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Adornment Visual Biographies, Justine Cho Inside the Nucleus Colony Will Satloff: Works in Progress Bare Life: Ai Weiwei at the Kemper For Better Muses Horse Jumper of Love, Et. Cetera Grad Students for Working Wage Flash Fiction: Scenes from a Ship Dr. Peter S. Wyse Jackson and Dr. Steven Miller Lessons from Grandma New Magic with Michael Blau
EDITORS IN CHIEF
OPERATIONS DIRECTOR
DIRECTORS
Mikki Janower Rachel Hellman
Anne Kramer
Jonah Thornton Celia Gerber Izzy Jefferis Virginia Pittman Lina Willey Noah Treviño Emily Hanson
LAYOUT WIZARDS
Lauren Fox Natalia Oledzka
DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR
Logan Krohn OUTREACH DIRECTOR
Ariela Basson ART DIRECTOR
Lina Willey
BRAND COORDINATOR
EVENT PLANNING
Arno Goetz Andrew Weng
SET DIRECTOR
Maddy Ritholz
Emily Hanson Fatima Garcia Sophie Goldstein Simone Hanna
ILLUSTRATORS
PHOTOGRAPHERS
FEATURED
Natalie Thomas Chloe Van Der Vlugt
Arno Goetz Andrew Weng Noah Treviño Reshad Hemaoun Patty Alvarez Zachary Milewicz Celia Gerber Elizabeth Van Horn Anjali Reddy
Fatima Garcia Semhar Mekonnen Jiya Singh Kamsi Achigbu Sonya Ahuja Rachel Sznajderman Justine Cho William Satloff Josh Nobel Michael Blau Lindsay Virgilio
PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTORS
STYLISTS
Jonah Thornton Izzy Jefferis Kirsten Hollan Priya Kral Ellie Epperson WRITERS
Erica Coven
Haley Harris Sophie Tegenu Kennedy Morganfield Adler Bowman Alaina Baumohl Ryan Cahill Alexandria Moore
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Friends, countrymen, freaks n geeks: The editors’ note is a misleading convention in that it suggests that editors have creative authority over their publications. Let us clarify: we may commission, override, and otherwise prod at our wildly talented staff, but they helm our proverbial armada. This is their magazine, and we’re their biggest fans. Season 23 has no doubt been our most ambitious. We’ve launched not only a new print issue but also a new and entirely reconceptualized online platform. We’ve covered Ai Weiwei’s newest exhibition; Unbound, a sex toy startup working to distigmatize female pleasure; and the globally renowned conservation efforts of the Missouri Botanical Garden. We’ve showcased muses from across our community, from tattoo artist Justine Cho to Massachusetts band Horse Jumper of Love. Our latest work sees DJauthor-painter Lindsay Virgilio speak to her philosophy and ceramicist William Satloff throw his Knollshowcased pottery; it celebrates magician Michael Blau, beekeeper Josh Nobel, fashion collective Etavonni, Pebble Shop proprietor Sarah Burack, and the Washington University Graduate Workers’ Union. This issue is fundamentally an exploration of inspiration. We acknowledge the complexity of our influences and the incredible talent of our community. At its core, Armour is a people-driven magazine. It is a tribute to our inspirations and a catalyst for creative discourse. To our muses: every issue we publish is for you. This issue is for you, too. We’re in good company. With adoration, admiration, et cetera, Mikki & Rachel
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Visual Biographies, Justine Cho
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Inside the Nucleus Colony
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New Magic with Michael Blau
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William Satloff: Works in Progress
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Bare Life: Ai Weiwei at the Kemper
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For Better Muses
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Adornment
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Horse Jumper of Love, Et Cetera
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Lessons from Grandma
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Activism as Creation: Students for Working Wage
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Flash Fiction: Scenes from a Ship
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Lindsay Virgilio: On Paint, Prose, & Self-Publising
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In Conversation: Dr. Peter S. Wyse Jackson
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VISUAL BIOGRAPHIES —Justine Cho, Tattoo Artist
Photos & Direction
Noah Treviño Words
Kennedy Morganfield Edits
Haley Harris
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Alchemy Tattoo Collective is a library of conflicting narratives. Located in the historic Cinderella Building on Cherokee Street, the shop preserves both architectural history and the histories of the clients who enter the well-curated space. “A lot of people come in with a story to tell,” Justine Cho explains over the symphonic hum of needles against skin. “Many want to commemorate something—a milestone, something they’ve overcome. Ironically, I feel like getting a tattoo brings about a sense of healing. Even though I’m causing them pain— and, you know, stabbing them—I’m helping them complete a cycle and send a message to the world.” 6
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Cho’s story opens in San Diego. Her education led her up the coast to the University of California at Santa Cruz, where she poured herself into abstract painting and learned how to make messy, expressionist art that was “confined to its moment of creation.” Still, Justine longed to see a style of art unlike anything she had ever appreciated before. So she decided to create it herself. Derived from experimentation and application of the skills she acquired in Santa Cruz, the intricate dot-and-line work Justine originated would serve her in ways she didn’t yet realize. After brief stints as an office worker and the lone barista at a start-up cafe, Cho found herself in Chicago for her husband’s job. It was here that she visited a tattoo exhibit at the Field Museum that “for the first time ever, lit a fire inside” her. It was here that she fell in love with the history of tattooing; what each design represents. I watch Justine trace the outline of a peony across her client’s thigh. Flora and fauna appear consistently across her portfolio, and she frequently takes
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reference shots and sketches nature’s “intrinsic perfection” while on hikes. Cho’s appreciation for the organic form is reflected in her own body modifications. When I ask her which of her tattoos is her favorite, she gestures to her back with one hand. “I got my first one here. It’s a geometric pattern of diamonds that surround a lotus flower. The lotus represents overcoming trials and suffering, and I return to that mantra throughout life.” Ink stamps books and bodies with the same level of intention. Justine Cho is both a biographer and the author of her own ever-unfolding narrative.
