On my mind: the word “riot.” Universally negative in English. In Spanish, it’s rendered instead as “revuelta,” kin to “revolt” in English and to “revolución” in Castilian Spanish. Tonight, as my building boards up and the sirens begin to sound, I think, Revolt, revolt, revolt! It’s time; the dead are calling.
This is our one-year anniversary issue and we are on our seventh day of fire. Here you will find wrath, explicit language, pedestals, and erasures. We have a poem and an interview with actor GARCíA. From Pakistan Hamayle Saeed brings us synesthesia. In Spain, Plácido R. Bonnín touches glory. And from California Kathryn Barron breaks the dichotomy between civil and wild life.
Thank you for being with us each step of the way. Stay strong.
In solidarity,
amanda lezra
Editor-in-Chief
Bloom. Acrylic on canvas 36″x48″ 2020
dressed in a Sunday’s best they dug deep for / this body never went to church
there are pictures on the wall
handpicked by family who loved the child / in this body
there are people in the room
who don’t know what to say / in fear of this body
thisbody THISbody THISBODY
in the coffin, at the front of the room front and center
there is a sad ghost in the corner / there is a ghost
I am the ghost
but no one can see me / in the coffin
in my transness in my pronouns in my name in my I-should’ve-been-cremated
in my I-never-fit-into-any-box-alive-so-why-put-me-into-one-dead / in this body
that I’ve spent years molding and remolding
don’t you know I can hear you / jumbling my name, fucking up my pronouns
aren’t you supposed to respect the dead
you weren’t even invited
why did you come / to a stranger’s funeral
why isn’t there any music playing, any food eating, any eulogy readings
why can’t you get it right / this one day, this one time
the child in the photos loved themselves so much / sometimes it hurts
to be the faggot, to be in the coffin, to be in this body.
GARCíA is a pen clicker, poetry writer, head-scratcher, sandwich eater, thought provoker, dog lover, born and raised in the depths of Chicago’s Southside and currently attends NYU’s Tisch School of the Farts (yes, farts). They enjoy listening to an endless array of music, social distancing with friends and making the most out of what’s in front of them. They made their on-screen acting debut in Netflix’s original series “Tales of the City” as Jake Rodriguez and recently guest-starred on Freeform’s “Party of Five” as Matthew. They were nominated for a Lucille Lortel award in Bess Wohl’s “Continuity” (dir. Rachel Chavkin) for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. Read our full interview here.
I painted this for dear friends of mine. They were pregnant during the time. I was painting it for their new home. On one hand, I felt pressure to make something worthy of the respect and love I felt for them as a couple. On the other hand, I was inspired by sticking to this idea of horizons, and how they represent an area that we can constantly travel toward without ever arriving. There’s something about the boundary between what is familiar, and what is beyond what we can conceive. When the sun highlights the horizon, we notice it.
Pseudo Erasure
Hamayle Saeed is an accidental physician and deliberate poet; moonlighting as an aspiring eponymous disease in Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Papercuts.
Cognition’s Colors investigates putting color to the roughly 100,000 thoughts a human being will have in a single day. The bright pink spot is an homage to both the works of Pollock and my own mental health. I have often found myself drowning in the darker colors, forgetting I am just as much the bright spot too.
de la extrañeza y la gloria en el arte
Yo soy muchas cosas a medias, lo cual no es extraño en absoluto. A veces soy escultor de metal, otras veces soy herrero. A veces técnico de 3D, y otras diseño instalaciones con robótica. A veces soy artista, otras preparo tacos a turno partido.
Nada demasiado extraño por ahora. Llevo unos cuantos años dedicándome al arte, en concreto a la escultura. He vendido y he expuesto, he estrechado manos y he posado en fotos con gente más importante que yo (que no es difícil), pero en esta ocasión no se trata de eso. Se trata de cómo hallamos la gloria en la extrañeza, o quizás en este caso, la extrañeza en la gloria.
from strangeness and glory in art
I am many half things, which is not strange at all. Sometimes I am a metal sculptor, other times I am a blacksmith. Sometimes I am a 3D/CNC technician; other times I design artistic installations with robots. Sometimes I am an artist. I serve tacos part-time. There is nothing too strange about that. I’ve dedicated myself to art for a couple of years— sculpture, specifically.
I’ve sold and created exhibitions and shaken hands and posed for pictures with people more important than me (which is easy.) But this story is not about that. This is a story about how we find glory in strangeness. Or maybe the strangeness in the glory.
Plácido R. Bonnín is a freelance sculptor who specializes in iron, stone, and 3D printing and modeling. He has worked in ateliers throughout Europe; his work can be found in Italy, Luxemburg, England, Iceland, and Madrid.
Coronary Currents. Acrylic on canvas 30″x40″ 2020.
Kathryn Barron is a graphic designer, mural and fine artist from Santa Barbara, California. With nearly a decade of experience in public art installation, her passions range from painting large scale murals to installing massive steel sculptures and community organizing. She creates art and public installations across Los Angeles County, Philadelphia and Dallas. Her background in engineering and biochemistry research has inspired her creativity and desire to protect nature. She has been published in media ranging from illustrated children’s books to research for peer-reviewed chemistry and biology journals. Read More Here.
