FORM Vol. XXIII

FORM A Space for Ideas, Culture, and Aesthetics

Editors’ Letter The making of FORM has always been about merging refined aesthetics with storytelling. In the past two issues we explored the concepts of belonging and identity, injecting personal stories in every story we have told. Our past work allowed us to approach Vol. XXIII with the knowledge that an important story comes from our roots.

Having “Mother” as the central theme of this semester’s magazine meant we got to keep our past work close to our hearts in order to celebrate the people that have allowed us to grow, learn, and become. The word “Mother” has many definitions for us. Our work represents the depth of meaning of this word by telling stories connected to the concepts of motherland, mother nature, and motherhood itself.

To embrace further the idea of truly connecting our work with who we are, we allowed this semester’s theme to impact every aspect of our work, even its design. Single pages throughout FORM XXIII become an individual platform for our creators to thank those who have been motherly figures in their lives, adding both a name to the bleed of each page, and a piece of their generational history, their skin tones. We allowed ourselves to make every page about us, our path to adulthood, and who most has guided us on our path.

In Art and Design, Venus di D.C. reveals the women at the foundation of a national treasure, the National Gallery of Art. Our conversation sheds light on roles of the artists who

frame the art, the curator and the volunteer. From there, Reminiscence takes us on a pilgrimage through the powerful relationship between objects and memory to make sense of the gravity of personal everyday objects. Finally, in Beau we are afforded a glimpse into the life of Andy Beauchamp, an artist and educator whose personhood and work is connected to the community that raised him in Haiti.

In our Style section, Turn the Decade inverts the ideals of the 1950s before presenting an alternative vision of the women of the era as diverse members of the workforce in tailored attire. Our discussion with the founders of STORY mfg. tells of an alternative vision turned reality - one where the forces of fashion and the environment are in sync, not at odds. Our final piece, Common Thread, highlights the capacity of customization in enabling an individual to express themselves and their heritage through fashion’s fabrics.

Through the Travel and Culture section, our Miami Travel Guide, or Y.U.C.A, explores the Cuban heart of the rhythmically dynamic and rooted city of Miami. In Ms. Cooke, we engage with NaShonda Cooke who highlights the passion, struggle, and heart behind one of the world’s most important roles, educator. Lastly, Tin Box Recipes invites you to reflect upon the ingredients of classic family recipes and the tethers they represent with each meal.

To the reader, enjoy every page, this is a celebration.

Best, Tommaso Babucci & Claire Gibbs

EDITORS IN CHIEF CREATIVE DIRECTORS DIRECTORS OF LAYOUT EDITORIAL DIRECTOR DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY DIRECTORS OF ART & DESIGN DIRECTOR OF STYLE DIRECTORS OF TRAVEL & CULTURE DIRECTORS OF COMMUNICATIONS LOGISTICS & FINANCE DIRECTOR ART & DESIGN CONTRIBUTORS Chaya Brennan Agarwal Nicholas Chrapliwy Olalla Duato Anna Greenleaf Mary Howard Abby Shlesinger Austin Smith Alyssa Wilson STYLE CONTRIBUTORS Surya Cannon Lauren May Ava Navarro Elena Rivera Alyssa Shin Yichin Tsai Katherine Xiao Dani Yan LAYOUT CONTRIBUTORS Annika Agrawal Rebekah Alvarenga Angela Chung Clare Downey Michelle Huang Sana Hairadin Annie Kornack Jachike Ndubuisi Alberto García-Pérez Layne Vanatta

Tommaso Babucci Claire Gibbs Stephanie Cutler Irene Zhou Kelly McLaughlin Savannah Norman Blythe Davis Rae Hsu Clara Lyra Rafaela Rivero Alex Ragh Advaitha Anne Mindy Wu Sonia Fillipow Sawyer Uzzell Tori Williams TRAVEL & CULTURE CONTRIBUTORS Rehaan Advani Mason Berger Gillian Card Arabella Chen Maria Gieg Rachel Huang Ayesham Khan Spencer LaFata Sophia Li Juliette Mangini EDITORAL CONTRIBUTORS Skyler Graham Samantha Littenberg Rebecca Schneid COMMUNICATIONS Falan Alpert Hannah Bogomilsky Maggie McManus Nicole Pashalis Claire Ryland Ananya Sadarangani Kennedy Sun Chloe Ward FINANCE Brandon Wang

Table of Contents ART & DESIGN Venus di D.C. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Reminiscence. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Beau. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38 STYLE Common Thread . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 STORY mfg. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Turn the Decade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68 Materfamilias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80 TRAVEL & CULTURE Ms. Cooke . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 Tin Box Recipes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92 Miami Travel Guide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98 Nasrin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124

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Magnolias well spiders ain’t for playing with, she told me

as she bandaged the bite. teary-eyed but stony-faced i nodded she looked hard into my eyes before squeezing my shoulders i climbed into a wicker chair while she swirled around the kitchen and in that moment she was dancing as beautifully as any ballerinahigh reaching for a glass and bending for a pitcher

low captivating bends

and

dips, every movement charged with purpose i watched her with wide eyesshe turned to me and smiled and then she gave me

a glass

of fresh lemonade, a kiss

on the cheek and sent me back outside i made my way through the yard, glass in hand to sit on the rusted lattice swing beneath the old magnolia tree WRITING Alexus Roberts from the Bridge

Wei Wang 9

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Ve n u s 10

VENUS DI D.C.

di D.C. 11

Marcia Cota Lyra and Lynn Matheny hold two important roles that shape the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Their impact has a ripple effect throughout the building: from the front desk to the basement archives. They have dedicated their time for you, and me, to splendor in art and revel in the world of Degas, Calder, and Picasso. Together, they nurture every canvas and sculpture, bringing them to life.

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Lesley

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VENUS DI D.C.

“MOST PEOPLE DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT ALL THE THINGS THAT GO INTO AN EXHIBITION. YOU JUST SHOW UP AND ENJOY” “THAT’S THE POINT. THE OBJECTIVE IS FOR YOU NOT TO THINK ABOUT IT.”

Deb

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Clara: How did you end up in your current role as an art information volunteer?

Marcia: I decided to take a break from work for a year because I was burnt out and wanted to pursue passions that I never had time to before. I was always working, traveling, and never in one place for long enough to commit to an opportunity outside of work. Then, when I was on my year-long sabbatical, I had this opportunity with the National Gallery of Art to become a volunteer. After being selected, I was part of an intensive four-month training conducted by NGA. We learned a lot about the Gallery, the artists, the collections, and how to interact with visitors.

I’ve been working there officially since July. It’s been a pleasure to be surrounded by art and give visitors my insights on what to see and how to fully experience the museum.

C: Is there a specific aspect of your life that influenced you to work in the arts?

M: I think my mom had a lot to do with it. When I was a little kid, she would bring me to museums. She taught me how to appreciate beautiful things, especially art. Then, in my short career as a ballet dancer, I also got the opportunity to travel considerably and visit top art museums in the world. Through ballet, I was exposed to a lot of the art world: music, dance, painting, and sculpture. And dance is a form of art, right? Dance is a small part of a whole universe of art, where each artform blends into the other. I am captivated by the concept of beauty and art is beauty.

C: Out of the many museums in D.C., why did you choose to volunteer at the National Gallery?

M: The National Gallery has one of the top collections of European and American art in the country. If I was going to commit to my passion and go into the art world, I wanted to do it at a top institution like NGA. C: What specifically is your role at the museum?

M: I am what they call an “art information volunteer.”

Each day, I’m assigned to work either at one of the four information desks in the West Building, which houses artworks from 1300-1900, or the sole desk in the East Building, with artworks from 1900 and beyond. When visitors come to the National Gallery for the first time, they have no idea how to go about seeing the collections, so they come to the information desk and ask for advice. For many visitors, it is their first time in a museum ever. We have a lot of influence on how visitors will spend their time at the museum. We also have a lot of materials that we can share with visitors, such as beautiful maps and brochures about the highlights in each building. We also have audio tours.

I think it’s a fantastic museum. There are lots of resources.

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C: How does the information you provide to the visitors further the development of an artwork?

M: Every single piece of art at the National Gallery has a history behind it. You can interpret it however you want, but the history is essential to truly understand it. If the visitor asks me, “Why did the artist make this piece; it’s just a white towel with eight non-symmetrical shapes?” I tell them it’s because the artist wanted you to see that trivial things are not all symmetrical and significant, and despite this, they can still be beautiful. When I first saw this specific piece, I was with my mentor, and she told me the same thing. From then on, I started to enjoy that piece of art, even though it didn’t speak to me at first. The pieces that I find the most beautiful are usually the ones whose stories I have had the opportunity to learn. I think it’s amazing that I have the ability to share these stories with other people.

“THE PIECES THAT I FIND THE MOST BEAUTIFUL ARE USUALLY THE ONES WHOSE STORIES I HAVE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN.” C: How does your role relate to the role of the artist?

M: The artist is the one that creates. My role is to appreciate art and help others appreciate it. Here at the Gallery, we want the meaning of a piece to be explored by visitors, and we welcome different interpretations, my role is just to enter this dialogue and foster artistic exploration. Once, a visitor asked me why we have no rope or glass panels separating the pieces of art from the public. He even questioned whether they were originals. The museum philosophy is to eliminate these barriers so that the art can be experienced more deeply. We chose to clear the pollution in the way for visitors to be able to get close and see the brush strokes and finite details. Even though you can’t touch it, you are almost able to feel the art with nothing standing in your way.

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C: Can you talk about an instance in which you have learned from visitors?

M: I learn from them every day. Some visitors come and want to see a specific piece or artist that I hadn’t heard of before.

I get to ask the visitor, “Why do you want to see this piece?

What do you like about this artist?” I get to learn amazing stories and gain an appreciation for a new artist. This happens a lot to me when people come and ask about an American artist. Growing up outside the U.S., I am more acquainted with the European collection rather than American collection, which I am still familiarizing myself. One time a whole family came in—the grand-father, the father, and the teenager— to see a painting by the father of the grandfather who was present. The subject of the painting was the artist’s wife, the teenager’s great-grandmother. Three generations came to the museum to witness the work of art of the fourth generation.