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INSIDE THE NUCLEUS COLONY —Josh Nobel on Beekeeping Photography Zachary Milewicz Words Alexandria Moore Josh is suited up in a beekeeping jacket, a netted veil covering his face almost like an astronaut as he burns a rolled up issue of Student Life. He stands with a small group of students, gathered in a small grassy patch overrun with flowers and brush tucked behind the Kappa Sigma fraternity house. We are here for a hive inspection organized by WU Beekeepers, the student run beekeeping club on campus. This is Josh’s first time leading a hive inspection on his own. There aren’t enough extra beekeeping suits for everyone, so some of us, including myself, feel alarmingly exposed. Josh assures us that we are safe to observe the bees oscillating around the hive. “It’s a little weird, thinking you’re going to be really close to these insects that you perceive as really dangerous and can sting you,” Josh explains to me. Beekeeping wasn’t on Josh’s radar when he first came to WashU, so he recounts ARMOUR MAGAZINE
Direction Emily Hanson Editing Rachel Hellman
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vividly when he first found out about the group on campus. Josh was at the activities fair when he was approached by a member of WU Beekeepers “Kane Koubsky, the current president, wearing his beekeeping suit yelled,‘Hey, do you wanna know more about bees? I figured sure, why not?” Beehives look unassuming to the untrained eye. The hidden structures are made up of white wooden boxes stacked on top of each other and closed off with a lid, almost resembling old discarded furniture. Each box holds eight to ten empty wooden frames the bees use to build a wall of tiny, perfectly identical bee-sized cells. These cells are where the bees store nectar and honey, as well as where the queen bee lays her eggs. When we open the lid of the hive during the inspection, Josh puffs some smoke into the top to calm down the bees and mask any alarm pheromones. Suddenly, we are surrounded by buzzing as the bees fly into the air around us. Josh beckons me to come closer. With no suit on, I proceeded with caution. Josh explains that every hive has its own personality and this one is pretty docile. He pulls out a frame crawling with bees and points out a spot where the bees are clustering around a cell. He tells me that they will move if I gently push them
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out of the way, so I brushed some of the bees to one side with my bare hand for a better look. The bees feel soft, covered in little hairs all over their body to collect pollen, and didn’t seem to mind me handling them. Later, I ask Josh if he’s worried about the bees dying over the winter. He tells me that he’s a little nervous for the docile bees that I scooped up.While they are gentler, they are also not as strong as the second hive of bees.When Josh first joined WU Beekeepers, their first hive didn’t survive the winter, which is common in Missouri. The hives the WU Beekeepers have now are new, so they’ve yet to experience any cold weather.
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Purchasing the hives is reminiscent of a shady exchange of illegal goods. Josh tells me of an early morning last April when him and two other members of WU Beekeepers drove to purchase two nucleus colonies. Nucleus colonies are used to start a new hive and are typically made up of a small box filled with five frames, worker bees, eggs and larva also known as brood, and a queen. The deal happened in a half empty parking lot where the group first went up to a table and gave their information so they could pick their colonies. The sellers had set up boxes upon boxes in spaced out rows so buyers could inspect the goods. “We picked them up, weighed them, and tried to figure out which ones were the heaviest so we could get the best bees to
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bring back,” Josh explained. Afterwards, they loaded their chosen boxes of bees into their car where Josh sat next to them, guarding the precious cargo on the ride back. As Josh has seen the colony grow, he’s become attached to the bees. “I know that might be a weird thing to say. Obviously it’s impossible to have an attachment to individual bees because you can’t really differentiate between them,” Josh explains. “But whenever I pass by the hives I make an effort to peek in and make sure they’re flying around.” When the bees were being installed into their new home, they flew out of the box and “they stung us. So, the first time I got stung on the forehead and one got in my sleeve.” Yet, Josh remained un-deterred. After allowing the bees to settle into their new environment, Josh returned to conduct a hive inspection and “I got over the fact that I was stung,” he laughs. “It was very surreal for me. To be at peace with nature… honeybees are just working as a collective to try and rebuild their own home, produce honey, and pollinate. I felt a sense of pride, helping foster life and promote the success of their environment.”
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MAKING MAGIC HAPPEN —New Magic with Michael Blau
Photos Arno Goetz Words Kennedy Morganfield Edits Haley Harris Direction Izzy Jefferis ARMOUR MAGAZINE
In transit from his birthplace of New York to Las Vegas, a five-year-old Michael Blau came across his father’s old magic box. As he began to make sense of his new home, he’d stave off boredom with the objects inside. Contrived from play, an initial sense of wonder molded Michael into an eager student, one who begged his dad for magic lessons. Around seventh grade, he took his education into his own hands. “I’m not special,” Blau contends. In a graphic tee and black jeans, he’s as unassuming as most entertainers come. “I’m not this almighty human being who can read your mind. I don’t have superpowers. But I have studied and spent more time than you would imagine perfecting what seem to be simple tricks.” Michael Blau challenges the traditional portrait of a magician.You’d be hard pressed to find him pulling rabbits out of top hats or color-changing scarves from his sleeves. Instead, he contextualizes his craft in the present, taking advantage of technology and social media 20