On my mind: the word “riot.” Universally negative in English. In Spanish, it’s rendered instead as “revuelta,” kin to “revolt” in English and to “revolución” in Castilian Spanish. Tonight, as my building boards up and the sirens begin to sound, I think, Revolt, revolt, revolt! It’s time; the dead are calling.
This is our one-year anniversary issue and we are on our seventh day of fire. Here you will find wrath, explicit language, pedestals, and erasures. We have a poem and an interview with actor Garcia Josiah. From Pakistan Hamayle Saeed brings us synesthesia. In Spain, Plácido R. Bonnín touches glory. And from California Kathryn Barron breaks the dichotomy between civil and wild life.
Thank you for being with us each step of the way. Stay strong.
In solidarity,
amanda lezra
Editor-in-Chief
Bloom. Acrylic on canvas 36″x48″ 2020
dressed in a Sunday’s best they dug deep for / this body never went to church
there are pictures on the wall
handpicked by family who loved the child / in this body
there are people in the room
who don’t know what to say / in fear of this body
thisbody THISbody THISBODY
in the coffin, at the front of the room front and center
there is a sad ghost in the corner / there is a ghost
I am the ghost
but no one can see me / in the coffin
in my transness in my pronouns in my name in my I-should’ve-been-cremated
in my I-never-fit-into-any-box-alive-so-why-put-me-into-one-dead / in this body
that I’ve spent years molding and remolding
don’t you know I can hear you / jumbling my name, fucking up my pronouns
aren’t you supposed to respect the dead
you weren’t even invited
why did you come / to a stranger’s funeral
why isn’t there any music playing, any food eating, any eulogy readings
why can’t you get it right / this one day, this one time
the child in the photos loved themselves so much / sometimes it hurts
to be the faggot, to be in the coffin, to be in this body.
GARCíA is a pen clicker, poetry writer, head-scratcher, sandwich eater, thought provoker, dog lover, born and raised in the depths of Chicago’s Southside and currently attends NYU’s Tisch School of the Farts (yes, farts). They enjoy listening to an endless array of music, social distancing with friends and making the most out of what’s in front of them. They made their on-screen acting debut in Netflix’s original series “Tales of the City” as Jake Rodriguez and recently guest-starred on Freeform’s “Party of Five” as Matthew. They were nominated for a Lucille Lortel award in Bess Wohl’s “Continuity” (dir. Rachel Chavkin) for Outstanding Featured Actor in a Play. Read our full interview here.
I painted this for dear friends of mine. They were pregnant during the time. I was painting it for their new home. On one hand, I felt pressure to make something worthy of the respect and love I felt for them as a couple. On the other hand, I was inspired by sticking to this idea of horizons, and how they represent an area that we can constantly travel toward without ever arriving. There’s something about the boundary between what is familiar, and what is beyond what we can conceive. When the sun highlights the horizon, we notice it.
Pseudo Erasure
Hamayle Saeed is an accidental physician and deliberate poet; moonlighting as an aspiring eponymous disease in Lahore, Pakistan. Her work has previously appeared in Papercuts.
Cognition’s Colors investigates putting color to the roughly 100,000 thoughts a human being will have in a single day. The bright pink spot is an homage to both the works of Pollock and my own mental health. I have often found myself drowning in the darker colors, forgetting I am just as much the bright spot too.
de la extrañeza y la gloria en el arte
Yo soy muchas cosas a medias, lo cual no es extraño en absoluto. A veces soy escultor de metal, otras veces soy herrero. A veces técnico de 3D, y otras diseño instalaciones con robótica. A veces soy artista, otras preparo tacos a turno partido.
Nada demasiado extraño por ahora. Llevo unos cuantos años dedicándome al arte, en concreto a la escultura. He vendido y he expuesto, he estrechado manos y he posado en fotos con gente más importante que yo (que no es difícil), pero en esta ocasión no se trata de eso. Se trata de cómo hallamos la gloria en la extrañeza, o quizás en este caso, la extrañeza en la gloria.
from strangeness and glory in art
I am many half things, which is not strange at all. Sometimes I am a metal sculptor, other times I am a blacksmith. Sometimes I am a 3D/CNC technician; other times I design artistic installations with robots. Sometimes I am an artist. I serve tacos part-time. There is nothing too strange about that. I’ve dedicated myself to art for a couple of years— sculpture, specifically.
I’ve sold and created exhibitions and shaken hands and posed for pictures with people more important than me (which is easy.) But this story is not about that. This is a story about how we find glory in strangeness. Or maybe the strangeness in the glory.
Plácido R. Bonnín is a freelance sculptor who specializes in iron, stone, and 3D printing and modeling. He has worked in ateliers throughout Europe; his work can be found in Italy, Luxemburg, England, Iceland, and Madrid.
Coronary Currents. Acrylic on canvas 30″x40″ 2020.
Kathryn Barron is a graphic designer, mural and fine artist from Santa Barbara, California. With nearly a decade of experience in public art installation, her passions range from painting large scale murals to installing massive steel sculptures and community organizing. She creates art and public installations across Los Angeles County, Philadelphia and Dallas. Her background in engineering and biochemistry research has inspired her creativity and desire to protect nature. She has been published in media ranging from illustrated children’s books to research for peer-reviewed chemistry and biology journals. Read More Here.
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