Every day, I either learn something from a visitor or just have an interesting conversation about art with my colleagues.

C: How has your experience in the art world impacted you?

M: I’m very privileged. Sometimes I go to the museum before it is open to the public. Walking through those galleries by myself and looking at amazing, beautiful things doesn’t just brighten my day, it brightens my life. I’ve always appreciated art, but now I have an even deeper love for it. It’s like an addiction: the more you know, the more you want to know. Every time a new exhibit opens at the Gallery, I get to hear about it from a scholar or a professor, who gives a lecture about the artist and the artwork. It’s amazing.

C: Do you feel that visitors value your work as a volunteer?

I am not sure visitors realize how much work goes into becoming a volunteer and the role we play in trying to offer them the best experience possible. But that doesn’t matter.

What matters to us is to see happy faces, which we do. Often after a visitor finishes their round at NGA, they come back to the info desk to thank us for the great experience they had.

Kristen

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“WE CHOSE TO CLEAR THE POLLUTION IN THE WAY OF THE ART FOR VISITORS TO BE ABLE TO GET CLOSE” C: What are your thoughts about the underrepresentation of women in the arts?

M: There are a lot of women in the background: the curators, the people working at the art information center. I haven’t seen the statistics, but I believe that there are probably more women than men working behind the scenes in the art world. It generally seems that women give more importance to the study of art than men. Although it has historically been a male-dominated industry, I think it’s changing now. For example, in the East Building, where we house the modern and contemporary art collection, you see many more women artists. Some female artists have played an important role in opening the door for others, such as the American impressionist painter Mary Cassat. She lived in France for a while and forged a friendship with Edgar Degas, famous for his paintings of ballerinas. She tried to further develop her relationship with him, but he refused and would not recognize her as a painter because of her gender.

I actually like her pieces more than Degas’. I hope as time progresses, we’re going to see more women painters, and an equal mix of women and men behind the scenes as well.

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Sarah

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VENUS DI D.C.

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Elisabetta

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Natalie

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VENUS DI D.C.

Clara: How did you end up in your current role as a curator?

relevance of the historic event and how that relates to his photographs. Exhibits can also include edited archival footage such as the recent exhibition of lunar photographs that displayed footage from the JFK archives and NASA.

Lynn: I graduated from Duke with a degree in Art History and what was then called Comparative Areas Studies. I applied for graduate school, and I ended up at UCLA, where I earned my masters and doctorate in Art History, specifically in the fields of modern art and critical theory. After that, I had to decide whether to go the academic route or the museum route, and I ended up opting for curatorial work in museums. I first had a curatorial fellowship at the National Gallery in the Department of Photographs.

A year or so after that, my first daughter, Maia, was born, and then I went back and started working in the Department of Exhibition Programs, which is where I still am today.

Increasingly there is interest in web features and other digital components and finding ways technology can complement the art without overwhelming it. Our recent Gordon Parks show effectively used a digital monitor to show articles from Life Magazine and other publications to provide context for the objects on view. Museum visitors could see the original photograph on display, but the digital component permitted them to see the picture as it originally appeared in mass media, providing a sense for the image’s larger narrative and the ways it initially circulated. Other discussions about technology include rethinking traditional audio tours and considering Spotify playlists or geolocation, but we are always balancing the art and content with the platform.

C: What drew you to work at a museum?

L: I made a choice to move towards museums, in part because my academic work was becoming fairly theoretical.

I still think that it’s critical to know theory, and I’m glad I studied it, but I felt like I was drifting from what brought me into the field, which was the art itself. In a museum, not only are the material objects close at hand, but you have to resolve concrete issues, such as, “What loans can you get? What are your budget constraints? What is the architecture of the space?” For many people, such considerations are the reason not to go into museum work. But I like that those practical limitations force you to think in a flexible way. I have to dig into why we’re selecting particular objects and what it is that we want people to see, to react to, to respond to.

“I TRY NOT TO HAVE LOTS OF SET RULES THAT ARE ONLY GOING TO BE BROKEN.” C: What is your role in the growth of the art piece itself?

L: Of course, this question mostly comes into play for contemporary artists, whose work might not be fully completed or is being completed specifically for the Gallery. Some contemporary artists are more interested in museum presentation than others, who prefer to be less involved with the nuts and bolts of the particular piece once it leaves his or her studio. Artists’ estates also may be involved with the presentation to varying degrees. But curators play an essential role in determining how to present the art. A lot of that is worked out well in advance: “Are we showing the work chronologically? Or is this a thematic display?” When it comes to the text around the art, we ask, “What do we want to say, and how do we say it in the fewest possible words?” We aim not to overwhelm the art, so you won’t find descriptive language of what you, the viewers, can see with your own eyes. Rather, I’m looking to bring contextual information that is not evident, whether it’s something biographical or historical. It could be something about the technique, explaining the art historical context, or describing the object’s use or reception. I try not to give a singular interpretation, but rather provide information to make the work more accessible to our visitors. I try not to have lots of set rules that are only going to be broken.

C: Why the National Gallery?

L: I was interested in D.C, but one also needs to be very realistic. When you go into the field of art history, the jobs are very few and very far between. So, I was happy about a good job!

C: What specifically is your role at the museum?

L: I am formally the Deputy Head and Associate Curator of Exhibition Programs. I focus on modern and contemporary exhibitions. Sometimes those are collections-based shows, but more often they’re loan exhibitions. When we have exhibitions, we have all kinds of contextualization of the objects that are displayed. For example, every show includes wall text, which allows us to provide a framework for the art and set the stage for our visitors. The focus and approach vary, depending on whether it is a monographic exhibition, thematic, or focusing on the art of a specific region.

C: How does your role relate to the role of the artist?

Our department also houses a film program. For instance, we recently had an exhibition of photographer Dawoud Bey’s work, which was accompanied by an interview we produced that combined an original contemporary interview with historical footage, which delved into the 16th Street Baptist church bombing in Birmingham. This approach allowed visitors to hear in Bey’s own words the continued

L: Sometimes, with living artists, the work of the artist and the museum can be seen as collaborative. Nonetheless, they are distinct efforts. As a curator, we have an institutional point of view, and I wouldn’t ask the artist to adopt that. They are following their vision. Sometimes practical measures come into play, where an artist wants to do some-

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ence, a local D.C. audience, school children, tourists, and so on. But as broad as our public is, we would like to expand it and recognize there are areas where we fall far short. Museums have a reputation for elitism, and I think across museums very broadly, there’s a desire for greater inclusivity and diversity. We are currently talking about how to increase the inclusivity of our art, our audience, and our programming. These are all important aspects that are very much in discussion.

thing, but it presents accessibility issues. We had an artist who wanted to do a performative work limited to 30 people, but we are a public institution and can’t restrict our audience in that way. We might also have conservation concerns when it comes to bringing certain materials into the space. If an artist’s work has candles, for instance, there could be live flames that might pose safety issues. When such concerns arise, it is our job to say, “We can’t do X, Y, or Z, but let’s think of what is possible.” In the best case, it’s a collaborative process between the artist and the institution where our role is to facilitate the realization of their vision.

C: How does your time at the museum inform other aspects of your life or vice versa?

L: I’d like to think that the art that I deal with prompts me to think about subjects outside of art in new ways. The same way in which you might see a movie or read a book, and it makes you think about contemporary politics, or relationships, or whatever it is. Conversely, I bring my experiences outside of the museum, outside of the “art world,” into what I do professionally. When I interpret works of art, I see these spheres as inextricably linked, mutually informing one another.

C: When planning an exhibit, how much do the visitors’ opinions influence your decisions?

“OUR ROLE IS TO FACILITATE THE REALIZATION OF THEIR VISION.” L: Some of my best feedback comes when I give lectures and am able to have direct dialogues with the public. At the National Gallery, we are also launching a visitor survey as a way to learn what we are doing well and where there is room for growth. We have a diverse public: a large international audi-

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VENUS DI D.C.

derstand why this is the case and recognize that the ways sexism manifests itself are not static across time and geography. What I mean by that is, if we’re looking at a collection of Renaissance art, we can’t expect that we’re going to have equal representation of women artists, because there simply weren’t as many at the time. But let’s understand why that is true historically. What were the conditions of that period that meant there were not nearly as many women artists practicing as men? Was it that they weren’t allowed to study art? Was it that they didn’t have the economic freedom to paint? Was it unacceptable for them to pursue activities outside of the domestic sphere? These conditions look different for those of us who studied modern, and especially contemporary art, when it is easier for a woman to go to art school, to study art, and to practice as an artist. Why do museum inequities for women persist under these conditions? All of that is to say that there’s no one easy answer. We should be mindful of historical reasons that have changed across time and geography and target our responses to that accordingly.

C: Do you feel unrecognized in the archival process?

L: No, I don’t need my name on the wall. Some institutions, such as the Tate, I believe, do list curators and those who wrote a text. There is a case for doing that, as there is subjectivity in how those texts are written. So, the decision to do that is not necessarily about giving credit where credit is due so much as an acknowledgment that the institutional voice is actually a person’s voice. However, what we do at the National Gallery is very collaborative, so attributing texts to individual curators is not necessarily something that I would advocate.

C: What are your thoughts about the underrepresentation of women in the arts?

L: There’s a lot to say! The field of art and art history is replete with instances where women have been overlooked. Women artists are represented less than men in museums, and we need to fight for greater representation, not only with respect to artists, but also directors, curators, board of directors, etc.

But we also need to look at the historical reasons and un-

PHOTOGRAPHY & WRITING Clara Lyra

Julie

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R EM I N I SC ENC E

R eminis cence

PHOTOGRAPHY Stephanie Cutler WRITING Rafaela Rivero & Becca Schneid ASSISTANT PHOTOGRAPHY Rebekah Alvarenga & Sophia Pekkanen

Linda

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The gentle caress of her calloused hands On your arched neck and floral bodice below Your cool, rich,

deep blues reflect her warmth, her lightness, her gravity f l o a t i n g on black waters’ glow.

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Cynthia Lin

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R EM I N I SC ENC E

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Toni

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R EM I N I SC ENC E

They say that a r o o m without a b o o k is like a m i n d without a s o u l So now I see why she loved reading you so

As her mind was the most novel one could know,

A mind that taught me to break and mend

and grow.