platforms to broadcast his talent. I marvel at Blau’s ingenuity as he recounts his TEDxWUSTL demonstration from a few years prior: 200 college students pulling out their phones in unison and opening Instagram. On his profile, a new image appeared, without him publishing it manually or having someone backstage do so on his behalf. “When the audience is so familiar with the app’s properties— what’s possible and what’s not—it increases engagement,” he explains. The WashU junior, who studies finance and computer science, is visibly meditative on his formulation process, considering the methods and moving parts which translate to a stage-ready routine.“The magic community is pretty small,” he reminds me.“If we hypothetically scale it down to 100 people, probably ten of them are truly novel in their approach. The other ninety people go to magic shops, they buy a trick, they read the directions, and then they perform it.”What the majority of magicians overlook, in Michael’s view, is the opportunity to self-express through their performance. To him, magic is an art form, but only amongst a small group who think critically about the smallest of production details, from background music to stage size. Blau’s commitment to cementing himself in the ten percent is clear. If you’re examining place as it relates to performance, there are few better individuals to speak with than Michael Blau. He was born in New York, home to “some of the best magicians in the world,” moved to Las Vegas, which he describes as “the magic capital, though not as big or inclusive,” and was selected to perform during grandiose brunches and dazzling nightclub sets at the invite-only World Famous Magic Castle in Los Angeles. Michael reflects on the exclusivity and intimacy of the renowned Victorian parlor setting with a smile, but his experiences with the magic scene and its key players evoke a deeper nostalgia.“The ISSUE NO. 23
magic community is one of the only communities in the world where you can actually meet your idols,” he says. And he has. From receiving mentalist Asi Wind’s mentorship to serving as a magic trick consultant for David Blaine ahead of his North American tour, Blau’s professional connections have shown him how to be “a phenomenal magician” and reinforced his enduring passion for the art form. “When you were a kid, everything was magic,” he enthuses.“That’s the greatest feeling in the world. No one can say otherwise. My job is to allow you to be a kid again.” We’re lucky Michael Blau has not strayed far from his childhood fascination with his dad’s magic box. 21
WILLIAM SATLOFF —Works in Progress, Shot by Anjali Reddy
William Satloff studied pottery under master potter, Jill Hinckley, and began teaching private lessons in June 2017. His work has been showcased in shows across Washington D.C., as well as the storefront of Knoll Furniture Design in Manhattan and the office of Congressman Jamie Raskin. ARMOUR MAGAZINE
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BARE LIFE —Ai Weiwei at the Kemper Museum
PHOTO BY ELIZABETH VAN HORN
Step into the Kemper Art Museum any time between now and January 5th and you’ll step into Ai Weiwei’s world. After extensive construction and expansion of both the art museum and Washington University’s entire East End, the Kemper has reopened. Two of its newly built galleries are now devoted to Bare Life, an exhibition of over 35 pieces of Ai Weiwei’s work. This is Weiwei’s first major exhibit in the Midwest, and his first in an academic institution. The exhibition covers two sections, Bare Life and Rupture, which work in tandem to reflect on Weiwei’s work in China and the world to create art that calls to humanity. Ai Weiwei’s most recent piece, Bombs, Photos was created specifically to be shown Elizabeth Van Horn in the Kemper. The visual catalogue of Joshua White bombs, built from 1911 to 2019, reaches from the floor to the atrium’s curved ceilWords ing. Each bomb is accompanied by its name, the year it was built, and its country Hannah Dains of origin, eerily recalling the descriptions Edits on art pieces themselves. They range in size from moderate to immense, with the Sophie Tegenu ARMOUR MAGAZINE
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These works include Rebar and Case, a memorial piece composed of eight wooden cases that recall coffins, some topped with marble carved to resemble the twisted rebar Weiwei saw in the rubble following the earthquake. One wall of the gallery is devoted to Letters From Government Officials in Response to Ai Weiwei Studio’s Inquiries regarding the Sichuan Earthquake, a wall of letters denying or avoiding requests for information on the names and numbers of those killed in the natural disaster. The other two walls of the exhibition are dedicated to the wallpapers Finger and Odyssey, illustrated pieces that both inform and react to Weiwei’s concerns regarding humanitarian crises.
PHOTO BY ELIZABETH VAN HORN
largest bombs hanging over the heads of observers—but as you get closer, even the smaller bombs are as tall as a person. Weiwei conducted two years of research to complete this piece, which arches over the entrance to Bare Life. Ai Weiwei is well known for his work on the global refugee crisis, in his artwork and beyond. In 2017, Weiwei premiered the documentary Human Flow, which follows groups of refugees around the world to show how both universal and profoundly personal this crisis is. Weiwei revisits themes of universality in Bare Life, a gallery devoted to his responses to migration and humanitarian crises. Arching across and bisecting the gallery is Forever Bicycles, a monumental sculpture composed of 720 Forever brand bicycles, a brand popular in China. The sculpture divides the gallery thematically, between works that reflect on the refugee crisis and works that reflect on humanitarian crises, specifically the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
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PHOTO BY JOSHUA WHITE
Bare Life is meant to be experienced holistically, every piece informing the environment and the pieces around it. Walking through the exhibition is overwhelming, with beams, bicycles, and bombs hanging overhead, with countless reminders of tragedy and cruelty in the work. And walking through the exhibition is wildly joyful, experiencing the beauty and the irreverence of Weiwei’s work. We both see the horrors of the world and feel that something can, and must, be done about it. There is action in Weiwei’s work, not stagnation. Even in pieces created from ancient structures, his work calls always to the future. In a press Q&A session, Weiwei was asked if he thought it was possible to achieve justice through art. He responded, “It’s hard, so you have to try. And it’s impossible, so you have to keep trying.”
PHOTO BY ELIZABETH VAN HORN
Across the hall from Bare Life is Rupture, a gallery focused on Weiwei’s relationship to China and the Chinese government’s relationship to national history and art. The gallery is overtaken by Through, a piece constructed from wooden beams, tables, and pillars from dismantled Qing Dynasty temples that Weiwei obtained at antiques sales. The piece is constructed entirely using Qing Dynasty building techniques, without glue, screws, or nails. Along the sides of the gallery are pieces that further reflect on the Chinese government’s devaluing of art and history. The 2012 piece Souvenir from Shanghai is composed of rubble from Ai Weiwei’s demolished Shanghai studio. On one wall, the wallpaper Provisional Landscapes shows 128 photographs of rapid construction and demolition all across China. The gallery also includes Weiwei’s infamous triptych Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn, the original three photographs recreated in Legos, adding to the tension between modernity and history that Weiwei sees in China.
