days stretched on like the endless horizon.

October 2024
Featured image for “With the Time Left”
Heidi Lasher

With the Time Left

The reader fanned the deck of cards on the table and invited me to touch them. With my right hand, I moved them in a circle, counterclockwise and confessed that I was considering abandoning my career.

October 2024
Featured image for “Top of Happiness”
Ruth Langner

Top of Happiness

My head felt like an overripe summer squash.
It was starting out to be a grim day. Though you’d never know it from looking at me, I felt like I had been cloistered all night in an assisted living facility for psychopathic chairs—a command centre for the flotsam of miserable furniture, retired and warehoused, a hub with just enough of a pleasant environment to give the illusion of living in luxury. Night terrors. I struggled to make sense of my present reality. Being a chair had its complications.

October 2024
Featured image for “The Peacock’s Meow”
K. Amber Johnson

The Peacock’s Meow

In my earliest memory, I am falling. The last of the afternoon light is nothing but a whisper as dusk makes her provocative entrance—a lingering tease before the dark comes all at once.

October 2024
Featured image for “Requiem”
Chad Gusler

Requiem

Jake tried to kill me, Lizzie had said.
A lie, of course. But she spread it far and wide before she left California for Indiana: He tried to choke me, she’d repeat.
But—Christ!—it was just a hug, and it went down like this:
Hannah had burst into our room, turned on the light, and demanded to know which one of us was taking her to practice. Lizzie kicked me under the sheets—evidently it was my turn—but I kicked her back, club swim had been her stupid idea, just grant me a little rest.

October 2024
Featured image for ““Endomorphosis,” “Three  Times Asked and Answered,” and “Family Knots””
Fletch Fletcher

“Endomorphosis,” “Three Times Asked and Answered,” and “Family Knots”

The chrysalis comes in grey
matter, some lines of white
to tell the rest of me when
tearing starts.

October 2024
Featured image for “Shifting Sands And Bitter Wine”
Rachel Racette

Shifting Sands And Bitter Wine

She twirls a slender dagger in her hand, while Egypt’s Pharaoh drinks wine from a golden cup. Seth settles across his cushioned lounge, dark eyes locked firmly on Neferet’s twisting fingers.

October 2024
Featured image for “Root Cause Confessions: Uncle Sam Needs Your Help Again”
James Joaquin Brewer

Root Cause Confessions: Uncle Sam Needs Your Help Again

You knew your father had been having heart problems. Of course, you knew that. But you had not been paying enough attention—not the right kind of attention—to factually comprehend just how critical his condition might have become. In the year following your mother’s death, you were aware that he was paying ever-lessening attention to what she had hopefully called her “heartful, healthful” advice regarding his diet. And he had slacked off his previous daily walking routines and even stopped his weekly bowling league participation.

October 2024
Featured image for ““The Lady by the Lake,” “Nihility Island,” and “Arachnid Inn””
Christian Johnson

“The Lady by the Lake,” “Nihility Island,” and “Arachnid Inn”

She sways and watches the dark waters
Her lighthearted hums brings grief to the ears
Beautiful, piercing the silence of the night
Agony riveting like the pain of broken bones

October 2024
Featured image for “Intersection:  (Breast Cancer, Puccini and Me)”
Jeanne Hall

Intersection: (Breast Cancer, Puccini and Me)

I am lying alone on an operating table. Bright lights are shimmering above my head. I cannot speak. I am surrounded by strangers. People who have met me only moments before. And yet, I am held hostage to their intellect, their experience, their wisdom and their compassion.

October 2024
Featured image for “Harvestmen in the Wood”
Michael Sammons

Harvestmen in the Wood

His grandparents had gotten drunk on Saphire highballs with friends around the fire the night before, and the way they had started acting strangely—grinning and cackling through the evening, their faces gone somehow wicked and distant…

October 2024
Featured image for “The Black Chrysler PT Cruiser”
Molly Stites

The Black Chrysler PT Cruiser

You’re driving through the beginning of a snowfall that will probably bring at least a foot, the road already white with salt, slippery with cold in some places. The black Chrysler PT Cruiser is a shape a car probably shouldn’t be.

October 2024
Featured image for “Next Stop”
Erica Lee Berquist

Next Stop

A simple choice can make all the difference in the world, or so they say. Mary knew what some of the major choices in her life had been. She chose to go to nursing school, despite being told by everyone in her life that she wouldn’t be able to handle it, but she knew that she could. When Hiram got down on one knee, she chose to say yes, although she doubted that they were ready for marriage.

October 2024
Featured image for ““Flower Famine,” “pick the staples from the classroom clown,” and “Linguistic Moon””
J. M. Platts-Fanning

“Flower Famine,” “pick the staples from the classroom clown,” and “Linguistic Moon”

Nothing, I see
But,
dandelion blush and smoky Bardot eyes of western wind. Nothing, but McDonalds and cluster flies…

October 2024
Featured image for “The Codex of Lady Lucy Bugg”
Joe Cappello

The Codex of Lady Lucy Bugg

News of the impending arrival of a word warrior shook the sleepy town of Surrender, New Mexico. For Deputy Sheriff Ingrid Zoe Cole (“Izzy” for short), it didn’t change her routine much, except she took a second glass of bourbon instead of her usual one at lunch.

October 2024
Featured image for “Wake on a Silver Sea”
Andrew Parkinson

Wake on a Silver Sea

Searching his reflection in the mirror, the sailor saw a subtle change in his own expression. What he saw was longing – a face of someone pursued by memories, haunted by a future he did not want. Now he could see that same expression in others. He thought at first it was enough to know he was not alone, but he realized he had to do something with the insight he had gained. He decided to leave behind his regular life…

October 2024
Featured image for ““Ticking Mountain Thyme,” “Presently,” and “The Dust I Love””
Rob Bailey

“Ticking Mountain Thyme,” “Presently,” and “The Dust I Love”

Our time is asynchronous
We have a new favorite pharmacy
A ribbon-cutting you can’t miss! It’s
illegal
to feel

October 2024
Featured image for “The Destruction of Pedro Albizu Campos”
Sandro F. Piedrahita

The Destruction of Pedro Albizu Campos

“Every black man of genius will eventually be destroyed,” said the Nuyorican widower Irving Rivera as he puffed on a Winston cigarette in the university cafeteria soon after he learned Pedro Albizu Campos had been buried in the Old San Juan Cemetery one hot summer day in 1965.
“Such is the destiny of every ambitious man of African blood wherever and whenever the Anglo-Saxon rules. It shouldn’t surprise you, Susana.

October 2024
Featured image for “Saturday Night at Casey’s”
Star Olderman

Saturday Night at Casey’s

Buddy Morris was moving the last of his stuff out of our cabin and into his old Buick, ready to head down to Denver. He was planning to help friends there open a new music venue, the Harmony Café. I wasn’t going with him.
I was hoping to get the goodbyes over with quickly, but no such luck. Buddy kept pausing his packing to give me advice: where to take the truck if it broke down again, which pile of firewood was best to use first. On and on.

October 2024