The touch of your spine holds dozens of nights read,

Where you took her

worlds away,

To lands afar,

to words unsaid.

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You are a time capsule Each note you hold tells a moment of her youth The melody, a symphony of her story And with each spin you take Each song you make You tell me of how she lived and learned How she danced and twirled In a time before she was mine.

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R EM I N I SC ENC E

Almu

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The strength you gave me when I needed it most Cannot compare to that of any other In her hands you heard the prayers like you heard mine The vulnerable hymn of her voice echoing the devotion of a mother Oh, how timeless and infinite the feeling of you For the comfort you bring makes it feel like she is here too.

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R EM I N I SC ENC E

Your flowers grow in my home Tended to by the same hands that tended to me Your sweet scent coats every space, every crevice Where her silent grace used to be Yet, as your colorless leaves fall down to rest, seeds find a home in her arms’ tender nest.

Xiaorong

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In the many adventures I had, you were there all along Shaping me into the woman I became Learning to fly seemed possible with you by my side The freeing feeling of feeling free Is what you brought upon me And all the stories you keep inside Is where her love resides.

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Tammy

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R EM I N I SC ENC E

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Beau

His heart is like a door: it does not open to everyone. He is the most honest person you will ever encounter; though at first he may seem intimidating, that is just because he knows who he is better than anyone ever will. His character is pure, and he does not try to hide it. His roots are alive, burning inside of him, and it’s like the fire can’t be put out until he paints it. Truly, he sees art everywhere he goes: in the people, in the spaces, in the music. Creativity runs in his veins like a steadfast river.

Forever speaking in metaphors, he has his own language, one where art and life are one and the same. The brush is an extension of his fingers, and there is no sketching, no planning involved; each piece is like raw chemistry between each color, within each stroke. The real art is not what he produces, but his own self, because every piece Andy paints is a self portrait, an infinite part of him.

I met him in the classroom. Before him, I thought I could never be an artist, but Andy has this gift of making people do what they thought they couldn’t. He inspires his students to believe that art is possible and powerful if only one is able to illustrate what they really see and feel. Andy changed my life, as he did for many others. If it weren’t for him, my high school years would have been a black-and-white dull, but thankfully he filled them with color. Somehow, he is able to make every single one of his students realize how special they are.

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BEAU

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Born in the Bahamas, Andy moved to Île de la Tortue in Haiti, his family’s original home, when he was three. At that time deportations were common in the Bahamas, so his parents decided to leave before anything happened to them. Andy’s life in Haiti was good. Inequality, deportations — none of that mattered in Haiti. They did not face any harm. According to him, “It was just good living.”

His life completely changed when he was 12 years old— Andy lost both of his parents. Their deaths were a turning point. He went from being a happy child to having people feel sorry for him, and no one enjoys being pitied.

So he moved back to the Bahamas and stayed there with his sister until a year later when they moved to Miami.

When you walk into his classroom, you step into a whole different world. Chances are you will see him standing tall and confident by his desk, with a large stretched canvas in front of him. He will be holding a paintbrush with ease. He may be swaying to jazz or dancing to gospel music, but when he is in his element, he is separate from this world. He will probably be looking down at the paint palette by him, wondering what unique color combination he will make next. You will see paint stains on the carpet

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Denise Kornack

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BEAU

and on the walls, brushes in the sink, and projects everywhere. But somehow, the mess is organized. And this organized mess is another way of showing that Andy does not follow the rules. He breaks them because it is his instinct.

Art for Andy started when he was learning his ABCs. With no TV in the house, he would draw cartoon characters from his imagination. Though they were stick figures, his imagination allowed him to see those characters as real cartoon characters. He gave life to those figures, gave them actions. The moment Andy truly fell in love with art was unforgettable but straightforward. It was an ordinary day when he visited Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, with his family. As they were driving down the streets of Port-au-Prince, he looked out of the window and saw the beautiful artwork on the walls of the buildings, and he says his heart went “BAM! Right out of [his] chest.� Andy had never seen anything like that.

Danielle

Today, when you talk to Andy, you can feel the love he has for art in his excited tone, and the impact art has had in his life.

There is nothing else that Andy loves as much as doing art.

He might be talking to you, but somewhere in his head, his next piece is coming to life. Or maybe he is noticing certain features of your face: your smile, your nose, your skin tone,

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just in case he paints your portrait later. And though Andy might describe it as “kind of creepy,” it is an exceptional talent. If you look at any portraits painted by Andy Beauchamp, you will see that they make you feel something. And he does it intentionally. In his own words, “I can’t paint a portrait without having it actually saying something. I just hate doing things the ‘right’ way.” Andy adds character to every single one of his pieces; none of them are ordinary. And it is never by accident; every single brushstroke of color is on the canvas for a purpose. Andy is a perfectionist who goes with the flow.

When asked what type of artist he is, Andy cannot answer with one word. He defines himself as an artist that does not fit into one category. But he is not ambivalent about his artistry; he likes to explore his horizons and challenge himself, which includes experimenting with different subjects and mediums. It also means that he draws inspiration from various sources. Andy’s ambition as an artist and person comes mainly from two parts of his life. The first is his home and the people he was raised by. The second is his mentor and friend, Brad Ramsey, or Coach Ramsey, as he was known.

What Andy learned from his people in Haiti is the determination and the perspective of seeing the beauty in the ugly. According to Andy, Haitians love their nation, but they all still have a dream of making it better. He says that the ugliness is “killing the life of Haiti.” Yet, because of their love for their motherland and culture and for what it used to be — the pearl of the Caribbean — no one will say “my country is ugly,” although Andy recognizes a beauty in the ugliness, the truth. And because of this, Andy loves to paint the ugliness that he sees killing Haiti. From the rusty motorcycle to the person who has a permanent scar, he paints what he sees, having learned to let the imperfections speak for themselves and portray the gaze through people’s eyes that lets his work show a raw emotion.

The second source of Andy’s inspiration is just as important.

Andy first started teaching art under the supervision of Coach Ramsey. His ambition, risk-taking, and flexibility as an artist are all the fruits of their relationship. When they were together, they spoke their own language. Ramsey opened Andy’s eyes and changed his world completely. Andy says that of the few people he let close to him, Ramsey is responsible for his blueprint. Coach Ramsey passed away in 2017, leaving a hole within Andy’s heart, for Ramsey was like a father to him. But the lessons Andy learned from Ramsey make up the most valuable education of his life. His technique, his ability to use different mediums and create something beautiful with limited tools, and most importantly, his method of teaching, are all things he learned from Coach Ramsey. Andy says, “I could be a castaway to you, but somebody else will always find a light within me,” and Ramsey found that light.

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Andy has also been shaped by his different experiences. He was raised not by a specific person, but by the community surrounding him. Andy says that in Haiti, a ten-year-old can cook their own rice, whereas in the United States a kid the same age won’t even go near the stove. The difference in the cultures, he says, is that kids are much more mature for their age in Haiti because of the things they go through so early in life. They see and experience certain things that some kids in the U.S. have the privilege of not experiencing — in a way, having the privilege of being kids for longer. But by no means did Andy have a bad childhood.

Raised by his family, cousins, and aunts (because everyone in Haiti is an aunty), Andy was always doing something as a kid, whether that was climbing trees or hunting birds.

recognizes her offspring; she goes through hell for her kids, while the others are not mothers. He says, “Babies are innocent, everybody loves babies, but when you grow up, no matter what you turn out to be, you will always be that baby to your mother. You will always have that connection.” And when Andy paints women, both the delicacy and strength of the women show. He paints their curves with a flowing and imperfect perfection. From his own mom to all of his aunties in Haiti, Andy learned love and respect, and he shows that in the women he portrays, whether it be through the look in their eyes like in Belle, or the tender light that shines upon them amidst a storm like in Infinite Labor.

Inspiration from his motherland is also evident in his portrait of Johnson Napoleon. Napoleon is a Haitian man who went from having nothing to owning his own college, which became the first Haitian-owned accredited college in the United States. When Andy heard Napoleon’s story, he was touched and immediately painted it. On one side of the painting, Napoleon is wearing a ripped shirt, and on the other, a suit and tie. He is speaking into a microphone, emphasizing how he spreads his passion for education by hosting his own radio podcast. Andy captures the struggles Napoleon went through and the successful man he became to show that if he was able to do it, so can others. Andy was so moved he sent a picture of the portrait to Napoleon through Instagram, which led to Napoleon calling Andy in tears and asking to purchase the painting. In Haiti, though many kids attend school and are well-educated, once they finish school they often go back to working on their family farms because there are no jobs for them. Andy painted the portrait because he was inspired by Napoleon, but also because of its connection to his home. Though Haiti does not define Andy, it is in his heart and soul, and in everything he does.

Andy’s art is inspired by life. His eager use of colors is inspired by his home in Haiti. He reminisces about his village, saying that if you are walking down a small part of it, you will see houses of all different colors. And the reason is that people just paint their homes with the colors that they have. So if they have red paint, they will paint the house red; if they have pink, they will paint the house pink. When you walk around, as Andy says, you see “a bunch of artwork, but people don’t even notice it.”

The influence of women on Andy’s life is also translated into his paintings. For Andy, women are the most important beings on earth. The women in Andy’s life have shown him what strength really is, how they endure pain and not show it. Rich or poor, women know pain better than men because men don’t know what it is like to carry or care for a child the way a mother does. Andy believes that God created women for this reason. But Andy highlights the difference between a mother and a woman who gave birth. A mother

PHOTOGRAPHY courtesy of Andy Beauchamp WRITING Rafaela Rivero

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XXIII

The Gifts of the Gods A head upturned to face the radiance of the gods, Hands unfolded as if to capture the warmth of the sun’s beating heart, And my eyes burn

in this bright light, a brilliance too far from my own mediocrity.

And so I, the nature girl, the one playing in the dirt and feeding the squirrels, Find myself in a constant position of forced optimism,

of pearly white teeth,

and straight hair

and you’re so much

prettier when you smile.

And the make-up heavy on my face a reminder of my departure from the state of nature Mother

Earth blessed me with.

My clean, soft ready-to-shake hands having

lost their calluses,

lost their dirt

and paint

and chewed-to-the-nub fingertips.