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PHOTO BY JOSHUA WHITE
FOR BETTER MUSES —Words by Ryan Cahill
Words Ryan Cahill Edits Sophie Tegenu Illustration Chloe Van Der Vlugt
I used to admire Hunter S. Thompson, whose days ran from 3 p.m. to 10 a.m., with allotted breaks every fifteen minutes for cigarettes, cocaine, liquor, acid, sleeping pills, and sometimes Dove Bars. He died at sixty-seven (later than anyone would've guessed), and as a teenager I found him both amusing and heroic: a model of the writer I hoped to someday emulate in style and craft. ARMOUR MAGAZINE
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After all, hadn't his addiction given us Fear and Loathing? Hadn't his excesses pioneered one of the 70's most iconic literary styles? There was something attractive to me about the breakneck speed of his prose, the absurdity that came from such an untethered and unconventional mind. Intrigued, I decided to look closer into the art of the 60’s and 70’s. Both decades were largely drug-fueled, first by beatnik psychedelics and then later, after the Summer of Love splintered apart, by the disillusioned punk opioid scene. There were countless examples of addiction-as-art: take The Velvet Underground's masterful ode to heroin; Stevie Nick's coked-out performance of "Rhiannon" on The Midnight Special; and decades earlier, Hemingway's laconic, artful alcoholism. All struck me as poignant, if only because both the art and the artist, like the times they lived in, hung in that rich liminal space between self- destruction and triumph. Back then, I had the idea that no good art came from a place of safety. In my mind, the work of drug addicts could be seen as dispatches from the edge, imbued with all the tension of a high-wire act. They thrilled, and continued to thrill even if the artist plummeted. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Prince: their addictions added a morbid, second profundity to their legacies. Now, when we listen to "Rehab," riotous dancing and solemn silence seem equally appropriate in response. The benefits of creating under the influence are clear enough. It opens up an infinite pool of creativity, accessible via sudden rips of energy and the kind of razor-blade focus usually reserved for fighter pilots and heart surgeons. Add in a dose of psychotropics, and suddenly the most
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disparate connections come to mind with ease: jellyfish and candlesticks, nimbus clouds and coriander, plateaus and promethazine. Anyone who has experimented with psychedelics will understand that feeling of universal connectivity; however illusory, it proves a generative headspace. But, at the same time, one begins to see the trap into which all of these famous writers and musicians have fallen. What if your muse became something tangible, something you could press into the palm of your hand, toss back, and swallow? What if you no longer had to wait for inspiration to strike, but rather kept it stashed in a plastic Ziploc, which you might have bought with a crumpled twenty on the third floor of a back-alley fire escape? How often would you consult the muse? If your career depended on it, would you stop? Could you? A vignette: my older sister lives in Hell's Kitchen. One morning on the R train, she sits beside a man who is hunched over, wearing a baggy, stained jacket. He appears to be sleeping: mouth open, chin slumped against his chest. But when the train stops at Lexington Ave he suddenly comes to life, standing to attention like a wind-up solider. He lifts his arms, and my sister watches as a collection of needles rains down from his sleeves and scatters across the floor of the train, while the man, goggle-eyed, stumbles backwards onto the platform. The door closes; the train heads east. Nobody says a word. Is there beauty, too, in his struggle? Or do we only admire the tortured, gifted souls, the stylish and affluent Bohemians rather than the disadvantaged and aimless?
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In his essay "The Poet," Ralph Waldo Emerson notes the long history between artist and vice, an age-old propensity for the creative spirit to lust after “wine, mead, narcotics…the fumes of sandal- wood and tobacco, or whatever other species of animal exhilaration.” He speculates that drugs helpthe artist escape “the custody of that body in which he is pent up, the jail-yard of individual relations in which he is enclosed.” It only follows, then, that the creative, who longs for other worlds, would be the first to leap down the rabbit hole. Then, just as swiftly, Emerson lances the trope. These vices, he says, are merely “quasi-mechanical substitutes,” which replace the true, unbridled creative impulse. They render inspiration a cheap trick, performed again and again until it fails to impress even the most eager of spectators. Gradually, my loyalties shifted from Thompson to Emerson. I began to wonder if romanticizing the addict was worse than naive — if it was also vain and myopic, a breed of ignorance
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born out of privilege, a mythology of an epidemic rather than the epidemic itself. Over time, I found that when muses are true—sober and natural inclinations to express —the feeling of compulsion is its own type of high: the pupils dilate, the head inclines forward, the leg jogs beneath the desk. And when the work is done, and the muse has slipped away, there is that same comedown: the mind and body, emptied out, go slack. Emerson writes: "The spirit of the world, the great calm presence of the creator, comes not forth to the sorceries of opium or of wine. The sublime vision comes to the pure and simple soul in a clean and chaste body." Here is a creed, from the man who walked in the woods, about how to live and create better. You cannot pocket the muse, he says. You can only look out into the world with plain vision, and, like a hunter with bated breath, wait.
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Adornment A conversation about identity through cultural materials and heirlooms.
Direction Jonah Thornton Photography Arno Goetz Styling Kirsten Holland Edits Simone Hanna Models Rachel Sznajderman Fatima Garcia Semhar Mekonnen Jiya Singh Kamsi Achigbu Sonya Ahuja
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KAMSI (ON HER RING)
“It's something that every girl in my school gets...It always made me feel grounded and like there are always people I could lean back on if things got rough...I want it to represent my dedication to helping others and making a global community.”
JIYA (ON HER KIRPAN AND KARA)
“[The Kara] has become a part of my daily routine and it's a reassuring thing for me that someone is always with me if I’m having a bad day...I can say as I’ve aged, I’ve become more proud of showcasing my culture, years ago I would've never volunteered to model Indian items.” ISSUE NO. 23
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SEMHAR (ON HER JEWELRY SET)
“It's a symbol that has been influenced by such rich Ethiopian tradition, and so by wearing it and engaging with this material I think it shows that there are people trying to live and carry on that tradition...I would have just died if I was seen wearing this in pairing with my more traditional Ethiopian clothing prior to me really accepting myself and denying that inherent self-hatred you feel when you’re not white in America.” RACHEL (ON HER NECKLACES)
“For my 19th birthday, I really wanted this Hebrew name necklace just to get a sense of who I am in relation to the Jewish community and what my religion means to me…I want people to know that I am Jewish and I’m proud of that identity that I hold.” ARMOUR MAGAZINE
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SONYA (ON HER NECKLACE)
“There’s a Hindu-Indian meaning where it has to be touching your skin at all times. So even when I'm at home wearing a sweater, my parents will tell me to tuck it in so I can feel it...When I’m abroad or in college, it just reminds me that my parents are always with me and nearby, it makes me feel safe.”
