Category: Visual Art

"start the chase" by vanessa maki (art) & elisabeth horan (poem)

3/21/2020

Come for me my prince / ss
Place… your hand --- make me
Glow shades of rose and vermillion
Candied cover - black shell over
Heavenly slippered skin --- no... it can’t wait
I can’t even begin --- to tell you
Heaven is here and now
Let me flow / glow like a lit worm
In the lure and wet of your chin
My poet --- my Tunisian
Ma raison d'être
Knowing what drops of water can do
I don’t have any idea - the drive
Behind me, behind this ---
Am I in front or in back???
There is nothing to grow in here
But tongue and fingers. Will I be
Complacent / & not fight / I can do
This --- ancient galactic matter implodes
And a black hole opens --- I / it will consume you
It will forever be a beacon of fleshlipstongue sucking / touching
My flesh. Be it red, vermillion, peach, maroon.
This will be the first taste of me, for you.

vanessa maki is a queer writer, visual artist & blk feminist whose work has appeared or will appear in various places. She has self-published chapbooks & has several chapbooks forthcoming or out this year: the chosen one (Animal Heart Press), sweet like limes (Bone & Ink Press) & another final girl (Roaring Junior Press).

Elisabeth Horan is an imperfect creature from Vermont advocating for animals, children and those suffering alone and in pain - especially those ostracized by disability and mental illness. Follow her @ehoranpoet & ehoranpoet.com.

art by alice mao

3/21/2020

Alice Mao is an emerging artist in the greater Seattle area. Her work explores identity, anxiety, and digital distortion. More can be found on her instagram, @alicemaoart.

art by kristin lafollette

2/9/2020

Sugar in Water

Display of Dinosaurs

Sleep on the Floor, Part 2

Sleep on the Floor, Part 3

Sleep on the Floor, Part 4

Kristin LaFollette is a writer, artist, and photographer. She is a professor at the University of Southern Indiana and serves as the Art Editor at Mud Season Review. You can visit her on Twitter at @k_lafollette03 or on her website at kristinlafollette.com.

"we do not own the stars" by christine sloan stoddard

2/1/2020

Christine Sloan Stoddard is a Salvadoran-American author and interdisciplinary artist who lives in Brooklyn. Her books include Force Fed, Desert Fox by the Sea, Belladonna Magic, Water for the Cactus Woman, and other titles. She co-edited Her Plumage: An Anthology of Women's Writings by Quail Bell Magazine for Quail Bell, the art and literary journal she founded. In 2019, she became the first-ever artist-in-residence at Lenox Hill Neighborhood House and earned her MFA from The City College of New York in Manhattan. Later that year, Christine became the artist-in-residence at Heartshare Human Services of New York, where she leads art workshops for adults with disabilities and creates artwork for display. Continuing in the direction of her poetry films like Jaguar in the Cotton Field, Done, and Marine Encounters, Christine has been selected to collaborate with poet Teri Elam for the 2020 Visible Poetry Project. 2020 will mark the release of Christine's books Naomi & the Reckoning (Finishing Line Press) and Heaven Is A Photograph (CLASH Books). Also working in theater, Christine will next appear in Melanie Marie Goodreaux's "The White Blacks" at Theater for the New City in the East Village, February 27-March 15.

art by elisabeth blair

11/10/2018

"My visual work is based primarily on improvisation - on following the pen rather than preconceiving - and on loose associations. My many mistakes are guideposts which determine where a drawing goes next. I create as a way to process darkness into something tangible, something able to be crumpled, something funny and/or laughable."

Elisabeth Blair is a feminist, poet, multidisciplinary artist, and podcaster. She has been an artist-in-residence at ACRE, Wildacres, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts. She hosts a podcast about women who compose contemporary classical music, and strives to advocate for artists who do not benefit from the white cisgender patriarchy. www.elisabethblair.net

the texas i know by olivia deng

9/12/2018

Olivia is a journalist who covers urban topics like housing and transportation, local politics, education, and culture for HuffPost, The Atlantic, and local publications like Spare Change News and DigBoston.

photography by erin taylor

8/27/2018

These photos came about after reflection on the smart phone camera as a form of archiving our lives. All of these photos were taken on an iPhone over the past few years because I could not afford an actual camera, the accessibility of this form of photography is very important. Whole revolutions, lives, and performances are now all documented through our iPhones, Snapchat, Instagram, and eventually on Facebook, in a way that is so easy to do that it's accessible to people of all backgrounds and experiences. I've been in parts of the world in which people didn't necessarily have direct access to clean water or food, yet they had smartphones in which they could document their lives. This documentation of our daily experience is what brought this project around, thinking about how grateful I am for my friends and being able to be a part of their lives. All of these photos are pictures of my friends existing and allowing me to document their existence in the most accessible way I know how, through my iPhone.

Erin Taylor is an American poet whose work has been featured at LAMBDA Literary, Cosmonauts Avenue, Scum Mag, and more. More of her work can be found at erintaylor.tumblr.com and she tweets at @erinisaway.

photography by hannah gross

8/18/2018

growing from ashes

Cacti and palm varieties some how sustained life on Caladesi Island despite being torched. The purposeful flames provide regrowth to plants and even though they are surrounded by death and decay, many still thrived.

Hannah Gross is a textbook Gemini with an affinity for exploring different landscapes. A native of Pittsburgh, her influences converge at the intersection of art and science, specifically how the two work together to transform and capture life. More of her work on portraits and wildlife can be found at hannahgrossphotography.smugmug.com and instagram handles @doctor_trifling.

illustrations by bridget roddy

5/22/2018

In Willoughby, Ohio there is a white hut on the side of the road and they sell handmade ice cream in store bought waffle cones. They do not have Superman flavored ice cream.

If your shoes do not have laces, they can’t come untied on the escalator. If your coat doesn’t have buttons, they can’t fall off on the train and roll under a stranger’s seat.

This last year or so has been pretty tough for a lot of people, and it never hurts to be nice.

Bridget Roddy is an illustrator and graphic designer living in Portland, OR. She pulls inspiration from Americana and being generally aimless. She uses flat colors because she is already too overwhelmed by life’s many layers.

She is afraid of birds, escalators and the current state of affairs. She likes loud music, potatoes and leaving dead flowers on her dining room table until they start to mold. You can follow her at @roddycreative on Instagram and check out what else she has going on at roddycreative.com.

indigo boys by marie fonbah

5/11/2018

"The inspiration towards my photography usually comes from the rawness of human nature, adventure, and of course nature itself, and how they intersect. I have an appreciation for documented memories, and within that, bold details and realness, and in these photos I hoped to capture the joy and solace felt in adventure, plus the beauty in black boy joy."

Marie Fonbah is an observant, moon-spirited black girl born in 2000. She is located in California, and she is the founder of Adolescent Creatures zine. She refers to her work as “exploring and documenting human nature in bold detail, raw yet unresolved emotion, and nature-centered”. In her free time she is either creating music playlists that define her every mood, finding herself in the deep wonders of the mysterious web, or feeding her knowledge through films, books, and long essays about sisterhood, black empowerment, mental illness, environmental justice, and more. You can find her photo blog here, she tweets at @marief473.

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