My head raised upward in faux confidence, a straightened spine, the outward image of black sophistication.

And yet I’m blinded, my eyes burning, tearing up.

Because it’s too much and it doesn’t feel like me and striving for conformity rather than natural beauty feels

daunting and nauseating and

hopeless.

This is a message to remain as the Earth Mother made you in all your grandeur.

You are beauty, you are grace, we can see it in your black face.

You don’t have to smile your white smile or straighten your curls.

Keep the dirt,

keep the paint,

keep the comfort.

Remain wholly in the whole self, in assurance that you are a true gift from the gods,

Matching their radiance head for head,

Curl for curl,

Fingertip for fingertip.

WRITING Cameron Oglesby from the Bridge Julie 47

Commonthread in collaboration with POWERBOTTOMINDUSTRIES Life can bring you across the world where your entire environment becomes foreign faces and places. Yet, sometimes almost unexpectedly there’s an instance in life whether it is a 10-minute walk from your hometown or a 10-hour flight when you meet someone, have a glimpse of something, or taste something and in that instance, there’s just a je ne sais quoi but it makes you feel comfortable, at home. Almost like a hug from your grandma, but personified, or bottled up and made into a perfume. And there’s nothing intrinsic about that one moment.

Maybe it’s the way they speak, like their altered pronunciations of words that sound like how they should’ve been spoken all along. Or maybe it’s just their existence. something present that’s like you, raised like you, reminiscent of a place you once were. A presence … familiar.

PHOTOGRAPHY Rae Hsu WRITING Alex Raghunandan ASSISTANT PHOTOGRAPHY Chaya Brennan Agarwal & Sophia Liu MODELS Shana Abraham, Tommaso Babucci, Arjun Bakshi, James Ndung’u, Elena Rivera & Alyssa Shin

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Erica

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COMMON THREAD

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“Always try to remember where you’re from and connect yourself back to who you actually are.

It can be easy to get lost and assimilate. Keeping in contact with people who remind you of who you really are is most important.”

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COMMON THREAD

“Intention matters a lot more than empty words.

When you have the action to back it up and the unadulterated desire to want to stay connected, regardless of how society changes or how you develop, you can still maintain your roots.�

Marcia Cota

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“I’ve learned that home has nothing to do with location and everything to do with a feeling.

Home is a place where I can create and explore, where I can be myself without discomfort or any reservations.”

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Shanna

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COMMON THREAD

“There’s this openness, this trust that’s given to everyone

freely, this neighborliness, this friendliness that is beyond face value.”

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“It’s taken me a long time to be really, truly proud of my heritage and to want to share that with people.

So, when I saw this fabric, I immediately had to put it on a jacket – I wanted to show everyone who I was.

I wanted to scream it with my jacket.”

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COMMON THREAD

“There is this notion of people before place that makes home.

So, I’m able to feel at home while not being at home.”

Deborah Rutter

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STORY mfg.

Fashion is at odds with the planet. In 2015, the fashion industry generated 1.2 billion tons of greenhouse gasses and accounted for a fifth of the world’s water pollution. To make matters worse, despite apparent trends towards eco-friendly and ethical production, a report from May 2019 showed that fashion is actually slowing down on sustainability. The reality of the situation is that truly sustainable production is nearly impossible to attain and even harder to maintain. Many brands, then, are unable or unwilling to jump over the hurdles presented by sustainable practices. Nonetheless, there are rare producers who are wholly committed to doing good by Mother Nature —STORY mfg. is led by a pair of such people.

Dissatisfied with the industry’s ethics and offerings, Saeed and Katy AlRubeyi founded STORY mfg. in 2013. Nature has been at the brand’s core from the start. Every piece is made from scratch with organic, deadstock, or recycled fabrics. The garments are then hand-dyed with plant-based pigments by local artisans from Tamil Nadu, the southern Indian state where STORY’s clothes are made. The couple’s brand continues to grow, and their clothes are sold from Mr. Porter online to LN-CC in London to 1LDK in Tokyo. Shortly following the release of STORY’s Spring/Summer 2020 collection—titled “Gentle Machines”—Saeed talked to FORM.

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Lavanya

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STORY MFG.

S: It’s quite complicated and nuanced, but the easiest way to say it is that we wanted to buy and wear things that didn’t exist. We wanted natural fabrics that were dyed naturally, made positively, and in line with our own ethics. That didn’t exist yet, and if it did, it was with a different vibe than we liked—a lot of the fabrics that we were using had been used before, but they were used for hippie dresses or things like that.

We have something called the Positive Product Manifesto and we wanted to make clothes that were in line with that.

Dani Yan: You’re at the train station—where are you headed?

Saeed Al-Rubeyi: I’m headed home. I’m in London now and we live in Brighton, which is on the coast.

We just did a staff training.

D: You’re definitely quite the busy man. Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. Could you tell me a bit more about yourself and how you got started with STORY mfg.?

"WE WANTED TO BUY AND WEAR THINGS THAT DIDN'T EXIST"

S: STORY mfg. started with two people. Katy, my business partner and wife, was doing something called trend forecasting and she’s now the designer. I was writing. Together we found fabrics and dyeing processes that we wanted to connect, so we first made a pair of jeans and put them up for preorder on Reddit and on a website called Caretag, which is still around but much quieter now.

D: You mentioned the ethics and the natural process behind making your clothes. I watched the Mr. Porter video that detailed your production process and work in India— are you still making your clothes there, and do you expect to continue the same process?

We kept exploring natural dyes and natural craft, and continued doing preorders and more preorders leading up to our first “full collection”—full collection in quotations marks, it was just six pieces. We started selling to retailers and now we’re at about 50 stockists worldwide. Up until now we were mostly in Japan, but now we have quite a few in the UK and America as well.

S: Yeah, that was about four months or so, and our process is basically exactly the same. I don’t think we’ll change. We’re still growing with the people there, and a real key thing is not giving people work and then taking it away. It’s not like the West out there, where people can just find new work; you have got to make commitments to people. That’s also why we grow really slowly; we make a commitment every time we start work with somebody.

D: What was your motivation behind starting the brand and making all of your own clothes?

Alice

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D: Your partner company in India is The Colours of Nature—how did you find and decide to work with them?

view the current state of sustainability in fashion?

S: There’s a term I’m sure you know called “greenwashing,” which [refers to] sustainability becoming just a term to be used as a marketing tool. It’s a double-edged sword, because on the one hand I want people to be talking about sustainability and interested in it, but then I also want them to be interested in our version of it. Sustainability is quite complicated, but I feel like the onus of sustainability should not be on the consumer. It’s not really your job as someone buying a t-shirt or a pair of pants to have to work out where the stuff is made and how the cotton is grown. The onus should be on the companies, like mine. Because, I mean, it’s our job to do that. So I like that people are getting into sustainability, I just don’t like that there’s a disconnect between what sustainability is perceived as and what sustainability actually is.

S: I think they have a website now, but they didn’t [always have one], and no one we work with usually does. We would be looking to work somewhere and someone would give us a tip, and we would literally fly or drive there to meet with people and check out what they were doing and decide whether or not to work with them. Nine times out of ten, we would decide not to work with them because many companies would be clearly lying or not doing what we were interested in, or not aligned with the way we wanted to work, etc. But The Colours of Nature was luckily the first company we met with in India, and they came from a tip from a guy in France who said he had heard of this company and suggested that we go visit them. So we headed to India to meet with four or five places, but they were the only ones that we decided to work with.

It’s quite a gentle balance, and I’m a bit worried about being too disparaging about it because I don’t want the upward trend of sustainability to stop. Talking to other brands that are not sustainable and questioning why they don’t do things a different way, the answer that I get most is that they are just too worried about getting called out, with this “cancel culture” and super-liberalism—where the main customer is the most critical of any kind of mistake—that they are

D: It makes sense that you are so careful with your production process and, in turn, who you work with, because sustainability is at the core of your brand. In the larger fashion industry, sustainability is becoming somewhat trendy, and I’ve heard you say you like that sustainability is becoming more popular but you don’t like that it is becoming something of a buzzword with no real substance. How do you

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Seungha Lee

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put into a place where they don’t bother at all because it’s scarier to try and fail at being sustainable than to not try at all. It’s a weird climate, really. And you’re at university — it’s amplified where you are. You’re at the epicenter of it all.

D: Yes, I can see a lot of this culture that you are talking about around me. From your perspective, what would you say are some of the steps that producers can take to be more genuinely sustainable?

S: There’s no silver bullet, but there are two main things. The first is to ask questions. You know, when you’re going to McDonald’s and you know you’re probably eating something pretty bad, but you don’t ask questions because you don’t want to know the answers. So asking questions is a good start.

Secondly, being honest when something isn’t good. These two things together build a level of authenticity that we are missing. If someone says to me that an Adidas tracksuit is made “organically,” but its buttons are still made of plastic, that’s not quite sustainable. I’m not saying that everybody should switch to natural dyes or vegan dyes—it’s just being more conscious and asking more questions. It’s the same as what you’re doing. You’re speaking to me now instead of writing an article about STORY mfg. without having spoken to me. You are checking your facts when you could have made up anything. You might have been too busy—seeing that it’s very hard to get ahold of me—and decided that it wasn’t worth talking to me and just written the piece. The same applies to design. A lot of people decide that sustainability is too hard, but they have to make something, so they just make it without considering its environmental impacts.

D: Your brand has always adhered to this “slow made” ethic that, I think, would prevent a lot of these problems if more brands adopted it. Could you tell me more about this “slow made” concept and how you apply it?

S: There’s a lot to it, but at its center is my belief that innovation—not just sustainability, but innovation—comes from two places: one is a craft-based solution, which is what we’re doing by going back to the basics and trying to rework things, and then the other is technology-based. We’re more craft-based, so that’s our area to explore with our “slow made” motto. The whole world is becoming more automated and more technical, and a lot has been left behind. We’re finding old methods and old ways of doing things that have been forgotten about, but are actually much better than what we have now. This has happened all the way through human history.

For instance, the Romans invented concrete and then the Roman empire fell, and for a thousand years, no one knew how to make concrete. So what else is like that? What other things have been forgotten and left in history that we can use?

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STORY MFG.