FATIMA (ON HER NECKLACE & RING)
“This [ring] has a lot of meaning for me because it was my grandmother’s and now it’s mine....I think material culture is a way to express yourself and a way to create an identity...I think everyone needs to realize that the U.S. is an immigrant country and that everyone has family histories that come from all over the world.” ISSUE NO. 23
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HORSE JUMPER OF LOVE, ET CETERA Shot by— Elizabeth Van Horn & Mikki Janower
Memories from a night at the beating heart of the Saint Louis music scene. Featuring Ganders Grease (STL), Slow Mass (CHI), Horse Jumper of Love (BOS). ARMOUR MAGAZINE
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Lessons from Grandma Words Haley Harris
Edits Hannah Dains
If a personal style is a story one tells to the world and to oneself, Grandma Pam’s is a picture book fairytale found on a Salvation Army bookshelf. She is dazzling, yet humble in her methods. Gaudy, while driven completely by the impulse to save. Gracefully, she walks the line of kitschy and classy. Her lifestyle and personal sense of style cannot be distinguished, and her taste cannot be contained; it shifts as she does. Though eclectic, it all makes sense in the construction of her. It wasn’t uncommon for Grandma Pam to come home from a long Sunday morning of estate sales and flea markets, tote bag in hand. In it were boundless treasures, which she’d pour out onto her duvet for inspection and admiration. Mock prints of Picasso paintings, delicate three-pronged forks, seashell earrings, candle holders in the shape of silver cupids. “$12,” she’d say with a self-satisfied grin on her face, “that’s how much this all cost me.” She’d spend the rest of the day rearranging her shelves, moving around wood-cut carvings, calendars with floral motifs, hand-made pottery. The best things, she showed us, are found in the least likely places.
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This keen ability to uncover gems, however, took time and experience to cultivate. Holed away in the bedroom of her Christian household, during the height of Indiana winter, she was a pregnant teen in crisis. In those long days, she found her lifeline in the work of feminist writers like Gloria Steinem and Germaine Greer. Exercising freedom was only possible, after all, in her “room of one’s own.” Despite limitations, both economic and personal, her bedroom became the grounds for her quiet revolution. It gave her the space for intellectual indoctrination, for individual expression. It was also, of course, where she began developing her distinctive taste and style. I often imagine her strutting the length of the Laguna Beach boardwalk after moving away from home, wearing linen shorts and a tube top, two toddlers running around at her feet. In the workplace, confronted by male bosses and denied raises, I imagine her style as 52
a superpower, bolstering her confidence and helping her embody her space. After a long day of secretary’s paperwork followed by a double shift of bartending, I imagine her coming home, kissing her kids goodnight, and kicking off her heeled boots before tucking herself into bed. Grandma Pam’s bedroom, now in my parent’s house, carries a nearly mythic significance, even to this day. Highly curated, walking through her doorway is like stepping into a diorama, like discovering a treasure chest inlaid with layers of gems beneath the surface. She surrounds herself with artifacts of inspiration. In due time, being around her and her things instilled in me a love for the second hand. By widening the search beyond the pristine walls of a department store, she believed in the value of something that had once belonged to someone else, both for the money saved and for the wealth gained in its stories. Seamlessly, she annexed these stories into her own narrative. In her sustained youthfulness, I’d watch as she would paint cheap pink lipstick on her lips. Line her eyes with blue liner. Dye her hair bright orange from a box. Her routine was a choreographed performance. She’d look to me, standing four feet tall at the hem of her dress, and lightly tap my nose with a powder puff, the residual flowery-scented dust filling the air around me. Grandma Pam showed me how to cater to my senses. Materials matter, hues matter, texture matters. I think of her when I see bright colors, when I see abstraction, oblong sculptures and flowers with eccentric petals. She has an affinity for misfit things, for things that grab her sight and her touch, that tug on her heartstrings. In her gaze, she’d ask ISSUE NO. 23
“How does that make you feel?” Engaging her senses was how she conveyed feeling, and these feelings were always changing. Some days she wanted to feel powerful, others to feel comforted, other days she just wanted to feel like a lady. Amidst my childhood oscillation between groups, squeezing myself into personas (girly, sporty, edgy) with none ever quite fully fitting, Grandma Pam taught me the importance of peacocking. Conformity was foreign to her; convention simply not in her wheelhouse. More often than not, she dressed for contexts completely different from the ones she was in. Other grandparents arrived to Sensational Seniors Day in pairs, walking two-by-two in suits and coordinated separates. Then there was Grandma Pam, adorned in a floor length purple dress, earrings like chandeliers and a flower tucked into her hair. She’d sit down for Thanksgiving dinner in a pink flowy nightgown, pick me up from school in a coat mottled with flashy patchwork. Projecting my own adolescent aversion to sticking out, it took me a long time to understand her. Looking back now, she pulled it off every time. In recent years, she has let her fiery hair go grey. Replacing her blue eyeshadow is a pair of thick framed glasses. Her statement earrings, her heeled clogs, her pink lipsticks have long been retired, given away, handed down. Still, it is her mode of being which I cherish as a treasure most peculiar and essential. I remain an eager and faithful audience member for any performance she might give, for any story she might tell.