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Emilia

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STORY MFG.

D: The theme of our magazine for this issue is Mother, and the reason I reached out to you before anyone else was because of your brand’s clear connection to Mother Nature—which is, in a sense, our shared mother. How do you view your brand’s relationship with nature? And how is that relationship developing as your brand continues to grow?

S: There are three things. One is that everything we make is natural—our clothes are connected to nature because they are made from nature. Two is that our process is a lot closer to making wine or beer than it is to the contemporary fashion production process. We grow things, we dye things, we weave things; but how they come out is 10% our input and 90% what the weather was like, what the crop was like.

Human input is just a small variance. And three, continuing from two, is that we view the planet and Mother Nature as a collaborator. Too often, companies take and use the planet’s resources before ultimately treating it like a trash can. We want to more closely and in a more collaborative way try to have a more positive impact on the planet and its people.

Our Positive Product Manifesto talks more about this point.

"WE VIEW THE PLANET AND MOTHER NATURE AS A COLLABORATOR" D: You have talked a lot about the process of making your clothes, and I think the different processes are apparent in each collection. You recently unveiled the Spring/Summer 2020 collection, titled Gentle Machines. How did that collection come into fruition?

S: Gentle Machines is a departure from the collection that’s out now, called Earthtones. We’re using more plants as dyes, and we started weaving for the first time. Unlike other companies, we can’t just think of what we want and go out and buy it because we have to make everything from scratch.

We’ve wanted to make checks for a long time, but we haven’t been able to until now. We’re finally able to make them, so we have checks and ginghams. I guess this collection, Gentle Machines, speaks to our relationship with the planet because it’s all about how amazing the planet is and how plants are these very quiet machines that are making medicine, dyes, and fibres while moving constantly with the earth.

D: Your brand has clearly grown, and you are able to do a lot more with your clothes— what about your work are you happiest with?

S: I am very happy that we are able to grow with the people that we work with. Every six months or so, we will see a few new faces, or even more. I think our partners have almost doubled in size in the last year or two. That means there are more people working in line with our vision. I’m also really proud of our stockists—we’re in some amazing places. People who I think dress nicely and buy from cool places are buying our stuff. But I think I’m most proud of the culture that we have

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managed to build. Although many people aren’t directly employed by us, but rather by our partner, they make 99% of our stuff. We are their biggest customer, so it’s lovely to see that.

"PLANTS ARE THESE VERY QUIET MACHINES THAT ARE MAKING MEDICINE, DYES, AND FIBRES WHILE MOVING CONSTANTLY WITH THE EARTH" D: The idea of cultivating a culture with your brand—what exactly is the culture that you have built?

S: It is working together to build something that challenges craft and the status quo of the fashion system. We find craftspeople to work with, and then the craft that we bring is our design and our way of entering the market. It very much feels like we’re all in it together—not just us and our partners, but our stockists and our customers. Once people learn about the way that things are made and trust our point of view, they become very evangelical about these subjects, as well as our stuff. People tell stories about our products as something really wonderful. I don’t see many people talk about, I don’t know, a pair of Levi’s jeans anymore. Of course, when they were first made, people talked about them all the time because they were new and they were doing something interesting. And now that’s where we are.

D: Absolutely. My closing question looks to the future: where do you want to go from here?

S: This is probably so boring, but the most sustainable way to grow is by 20% every year, so that’s what we’re trying to hit. In the next five years, I’d imagine we’ll double in size.

For us, that means having up to three more people with us in the company, producer-wise, having double the amount of people interested in doing things with us in the office. I’d like for us to continue exploring different categories in fashion. We have this kind of design paradigm where it’s always nice to approach different problems with the same mindset for solution. I’m not really allowed to talk about it now, but we have some collaborations with big sportswear brands in the next four years. I’m certainly not saying that we’re going to take over the world, but we’ll keep going and trying, and hopefully bring a lot more people with us along the way.

PHOTOGRAPHY courtesy of STORY mfg.

WRITING Dani Yan

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STORY MFG.

Agnieszka Olszanowska-Cywinńska

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T URN

DECADE the

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Lucinda Alvarenga

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TURN THE DECADE

Nicola Kramer

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TURN THE DECADE

In collective memory, the immediate postWorld War II era is tinged with the mystical, idealized domestic woman.

She is the epitome of elegance and grace. Her full circle skirt sweeps below the knee, accentuating her waist. Hands sheathed in soft silk gloves, hair impeccably coiffed and pulled back with pins, lips topped with a deep, seductive red. A string of pearls lies across the base of her neck, just above the neckline of her belted chemise dress, popularized by Christian Dior and Cristobรกl Balenciaga. She pairs her dress with neat kitten heels and a pillbox hat.

Sobia

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Perpetuated by popular entertainment at the dawn of television, the woman of the 1950s does her duty at home. She cares for her family, tends to the suburban house, and embodies the American Dream with her savvy consumerism. Leave It to Beaver depicts mother June happily cleaning the house in her dress and pearls, while Father Knows Best and I Love Lucy are no different. By providing stability to her domestic household, she does her nation a service.

Yet, this perception excludes many women, especially black women, from the period. For most of human history, women have played a significant role at work, but this era of the homemaking middle-class white woman has seemingly defined traditional gender roles.

American women of other races and socioeconomic status during the 1950s at once maintained jobs and cared for their families, yet they would never be seen as fitting the ideal based on the dominant narrative.

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TURN THE DECADE

As the 1960s dawned, these women pushed for greater visibility outside of their checkered kitchens. In 1963, Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique signaled a new narrative where women challenged the norms of marriage, sexuality, work, and education. An insurgence was simmering as this new decade ushered out the 50s.

Turn the Decade shines a new critical light on the ideals of the time, subverting the expectations of popular media and presenting an alternative vision of the era. The woman of the 1950s is no longer confined within the walls of the house. She is a part of the workforce; she represents the diversity of America. Mobility is at the core of her decisions. She wears trim suit sets, structural blazers, and sleek, sweeping trousers. She wears tailored skirts, embraces her own natural hair, and finishes off the outfit with worn-leather loafers. Her femininity is not lost by the absence of a dress, but presented in a powerful new dimension.

Judith

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TURN THE DECADE

Sue

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TURN THE DECADE

These women escape the long-standing tradition of being the “Angel in the House.” Their purpose is not simply to serve or attend to their husbands and households; rather, it lies within their own selves. They shake off their double-breasted swing coats and step out of the house. They let rays of the sun wash over them as they contemplate what choice they’ll make next for their futures. They remain angels, but now their wings are primed for flight.

PHOTOGRAPHY Tommaso Babucci WRITING Stephanie Cutler & Irene Zhou ASSISTANT PHOTOGRAPHY Greta Cywinska, Anna Greenleaf & Emma van Bergen MODELS Alyssa Cleveland, Lizzy Fiepke, & Elise Malone

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How do I describe my mother? She is a little taller than me, but not that tall; her hair is a little darker than mine, but not that dark. Every morning in the summer, she greets the garden spiders that make their homes on our porch.

She welcomes them as she walks into the rising sun to fill the twenty-some hummingbird feeders in the front yard.

Bees and hornets alight on the backs of her hands. She lives by herself, but not alone. The arthritic dog plods out after her. The two of them traverse the front garden pulling weeds (but we call them “invasives”), then the back garden. Then the woods. Then the blueberry bushes. Then the apple trees and the grape vines and the pear trees and the and the and the… And then they march together up and down the endless path cutting between the fields.

I will write about driving at night. I love to drive at night, and I love to ride in a car driven by someone else at night, and I love to write about driving at night. This is because for years, every Monday morning my mom would shove my brother and me into the minivan along with milk crates full of books, peanut butter, and Ritz crackers, and drive us up to two hours each way to piano lessons, ballet, karate, orchestra, gymnastics, violin lessons, art classes, you name it. In the car, she would quiz us on math or Latin or have us recite poetry we’d memorized in unorthodox pursuit of a classical education.

So this is how her day begins: tracing the land surrounding the farmhouse where she and my father raised my brother and me and countless dogs, chickens, minnows, tadpoles, and turtles, and one memorable crayfish, almost all of us come and gone. But that’s where the predictability ends. Later, she might be tilling the yard to plant yet another wildflower bed, or she might be grinding venison, or she might be chainsawing privet (another invasive, one of her least favorites, present to the point that I find it difficult to imagine not knowing exactly what it looks like and exactly how hard it is to kill, and so I omitted this explanation in my first draft).

When I filled out college applications, I was stumped at the drop-down menu of options for my mom’s career. Things I have selected include: rancher, forester, botanist, biologist, conservationist, gardener, stay-at-home parent, homemaker.

But what do you call someone who, in addition to chauffeuring her children to the ends of the earth to get them a little bit cultured (as my father said, “socialized,” but with the second i pronounced like ah), manages the books for the farm, gets on the tractor every fall, is constantly fixing the TV remotes of both my great aunt and grandmother, daily maintains and expands a colossal garden, and volunteers at the national wildlife refuge where she used to work full-time, on top of homeschooling both kids until high school? Where was the option for linchpin or mortar or regentess or tamer of the land?

That’s why it’s hard to write about my mother—there is so much there. Probably everyone feels this with their mother, but I sense her so close to me always because there is an invisible rope attaching us, one that links my insides to her insides. After all, they’re really the same guts; my body did begin as a slice of her body.

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mātәrfә’milēәs WRITING Blythe Davis

We would spend the whole day in Greenville, a town about ninety miles west of home, and then, when my brother’s orchestra practice was over around 8:30 or 9 pm, would set off in the other direction through the rain or snow or showers of mosquitoes that adhered to the windshield and never seemed to come off.

Julie

Today, whenever I hear a turn signal, I am transported back to that car late at night making the first turn in forty miles into our bumpy driveway that runs past my dad’s workshop, past the piles of senescing heavy equipment eventually to be cannibalized to fix tractors, forklifts, and combines, and through the passage of huge fig trees that form a leafy gate to our house. We would pull around the back of the house, up to the chicken coop, and she would shine the headlights through the wire fence while I ran inside to shut the chickens in their homemade hutch. Sometimes one would be dead, nothing but a pile of organs next to a hole in the fence where a possum had climbed in, or just missing, with only scattered feathers as evidence that it had once been there. In that case, I’m sure my mom rolled her eyes while I panicked, but she would always step from the warmth of the running car and walk around the yard in the darkness clucking and calling the absent chicken’s name. And usually she found them.