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ACTIVISM AS CREATION —Grad Students for Working Wage Photos Reshad Hemaoun Words Haley Harris Edits Morgan Dunstan Direction Lina Willey
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5:15 P.M. Campus is quiet at dusk on Wednesday evening and I walk along the path next to the green of Mudd Field, the site of the Tent City occupation a mere six months ago. I cut through Holmes Lounge as a shortcut, noticing the intricate ceiling detail and the grand oil portrait of the building’s donor. Spilling out into Brookings Quad I see the cobblestones and the dual towers which create an undeniable and intentional collegiate feeling. These are the structures which inform and shape my daily experience as a student on this campus. Heading into Duncker Hall, I meet with Trent McDonald, one of the co-executive chairs for the Washington University Graduate Workers Union. After hours, the otherwise vacant building is brought to life by the flip of a light switch, illuminating a long row of desks, each representing distinct personalities, genres, and modes of study. Trent’s cubicle is orderly, and several books line his top shelf. In his third year PhD program, his desk is one of many units within this cross section of the Graduate English Literature Department. I notice the pin on his shirt reading “I Heart TA’s.” A pop of color, he’s pinned up a purple activism poster on his right wall. The desk itself is clear, and clean. “Nothing too fancy,” 54
a common phrase of his, I come to learn, is how he might describe his space. To me, it appears to be the canvas for the planning of his next creative action. As we begin chatting, Trent’s vast knowledge enriches the conversation, informed by comprehensive labor history and shaped by an adept awareness of current events in union politics. Trent grew up in the small town of Zanesville, Ohio, where his family has been rooted for generations. He explains that as the product of a long line of working class laborers, his parents were the first to graduate from college in his family line. His dad is a proud member of the Laborer’s Union, holding a job on the white collar side of construction in a typically blue collar union. With his family history as his blueprint, Trent became aware of WashU’s sustained ISSUE NO. 23
union effort through a mutual friend, and knew he wanted to get plugged in.When institutions and places of work do not yield power to workers, allowing them to voice what they know is best for themselves, workers must in turn intervene with direct actions. These actions, in Trent’s words, are often predicated on creativity. For thirty-three days last Spring, students occupied space on main campus in the form of Tent City, an act of sustained ingenuity grounded in the fight for a $15 minimum wage for all graduate workers and campus employees. Calling upon the past to bolster them along the way, members of the Union notably employed a 1960s tactic known as the Teach-In. Lecturers from the Anthropology and English departments alike made their way to the site to teach histories of activism at WashU and across the nation. 55
Tent City also became a hub for undergraduate students who felt their views and ideologies aligned with the mission of the action. One of these undergraduate members, Sienna Ruiz, a senior from Oakland, California, first encountered the Graduate Union last Spring in the context of her English Literature class entitled, “Imagining Racial Coalitions.” It was in this class that she met Trent, along with other graduate students involved in organizing efforts on campus. While the WashU undergraduate experience is often characterized as a bubble, this personal connection with her graduate classmates ignited her passions, opening her mind to the transformative space of Tent City and the opportunities for alignment between graduate and undergraduate students. As her class covered a unit on literary utopias, Sienna couldn’t help but feel that Tent City, also known as Martinville, was in itself a kind of multi-racial, interdisciplinary utopia. Students of all ages studying everything from Physics to Japanese Literature, connected under a unifying mission. A union, Sienna claims, provides the language and the structure to work across boundaries. In the daily experience of being a student at WashU, one can notice the artificial borderlines which define campus life, whether that be the sectioning off of students into majors and departments, the separation between undergraduate and graduate students, or even the divisions between graduate workers and contract workers on campus. Parcelled into subgroups, we are often kept divided rather than merging in solidarity. Sienna further explains that walking through campus, you might notice the people “who clean classrooms, or prepare food, or cut the grass,” and wonder if they are earning a sustainable wage, but feel there are not ways to readily access more information or assist in securing fair pay for students and workers alike. The function of a union, then, is to provide the framework ARMOUR MAGAZINE
for undergraduate action to be linked with graduate action, while at the same time joining efforts with contract workers. Expanding more on this alliance, Trent highlights the importance of occupying space in union bargains and contract negotiations, even for those who hold different jobs and work in different fields. He believes that on a fundamental level “we’re all in the same boat, even if it’s not an identical boat.” Essentially, while workers, on campus and off, come from all walks of life, their outcomes are all strengthened when they join together to call for what they deserve. I reflect on my own identity as a student employed through Federal Work Study, and realize the ways in which I have become complacent in my weekly routine. Meditating on the role of creativity and public art in direct action, Sienna Ruiz, while spending time with graduate students involved in Tent City, was also researching, planning, and designing a mural for the Danforth University Center last Spring. Originally created to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Rodriguez Scholars program, the initial idea expanded, incorporating images of the Mississippi River, indigenous communities, Latinx labor organizers, and members of the Washington University Graduate Workers Union. The legacies of history echo alongside contemporary displays of activism. Painted into an alcove on a public wall, the piece carries a certain timelessness, each viewer “able to touch it because you are a part of it right now.” In her own political praxis, Sienna believes art is an essential part of social change. Public art allows viewers to 56
engage with and imagine realities that wouldn’t otherwise be visible, and to take them seriously, even when they seem idealistic. It visually reminds us of what we can always be working towards. Tying her creative endeavors back to union efforts, she claims, “If a union is one way to create a longer memory of student activism, a mural is also.” In conversation with both Trent and Sienna, discussing the diversity of experiences, stories, and lives which intertwine under the umbrella of collective action, the essential role of community in activism becomes clear. It’s about advocating for people who you’ve built something with. It’s about showing up for the people who have shown up for you. It’s about occupying space with one’s creations, whether it be Tent Cities or public murals. It’s about looking to the past, dissecting the work of A. Philip Randolph and Mother Jones, Cesar Chaves and Dolores Huerta, while simultaneously inventing a future. Within the structure of the Washington University Graduate Workers Union, there is ample, and ongoing, room for alliance. Because unions are established under the basic notion of workers coming together, its efforts are intersectional, transcending the differing facets of field, age, and nationality. At the end of our chat, Trent reminds me that there is still much to be done, and reflects on an old labor saying: “An injury to one is an injury to all.” I make my way back across the historic grounds of Brookings Quad, and for the first time in a while, I feel the potential of what can exist, not only within this space, but far beyond these prevailing structures. I feel newly empowered in imagining possible futures, knowing now that ingenuity, artistry, and alliance are crucial means in getting there.
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FLASH FICTION —Scenes from a Ship
Words Morgan Dunstan Art Natalie Thomas Edits Sophie Tegenu
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Captain detests treason. She likes to teach us important things—planks made from wood are never as strong as planks made from mercury. Pictures are personified black holes wasting space into infinities. Our Captain has no time for all of that! Our ship sits atop a cracked bed of mud and concrete, and we’re hoping she’ll sink this month. Right next door, there’s a burnished gold dance hall and a hurried bus stop. When our ship finally sinks (strained from all the sexual tension in her belly) Captain will let us paint the river foamy pink and white. Captain serves translucent silver wine and stolen sandpaper. She’s always interrogating us with questions like; Do you remember the first time you jumped out of a burning balloon? How about the first time you saw the inside of your tongue? Our Captain bans photography (we should not encourage idolatry, the past lives only as long as the present). Anyone who disobeys her is forced to walk the plank. Our plank is long and silver and feeds on the sound of cracked knuckles. Every day it gets a little bit longer, shimmering above a steady pile of waste and chipped teeth. I walked the plank last week. (Captain caught me shamefully photographing the river).There is something exhilarating in encouraging Captain’s wrath. She watched as I teetered with my eyes closed, inching closer and closer to the radiant edge. Thankfully, she reeled me in right before I slipped away. She took my camera, with the incriminating photograph, and placed it on the back of a toilet seat. We have flushed thousands of photographs down the toilets— smoky stills of young couples groping, or sharp portraits of dying fingernails. Sometimes, a picture will cause such an enormous fuss that it provokes an earthquake.
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Our photo-earthquakes always carry a staccato rhythm. Scattered thumping slips underneath our bones and licks our pupils clean. Shards of ice fall from the clouds like glassy blue frozen bombs. We love to dance to the sharp pricks of the decimating sky, shaking and rolling with the tenacity of a newborn aardvark. We only feel like ourselves when we have Captain sitting in our laps. Sometimes we find her clenched between our back teeth, or folded into our serpentine suitcases. I like to condense my image of Captain into a turquoise pill and place it between my lips. Captain lets us brush her hair—coppery and white and longer than the train of a wedding veil. Some of us have died over the chance to hold her marbled comb. She sits impatiently while we brush, abruptly jerking the wheel here and there.The sound of her hair is like the rattling of a pennies inside a tin can, or the brisk shivering of a bird’s wings. The first time I entered the ship, hot air stuck to the inside of my clavicle and nothing in the whole world has felt as good. Captain’s voice imprinted itself onto my lungs, wrapped around my chest, and choked me into immobility. I haven’t been able to leave since. Captain detests the letter “I”. We feed her stolen meat and clean the bottom of her silken boots. Sometimes I wonder if I would ever look pretty in a photograph.We never wonder for long. Our ship never moves. She is built of sand and multicolored grain, and she’s all we could ever hope for. The only photograph we have is of our Captain.
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LINDSAY VIRGILIO —On Paint, Prose & Self-Publishing Photography Patty Alvarez Words Alaina Baumohl Direction Virginia Pittman Edits Hannah Dains Stylists Ellie Epperson Izzy Jefferis
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I had never met Lindsay Virgilio before our interview. Everything everyone told me about her beforehand painted this image of someone with untouchable coolness, so I was really nervous to talk with her. But, when we met up at Whispers, she greeted me with a warm smile and a flash of purple glitter eyeliner. Lindsay is undoubtedly one of the coolest people I’ve had the privilege of talking to, but not in the unapproachable way that I was initially afraid of. On the contrary, Lindsay was extremely genuine and willing to be completely and totally vulnerable during our conversation. Lindsay shared with me one of her main philosophies: She doesn’t believe the purpose of one’s life is to live for themselves. “When you live about you… it distracts from a larger picture that there are 7 billion people in this world and if we all really cared about each other we could do a lot better by each other. By doing better by each other, we would do better by ourselves.” 60
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This fundamental philosophy is the essential driving force behind many of the passions Lindsay shared with me. Whether it be writing, teaching, playing soccer, or DJ-ing, for Lindsay, it all comes down to wanting to make those around her happy and comfortable. For most of her childhood, Lindsay didn’t see herself as anything but a soccer player. Then, two torn ACLs prohibited her dreams of being recruited to play at the university level. Not being able to play, Lindsay told me, “used to make me really upset [because] playing soccer made me strong. Not just a strong woman, but a strong person. It made me believe that I can give more, not just for me, but for everyone around me.” To fill some of the space that soccer used to take up in her identity, Lindsay began to explore art and writing. When she first came to WashU, Lindsay was a student at Sam Fox School of Design, but quickly realized she “didn’t like to do art for anyone else except [herself]” and decided she would rather pursue writing. Her dream after graduating is to eventually become an English professor so that she can help more people learn how to write, and how to love to write. Lindsay has a natural disposition for storytelling because of how her dyslexia causes words to slip, but narratives to stick. Lindsay’s first self-published book is based on a dream she had in eighth grade, and she worked on it all throughout high school before publishing it online her sophomore year of college. It began as an epic poem, but eventually turned into a dystopian fantasy novel called East of The County. By the end of this year, Lindsay hopes to self-publish her second book, titled The Future, As It Fades. That book is “based on another dream I had where I was at the edge of a giant cliff, and below the cliff there were these sands that stretched forever and
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these winds that rushed up over them. It was sundown and there was someone going off the cliff and traveling across the sands, but there’s nothing there…” For Lindsay, there has been no other dream than the dream of telling stories and sharing them with the world. When it comes to fashion, Lindsay is known on campus for her unique and expressive sense of style. Whether it be a rainbow sequined top or a hand-painted denim jacket, Lindsay wears anything that makes her feel the most like her. Lindsay also made a lot of her own clothes growing up, and before she could sew, her mother sewed for her. “I was always very particular about my clothes. I wanted to be a Jedi for Halloween once, and my older brother picked out this brown cloth, because that was like what an actual Jedi would wear, but as my mom took me down the [fabric] aisle, she took out this rainbow, stretchy fabric, and I said that’s the one I want. I guess the rainbow has always been in my soul.” Lindsay’s always had a complicated relationship with clothes because of what she now believes to have been gender dysmorphia. For a very long time, she told me, “I would look in the mirror and see a boy.” When I asked her whether or not she felt fashion has been more expressive or restrictive, she said “I think if you had asked me that question three years ago, I probably would have said restrictive because no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t really look like a guy, because I had hips. [But] now I think fashion is definitely expressive [for me]. I now will specifically put something on just because I know someone else won’t be wearing it.”