That drive is not easy. The road is not always well-paved because so many heavy trucks and farm vehicles use it, and is infested with deer, possums, and bears, all of which are magnetically drawn to headlights. It’s tortuous and narrow in parts, and equipped with a number of speed traps. When I was old enough to sit in the passenger seat and stay awake for most of the drive, she christened me the Deer Watcher and instructed me to keep my eyes peeled for varmints that might run out into the road. Every few minutes, I’d spot a pair of glowing eyes, which sometimes turned out to be a driveway reflector, and she’d slam the brakes and wait for the creature to cross.

We would listen to the radio, chanting along quietly to 70s music as a mantra to keep my brother asleep and us awake.

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Yiakl Eritrea:

I listen with open ears to the story of

a riding c

m e

l s and

Eating ripe beles off

the

cacti

in the summer. My mind R a c e s with constructed images of the city of Asmara and I Smile as I hear about the country that fought relentlessly For its freedom.

But why then, am I here?

I want to go Home, doesn’t everyone?

They say, “People float

like

pollen in search of fertile soil.”

Enough Please Yiakl WRITING Desta Yosief from the Bridge

Melma Said 83

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MS. COOKE

Ms. Cooke

NaShonda Cooke is a teacher in the Raleigh, North Carolina area, who became a known figure in the world of education following her appearance on the cover of the September 2018 issue of TIME Magazine. Her interview with TIME touched on the difficulties and obstacles teachers in America encounter and how her own life has been affected by the lack of support in the school system, especially while bringing up her two daughters Na’Via and Victoria. Coming from a long line of educators in her family, Cooke sat down with us to discuss her thoughts on modern education, her relationships with her students and her own children, and how all of these experiences influence her perspective of what it means to be a “mother.”

WRITING Mindy Wu PHOTOGRAPHY Rebekah Alvarenga & Stephanie Cutler

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Mindy: Why don’t we start with a basic introduction.

That’s what the cover of TIME Magazine did for me— it opened the narrative. Are you suffering? Can you relate to this? The narrative wasn’t being expressed by politicians anymore. Now, they were asking teachers and they were saying, how many of you actually make $50,000. And when they realized that wasn’t the truth, then we started to get other stakeholders who were interested in education and saying, “Okay, we’ve got to do something about this. We have to support education.”

NaShonda: I’m originally from Pennsylvania. Well, I was born in Mississippi. When I was about five years old, my mom, who was a single mother and had three children at that time, decided to move to Pennsylvania, where she had other family. The South was very difficult for her as a single mom trying to take care of her family. So we moved to Pennsylvania. I grew up there, I went to undergrad there, and I said, as soon as I’m done with school I’m moving south.

I want to go somewhere where I can see all four seasons.

It’s in my blood. I can trace back to eight generations of educators. My mom, her dad, his mom, her father, that’s all I remember by heart. Na’Via said she wants to be a teacher too. It’s just who I am, and I tried to make the best of it despite how much work it takes to get here.

We grew up very poor, depended on the government for everything—food, clothing, housing. But my mom always raised us to see it as a helping hand. It wasn’t like you were going to depend on the government your whole life. College was instilled in us at an early age, and if it wasn’t college, then we were encouraged to do something after high school.

“IT'S IN MY BLOOD. I CAN TRACE BACK TO EIGHT GENERATIONS OF EDUCATORS”

Growing up the oldest, I was in charge of taking care of my family while my mom was gone. So we played school a lot. I knew I was going to be a teacher. And 20 years later, I’m a single mom myself with two beautiful girls. I’ve been teaching—this is my 21st year teaching.

M: You mentioned being a role model to both your children and the kids you teach. How do you balance that?

N: I teach kids who are close to [my children’s] ages. When they were both in elementary school, I was an elementary school teacher. And now that [Na’Via is] in middle school and Victoria’s in high school, I’m working with the older students because I think it gives me insight into what those kids are dealing with at home as well as what my daughters are dealing with at school, so I can connect the different points of view

Throughout my whole career, I’ve witnessed kids who are going through the same thing that I went through growing up, but [sometimes on] a whole different level. I grew up poor—I didn’t have much, but I always had school supplies.

My teachers didn’t have to worry about whether there was enough copy paper, whether there were enough textbooks.

So when I moved to North Carolina, it was such a promising state for educators. It was like okay, we’re going to pay you for your masters. We’re going to help you get national board. We’re going to make sure that you continuously get—I hate to say pay raise—pay increase every year. And we’re gonna take care of me as an educator. In the first 10 years that was pretty much it—I got my master’s, I got my national board certification, and everything was good. And then all of a sudden in 2008, things started to go downhill.

When my students come to me and say, “Ms. Cooke, I’m hungry,” I can just think, Okay, I know we rushed out of the house this morning. I know, my pay is this much at the end of the month. So I’m not going to ask why they’re hungry. I’m just going to feed them. Because I know my daughter skips a meal or whatever, she’s going to be hungry too. So I’m able to combine those two worlds.

I want my students and my daughters to take over, to advocate for themselves. I want them to be able to say, “Okay, I’m struggling, I need help.” I actually appreciate being a mom and an educator because I can bring two worlds together. [The kids] don’t necessarily like it all the time, but now and then I have a kid who says, “You’re just like my mother.” So at least we’re both saying something right then.

We have an intern social worker right now. We have nurses, maybe two days a week. I tell parents to tell their kids not to get sick Monday through Wednesday, because we don’t have anybody to send them to. I have students who have been diagnosed with mental health issues, and so I couldn’t care less about their score on the test or if they did their homework. If their friends come to me and tell me, “Hey, look what they put on social media last night,” I have to address that so that that child knows that they are needed and they are wanted and they have somebody to talk to. Those are things that teachers have to address—which we don’t mind addressing—it’s part of who we are, like a second nature. But we shouldn’t have to be doing it on our own. So I have been advocating for that for years, and at the same time, advocating for appropriate living wages for teachers.

M: With your family history of teachers, how do you think that growing up influenced you to become an educator?

N: My mom was a special education teacher’s assistant, and when I was six I remember going into her class before it was time for me to go to my own classroom. I vividly remember how those kids had separate buses and would enter through the back of the school so they never

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MS. COOKE

N: That’s a good question. I think family is people you can trust and depend on to be honest with you. And they’ve proven that even through difficult times, they’re on your side, on your team. That doesn’t necessarily mean celebrating good times with you; they can call you out when you’re wrong. They can correct you when you’re getting ready to embarrass yourself or your kids or something like that, but it’s people who are, I think, in your corner for the long haul, and they can come in your life at any point. There are friends that I met throughout my journey in education that I consider my family.

interacted with the rest of the population. I knew when I became a teacher that was not going to be the case—that my kids, my students, would be part of the school. So when I became a special needs educator, I decided my special needs students were gonna say the announcements, go to different classes so they see other kids, and their parents would understand that they have homework too, so I was able to make sure that they weren’t hidden like the kids in my mom’s class were.

I also remembered her teaching real life lessons. She taught the young ladies how to braid their hair and the boys how to count change and catch a bus. It was all infused in education, and it just dawned on me that was in my DNA.

“I DEPEND ON MY STUDENTS TO TEACH ME, AND THEY DO, THEY REALLY DO.”

M: How do the values you see in education extend to other situations?

M: Who is that person for you?

N: I grew up in a church. My mom and my father are the pastor and the first lady of my home church, so I grew up with the knowledge, the basic rules of religion: you treat everybody with the same respect. You say you’re sorry when you’re wrong. Changed behavior means more than just the words. I’m able to take those rules and apply them to the classroom. And I don’t necessarily have to refer to church. We just want to treat each other the way we want to be treated. We want to say we’re sorry. And we are sorry. The school that I’m at now focuses on kids and their characteristics and their character traits and what they have in common, no matter what their background is. They take a survey at the beginning of the year, and it gives them their top traits— like Nabil’s was trustworthy.

N: She is a fellow educator, and she lives in Oxford. We taught together, not even for a long time, maybe three or four years, but we have so much in common. She has children with autism, and I have a child who’s on the spectrum.

We do have our differences—she’s married, I’m not—but we are both women who take care of each other’s families. Sometimes we’ll just sit and talk and vent to each other, but I know she’s someone I can call if my battery dies, and she can send me the money in a heartbeat; she can call me when she needs a babysitter. No questions asked.

M: How do you think your teaching style changes based on the background of the students you work with?

N: When there’s a situation that I’m new to or unsure of, I become the student. I go to someone for help, for example, with students who are transgender or nonbinary. I went to a leadership summit for education in Houston, and one particular night, they had an African American caucus dinner, they had a women’s dinner, they had a political dinner, and they had an LGBTQ dinner, and that’s exactly where I went to learn about that perspective. I think what changed for me is accepting that I don’t know it all. Sometimes the people I go to for help are my students, not always an adult, which I appreciate.

When my daughter and I first got to the school, she was an eighth grader and I was a new teacher there. We would walk into the cafeteria and it was mixed. Everyone was sitting together, not separated like we’re used to seeing. It was obvious that this school was showing kids how to appreciate each other past skin tones and religions and things like that, to show that, you know, we’re all under the same sun. We all have the same issues.

At my church, I do Sunday school and am part of the first contact team—when you walk in we greet you. It’s just so nice to see a diverse crowd there with the same goal. It’s the same for education.

M: So you feel like sometimes guiding role models in your life can also be your students?

N: Absolutely. I depend on my students to teach me, and they do, they really do.

Now with that being said, I think it’s important for people to see someone who looks like them to help them feel comfortable. So I also advocate for more black male educators. I advocate for women in math and science classes. It’s okay to accept lessons and learn from people who live differently from us, but it’s also an innate human feeling to want to see someone who is going through what you’re going through. You have to appreciate differences while appreciating yourself.

M: How do you see the role of educators changing over time?

N: It’s definitely about action now; it’s about advocacy and it has become political. You can’t say I’m not a political teacher, because I am whether I want to be or not. There’s so much left in the hands of politicians that if they don’t hear from us, and they don’t hear our stories and our students’ stories, then they’re going to make decisions that

M: What do you think is the definition of family beyond bloodlines?

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hide it. Of course, Michelle Obama is number one on the list. I like Maya Angelou because she told her story of not always being a Pulitzer Prize-winning author; she doesn’t hide the fact that she was a prostitute, that she had a child at a young age, and that she overcame those struggles. So I look up to women, and anybody really who will tell their story.

are not positive or supportive of education. My mom and her grandfather were involved in civil rights and activism then, too, so I think the two have always gone hand in hand.

I learned this summer that educators were the ones who funded the civil rights movement—they paid for guest speakers, and they made sure that their kids still got what they needed in school. My eighth graders and I read about the Little Rock Nine and talked about how one school was different from another, about how educators supported each other. I think as each generation becomes educators, they become more politically involved. I don’t like to call myself a politician, although I know a lot about it. I just say I’m an advocate. And I will be an advocate at Jones Street, I will be an advocate when I’m talking to Governor Cooper… And I make sure that they know that educators are watching, that we are encouraging parents to watch, we encourage our students to watch and become politicians themselves one day. I invite politicians to the classroom, even the ones that I’m not in favor of. I’ll say, “You need to come into my classroom and look into the faces of the kids you’re taking money away from. You need to talk to the parents of the kids who you’re saying you don’t need a social worker or school nurse or textbooks for.”

M: Would you say that’s one of the biggest lessons you’d want your students to take away from being in class with you?

N: Yeah, absolutely. It’s okay to make mistakes, and you learn from those mistakes, and as a matter of fact we change fail to first attempt in learning. Good— “you failed” is your first attempt. You don’t have to be perfect. I talked to them about wanting to get higher grades, A’s and B’s and whatever. But I tell them what the type of student that teachers love are, those we see learning, improving, and making progress without giving up.

I just showed you that I do the same thing in life. It took me three or four tries to pass my teacher tests. But I don’t give up. I try, and it’s okay not to be perfect at it, it’s okay to ask for help. I think parents appreciate that too when I tell them that everybody needs help from time to time.

I think if I can encourage politicians to come in, then they’ll become a bit more open to thinking differently when it comes to public education or schools in general. To me, that’s the biggest thing that has changed—we’ve become very politically involved, and we have to be, because if we don’t tell our story, then someone else will, and they won’t tell it from our point of view or they won’t tell it accurately.

“I THINK BEING A MOTHER IS AN EXAMPLE OF NOT BEING PERFECT, BUT NOT GIVING UP.” M: Our theme for this print issue is Mother. In a couple of words, could you describe what being a mother is and what it means to be a mother?

M: As a role model, what do you feel is the best way to share your own story?

N: I think being a mother is an example of not being perfect, but not giving up.

N: I just talk. I’m open and honest with [my students]. I tell them that I know what it is like growing up poor and without a dad, and I even talk to them about my latest life issues. I talk to them about what it’s like getting a divorce and not realizing what my daughters needed during that divorce, and I say that maybe their parents don’t know. They see that I’m open and that I’m honest and if I cry in front of them, they’ll cry with me.

Na’Via: I think it means supporting and helping your daughter during difficult times. They can give the same thing back to you.

NaShonda: That’s your answer right there. I love that! Thank you! Just showing support. I saw something on social media the other day that said “To love is helping someone out even when you’re struggling.” I think that’s what being a mother is—I’m going through my own thing. They have no idea.

And maybe I will show them a little bit of it. But they can still count on me. My daughters both still know Mom is here for them any time. I’m also teaching them to survive on their own and who they go to if I’m not immediately available.

M: What’s one thing that you are thankful for?

N: Survival. I’m thankful to be able to survive as a single mom and a teacher. Just surviving, really… and thankful for being able to show [kids] how to do it too. Blessings come from all over the place, and whether it be a financial or unexpected one, or even where my career has gone. I’m very grateful for the TIME Magazine cover because it has opened so many doors, and my students see now that they don’t have to be a rapper or a stripper or whatever for people to know your name.

I think it’s probably everything we’ve talked about—survival, vulnerability, support, making mistakes and getting back up and doing it all over again the next day, and just being okay with that, being okay with going through the motions every day.

And just knowing that you’re doing the best you can, and the best doesn’t necessarily mean perfect. It just means progress.

M: Are there any figures that you look up to as role models, that exemplify the values you try to bring to your teaching?

N: I look up to role models like Ruby Dee, Cicely Tyson, or black women who have gone through struggles and don’t 90

MS. COOKE

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tin box recipes

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TIN BOX RECIPES

PHOTOGRAPHY Sophia Li & Irene Zhou WRITING Olalla Duato ASSISTANT PHOTOGRAPHY Mason Berger & Sophia Liu Wei

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Celia

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Lunches in July (verano, veranito calentito) Peeling tomatoes Countertop strewn with red ribbons

Chopped cucumber, earthy peppers

They let me smash the garlic cloves

Pepper & salt, vinegar & olive oil Golden and blended. Topped with tropezones— Summers in a spoon.

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g a z p a cho

With gusto.

a l l’amat r i c i ana

TIN BOX RECIPES

Pot sputtering Scents of fresh pecorino, Leafy basil, red pepper flakes adorn And lure us to the tablecloths

(Nonna’s embroidery, Nonna’s recipe) Awaiting.

The aroma wafting for hours Breaking bread—crumbling And warm.

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Sticky, milky treats

Grandma’s birthday dinners (feliz aniversário) And sleepless sleepovers

Rolled by my Mother— Nights scraping straight from the saucepan, The sweetest cocoa powder billowing Into my hands.

br i g a de i ros

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ar is elu

TIN BOX RECIPES

Grandma always baked outside—

Sweltering

The handy mortar and pestle Etched into the stone behind our home

The smell of jaggery melting Lingering in the air

Pinches of rice, dough to knead Hand pressed in elaichi seed.

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Y.U.C.A Miami Travel Guide PHOTOGRAPHY Tommaso Babucci WRITING Stephanie Cutler

dus, familial separation, and a detachment. They have had to build a new capital for the home they loved and lost.

Miami has an energy unlike the hustle of New York’s concrete jungle and distinct from the dishabille leisure of Los Angeles. The city moves like the salsa, a rhythmic whirlwind, with everyone dancing to the same soundtrack. Evident in the atmosphere, the identity of Miami is closely tied to its Latin-American residents, especially its Cuba immigrants.

The creation of many of the establishments featured was a reinvention of a stolen past for future generations—a statement for remembrance, honor, and celebration. They are manifestations of tradition for the family members that never knew the homeland, but can join together in family practices, invoking a central pillar of Cuban culture—family.

Little Havana, the neighborhood that serves as the Cuban heart of Miami, has a unique relationship with its motherland. Overflowing with ties to Cuba, the community has nonetheless established itself as a discrete entity, a reflection of its inhabitants. Being Cuban-American is its own identity, unique from being solely Cuban or solely American. This is a group that has endured exo-

Miami celebrates the music, art, and heritage of the generation of young, urban Cuban-Americans. They brought the essence of their homeland into a foreign land, thriving in the union of two countries and cultures, both equally theirs.

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Life House Little Havana 528 SW 9th Avenue Miami, FL 33130

the building date back to 1925. However, with a fresh coat of paint and new design scheme, the revived façade and renovated interior lead the hotel into a tech-driven era.

Though only two blocks from Little Havana’s famous, buzzing Calle Ocho, the neighborhood is surprisingly quiet. Resident bikers and dog walkers pass through the streets sparingly, and the residences stifle the sounds of the city. Upon the muted guava-pink exterior, the golden brass numerals, 528, denote the new hospitality start-up—Life House, a fresh boutique hotel nuzzled near the heart of Little Havana.

Now, deep mahogany millwork, a zebra-print rug, and tropical House of Hackney wallpaper adorn the interior living room. The atrium library, filled with mid-century modern furnishings, evokes respite and exploration— two seemingly opposed but skillfully partnered forces.

The guestrooms similarly arouse a tranquil adventure as a thoughtful Le Labo Santal aroma drifts from the bathroom.

Oatmeal-colored crosshatch fabric embellishes the panels, a small touch that leads the weary traveler to bed. The Parcela Café, named after the plots of land central to Havana’s urban agricultural movement, greets customers on their ways in and out. The ventanita, the walk-up style coffee counter, offers Cuban cortados and coladas for all visitors and locals to enjoy before venturing into the urban jungle.

Life House, the tech-backed, year-old venture, is the brainchild of Rami Zeidan. In the age of Airbnb, Life House presents a bespoke reinvention of local hospitality. Rather than homogenizing the surrounding landscape, Life House digs roots, celebrating the communities it has been planted in.

The Little Havana location fuses modern tropical urbanism with hints of the 1920’s Afrocubanismo movement, an ode to the deep history of the building and community. Formerly the notorious Jefferson Hotel, the bones of

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La Tradición Cubana 1336 SW 8th Street Miami, FL 33135

to be appreciated by observing a cigar. Each display case is lined by label, with the banner bearing the image of relatives. The signature cigar line, La Tradición Cuba, features a Latina woman against the sea blue background, Sanchez’s wife’s great-great-grandmother, while the JML 1902 line bears the image and birthdate of Sanchez’s grandfather.

Situated next to the fruit stand on Calle Ocho, La Tradición Cubana is one of Miami’s oldest cigar manufacturers, founded by Luis Sanchez. The yellow paint blends into the green as the shifting exterior reflects the history of a Cuban cigar owner. The mural by street artist Luis Vitale visualizes the journey of the cigar—from the tobacco field to the curing houses, and finally to become the hand-made cigar itself.

Sanchez’s Indian stands near the door as a protective spirit, as is tradition for many cigar shops. Palm trees adorn the bottom of the mural, an ode to Cuban poet and fighter José Martí, who once wrote of his country, “las palmas son novias que esperan,” or, “the palms are the lovers who wait.”

Sanchez breaks down the anatomy of his Tradición Cuba cigar: first, the outer cedar wrap that infuses the cigar with its aroma. Then, there is the Ecuadorian wrapper—a full tobacco leaf, thinner than a sheet of paper. He nonchalantly unwraps and breaks apart each component, like the “Mad Scientist” that the neighborhood has dubbed him, in “The Lab”, admiring his work. The third component is the Honduran binder, which holds the final component—the Nicaraguan and Dominican filler—together, completing the four-nation blend.