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Lindsay’s distinctive style is accentuated by her red, pixie-cut hair. If there’s one thing she could tell people about herself, it would be that she never cut her hair short as a statement; short hair is just what felt right. “I remember being really sad the fall of my sophomore year of high school, and I took kitchen scissors and I finally just cut my hair to the scalp. For me that felt really good. It was the worst haircut I’ve ever had. But it felt really good. Throughout high school, I mostly cut my own hair. Cutting [it] was extremely liberating. There was something about touching the buzzcut and feeling the bristles at the end… it just had this feeling of weightlessness.” Running her hands through the top of her hair, Lindsay laughed as she shared that she had actually cut it herself again just last night. As our conversation continued, I eventually noticed how the sky around us had changed from light blue to pink and navy as the sunset began to fade. When I checked the voice memo on my phone to see how much time had passed, I was surprised to see that we had talked for over an hour. In the course of days following our interview, I coincidentally ran into Lindsay multiple times, and she was just as welcoming and friendly as she was the day that we talked.
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I think we can all learn something from Lindsay’s take on life: Lindsay is true to herself by being a writer, by cutting her hair the way she wants, and by wearing whatever clothing makes her happy. Simply doing the things that make us happy doesn’t seem like all that complicated of a concept, but in reality, I think too many of us are caught up in trying to fulfill imaginary standards or expectations of what we should or shouldn’t be doing. Trying to meet these expectations drives our energy inwards. Instead, I think if we all took Lindsay’s advice and chose to focus our energy outwards, to do better by each other, we would naturally do better by ourselves.
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IN CONVERSATION —Dr. Peter S. Wyse Jackson
Photos Patty Alvarez
EXPEDITION TO THE ANALAVELONA FOREST PHOTO BY CHRIS BIKRINSHAW
Words Adler Bowman Edits Mikki Janower Direction Celia Gerber
Since its opening in 1859, the Missouri Botanical Garden has been an important cultural asset to the city of St. Louis. The garden receives wider acclaim, however, for its achievements as a sanctuary and research center for endangered plant species. ARMOUR MAGAZINE
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Garden President Dr. Peter S. Wyse Jackson and Senior Vice President Dr. James S. Miller discuss how the Missouri Botanical Garden has become a key environmental center for regional and global habitat conservation.
PW: “We try to promote programs in environmental education, science, horticulture, and sustainability so visitors know not only what we do here, but how important our work is. The garden’s education work aims to carry out programs related to our mission for people of all ages, from kids in preschool up to people who are retired. We aim to make sure every child going through the public school system in the St. Louis region will have an opportunity to come to the garden and participate in our school programs. We also have teenage volunteers and adult education programs.”
EXPEDITION TO THE ANALAVELONA FOREST PHOTO BY NAMIBINIA
AB: What is your mission statement and significance to the St. Louis area? PW: “We have over a million visitors each year who come for the beauty of the gardens, but they also get connected with our mission, which is to spread knowledge about the importance of plants, at home and abroad. There are about 400,000 different plant species known, we have preserved samples of many of them in our herbarium and dried plant collection. [The Botanical Garden] has one of the greatest reference libraries of plant life anywhere in the world, and that is valuable not only for the scientific work we do to discover and understand plants but also for promoting the need to conserve them. It’s of huge credit to St. Louis that it has enabled the garden to become an institution of world significance in biodiversity conservation.”
AB: How do community outreach and education factor into your work?
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CREATING BURNT FIREBREAKS AROUND THE ANALALVELONA FOREST. PHOTO BY MAEL JAONASY.
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PW: “If [we find] a species which is threatened in the wild...our next step is to ensure that they are not only conserved in their natural habitats but also cultivated in seed banks. The garden has a seed bank that contains 600 species from the state of Missouri, which can be used to restore those species should they ever disappear into extinction. We cultivate species and study their biological requirements with the aim of restoring them in the wild, rebuilding a functional, selfsustaining population. When we bring a species into cultivation, we track it, record it, and develop methods to propagate it. It’s a long and complex road to recover a threatened species, but that is the process that we try to implement.” AB: How have you expanded the Missouri Botanical Garden’s presence in other parts of the world? PW: “In the 1960s at a meeting of the association for the study of tropical African botany. The community decided that more should be done to build research capacity in Africa, which had largely been the purview of the former colonial powers. As a result, we were formally accepted by the International Association for Plant Taxonomy as the North American center for the study of African botany. We’ve developed a footprint in Central Africa, East Africa, South Africa, and Madagascar. We began sending people to Madagascar in the early 1970s; now, we have 150 full-time employees there, primarily of Malagasy descent. Madagascar has less than 7 percent of its original forest cover, but we’re dedicated to serving the plants that are threatened and need our attention to ensure their survival. In addition to our work in Madagascar, when the American National Parks system proposed lots of new areas for protection in 2005, we agreed to manage 13 of the sites that were proARMOUR MAGAZINE
posed. We run intensive, rich programs at those locations that cover everything from basic botany to how people use these natural resources.” AB: How is your work affected by the acceleration of climate change? PW “We’re faced with a situation whereby most areas of natural vegetation are now surrounded by heavily developed areas. In the past, as climate changed over centuries of millenia, plants and animals could migrate. But it’s too quick nowadays, leaving nowhere for them to go. We have to work to mitigate plant diversity, which, if the predictions are correct, will be lost in the future. Currently, a quarter of the 400,000 plant species worldwide are in danger of extinction. And if you add a layer of rapid climate change, even plants which are presumed to be well looked after in national parks, nature reserves and other protected areas are at risk. The plants might be able to survive changes in temperatures and precipitation, but their pollinators, seed distributors and ecosystems may change, which will be detrimental for them. So our research emphasizes the impact of anthropogenic changes on plant diversity.”
PLANT SEEDLINGS OF NATIVE TREES. PHOTO—RAJAONARIVELO
AB: How do you restore and recultivate threatened plant species?
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LADIES LIVING NEXT TO THE NEW ANKARABOLAVA-AGNAKATRIKA PROTECTED AREA PREPARING LAND FOR A VEGETABLE GARDEN. PHOTO—NAMBININA
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