Luis Sanchez’s family has been in the cigar business for decades, since beginning operations in Cuba from 1928-1959.

The rendition in Miami opened in 1995, dedicated to “the Cuban way.” The emphasis is on craftsmanship—every cigar meticulously wrapped and every blend patiently concocted.

For Sanchez, La Tradición Cubana is about returning to his roots. From the original farm, La Roca, to now sharing the business with his sons, every generation revisits the timeless practice like a route back home. And as the tradition continues, the roots extend deeper.

Inside, the store epitomizes the slow pleasure of smoking a cigar. Cuban rocking chairs line the showroom; the cigars are housed in climate-controlled display cases, as much is

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Los Pinareños Frutería 1334 SW 8th Street Miami, FL 33135 The store offers seasonal fruit including papayas, oranges, coconuts, guavas, and pineapples. Additionally, an old bookshelf houses natural pollen and pure comb ‘n’ honey for sale. At the coffee counter, you can order Cuban tamales and the “especialidad en jugos naturales,” or natural juices. The guarapo, or sugar cane juice, is soothingly sweet, but papaya, remolacha, guayaba, and piña juices are additionally available, as the seasons permit.

The long banana-yellow and unripe mango-green walls with wide, garage-like windows disregard the traditional storefront prescription. At Los Pinareños Frutería on Calle Ocho, arguably Miami’s best-kept secret, there is no distinction between public and private space—all are welcome. A cluster of bananas hangs outside the open door as regulars sit in conversation, the exposed storefront and walk-up coffee counter offering some circulation for the interior. A Spanish radio station rings through the frutería. Billowing lazily above the cardboard boxes of fruit, a Cuban and an American flag hang side by side.

Eclectic iconography decorates the store, from crucifixes to chicken statues to antique sewing machines. Boxes of records are out for sale, with antique favorites including José Luis and Ismael Miranda. Out the back, you see an array of wandering, grazing, and crowing roosters, and for a moment, you forget that you are in the center of Miami’s urban landscape. The establishment seems to exist independent of the exuberant Miami spirit. The concrete foundations are unshaken by the transforming Calle Ocho landscape; despite gentrification, skyrise construction, and influxes of new groups to the area, Los Pinareños Frutería withstands time, crafting its own model for leisurely communal gathering.

Los Pinareños Frutería has been family-owned and operated for over fifty years. Guillermina Hernandez and her husband Angel were both born in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, before migrating to the United States. They opened the fresh fruit and flower stand in 1965. Though the original wooden stand burned in 1997, the current concrete structure was constructed soon after. Since, little has changed. Los Pinareños Frutería doesn’t accept credit cards, and it still occupies a common space on Calle Ocho—one for the community.

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García’s Seafood Grille and Fish Market 398 NW N River Drive Miami, FL 33128

For over fifty years, García’s has sat on the bank of the Miami River where the aroma of seafood wafts in and out.

Named for the founding brothers, García’s Seafood is at its core about family. The founders’ father, Esteban García, was a fisherman in Cuba, catching not only stone crabs, but also lobster and fish, an unusual feat for one fisherman to accomplish. Upon government confiscation of the fishing business in 1964, the García family made their way to the United States, and following in the footsteps of their father, Sammy and Luis García opened their fish market in 1966.

of Cuba peek through, as “Rey de Cuba” and “Carmen Flor Fina” cigar iconography embellishes the counter paneling.

María Luisa García, more affectionately known as the García brothers’ mami, runs the fresh fish counter, plentifully lined with lobsters and crabs. On the first floor, the kitchen is exposed, cordoned off by the counter—a quick stop for locals to eat, drink, and go. Nautical wooden pegs hold up the window tables as ship wheels and swordfish decorate the walls. Hints

In addition to outdoor seating overlooking the nearby marina, the upstairs houses the physical restaurant and bar. The ambience and dark wood furnishings evoke the hull of a sailing ship breached by sunlight. Around the corner, framed pictures of their father, mother, and the García brothers reside. Here, etched in the family portraits, captured in the décor of the restaurant, García’s honors its family legacy.

Near the kitchen, the window props up a white board menu that display the fresh catch and soup of the day—this time a lobster bisque, so smooth it rivals silk. The fresh catch is carried into the restaurant every morning before noon, caught off Key West. García’s offers yellowtail salmon, Florida-Caribbean lobster, and grouper steak, the last of which Sammy enthusiastically notes extracts more flavor in this form.

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Café La Trova 971 SW 8thStreet Miami, FL 33130 abero—a mixture of guava marmalade, tequila, cayenneagave syrup, and lime juice—present a fresh alternative.

The restaurant itself features a weathered house front façade from Santiago, Cuba. The original numbers, 971, hang on the wall, which serves as a backdrop to the stage. Café La Trova often features la Trova music or Latin jazz. Chef Michelle Bernstein, a recipient of the prestigious James Beard Foundation Award, supplies a host of Cuban foods with a Peruvian influence—ham and cheese croquettes in a bed of fig jam, ceviche with Peruvian yellow pepper and Mexican avocados, empanadas filled with handcut steak. The local catch sits in a bed of coconut rice and sweet plantains, while the arroz con pollo is cooked paella-style on a flat top, a mouth-watering combination of Bomba rice, saffron, Spanish beer, and free-range chicken.

Café La Trova is a carefully curated scrapbook for an experience through age, space, and place. It delivers a trip through decades and countries, bridging Miami and Cuba in a single establishment. The vibrant teal paint outside provides little indication of the precious capsule inside. As you walk into the restaurant, contemporary Miami fades into a swath of light, and you are welcomed into an homage to Cuba. An ivory chaise lounge draws the eye to an antique display case, overflowing with cocktail bar tools and mixers, and finally a black-and-white photograph of Julio Cabrera, the famed Cantinero and founder of Café La Trova.

Los Cantineros incompletely translates to “bartenders,” but the rich tradition of Cuban Cantineros encompasses much more—an elegance and an art. In fact, the Cantinero bar bears the inscription “Welcome to Café La Trova Miami, el Arte del Cantinero since 1924.” Cabrera and La Trova Cantineros keep the tradition alive in burgundy and black tuxes and clean-shaven faces, delivering an experience. After all, the trade is about the feeling.

For Cabrera, being a Cantinero is a family profession; his father owned a bar in Cuba until its confiscation and exile, and Cabrera promised his father to re-open it one day.

As you move through Café La Trova, the walls transition, from Santiago to traditional Cuban advertising, until finally into 1980s Miami. A neon pink “Miami 305” sign illuminates the 80s bar and framed Guns n’ Roses posters. The atmosphere shifts, now reactive and electric. A disco ball reflects a phosphorescent light against the mirrored walls.

Like in a museum gallery, you move freely between the spaces and, by extension, times. Café La Trova is the curator and historian of Cuban arts, cuisine, and music, not only in Cuba but also in Cuban Miami. The restaurant is itself a Cantinero that crafts and pours out the spirit of Cuban culture.

Café La Trova is the fulfillment of the promise. The restaurant boasts the Cantinero bar, evoking Prohibition-era confidence, serving classic Cuban drinks like an El Presidente and the Daiquirí. House-made drinks like El Guay-

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Yuca Young. Urban. Cuban. American 501 Lincoln Road Miami Beach, FL 33139 beef, cheese, and guava and cheese empanadas; and bacon-wrapped dates, there is no shortage of reinventions of classic Cuban foods. The mojitos rival the vibrant green of the walls, with their mint blended with lime, sugar, and rum, a refresher necessary for the Miami heat. For an entreé, there are few meals that rival the ropa vieja, the national dish of Cuba. The traditional plate features slow-cooked shredded beef, dreamily tender and sweet, over fufu de plátano, topped with crisp breaded onions and peppers.

In the midst of the pastel art-deco architecture of Miami Beach, Yuca is modest with its smooth, white mid-century exterior. Yet, the restaurant stands as an icon of a generation—the young, urban Cuban-American.

For those who emigrated from Cuba following Castro’s coup, there was a need to redefine themselves, and thus came the term “Yuca.” Opening in 1989, the restaurant is emblematic of this generation’s new identity. The interior is a tropical call to the homeland, with luscious banana leaf wallpaper enveloping column and wall alike. The bar’s deep cobalt mosaic reflects the Caribbean waters. Antique-inspired frames and light fixtures hang throughout the space as reminders of a time too close to be forgotten but just out of reach.

For owner Janet Suarez, Yuca represents not only the cuisine of the Cuban-Americans, but also the spirit of music, the quintessential lifeblood of Cuban culture. The upstairs of the restaurant holds the Yuca Lounge, where performers like the Grammy-winning Albita first began. Evoking the famous Tropicana cabaret in Havana, the lounge crafts a space for enjoyment and celebration. Here, the fusion of music and meal, of America and Cuba, is evident, clearly coded in Yuca’s DNA.

The food presents the Yuca generation as distinctive from the previous. As the originator of Nuevo Latino cuisine, Yuca embraces Miami’s culture. Offering starters such as croquetas, from goat cheese to truffle and serrano ham;

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Nasrin

Skimming my fingers against the pink rose bushes alongside the school track,

I looked up at the bags under my mother’s eyes and squeezed her hand.

She reassured me, for the fourth time on our afternoon walk, that my English would be better than that of all my friends and family when we returned to Iran.

She inspired me and often forced me to struggle through the obstacles in life, like the large vocabulary packet I had

to learn to avoid repeating first grade.

When my family emigrated from Iran to Michigan, my mother challenged herself to teach me English, despite only remembering the exaggerated repetitions of the word “banana” from her small village school. Blinded by naiveté, I stubbornly resisted learning the material she spent hours teaching.

As my English improved, my mother had trouble keeping up. She strained over my homework and grappled with helping me. When we moved out of the majority-Muslim city of Dearborn, I quickly became aware of her apparent shortcomings. At the grocery store, she often mixed up the words bagel and bacon. Cashiers were taken aback by her innate accent; Old women sneered at her pronunciation.

When she dropped me off at school, my classmates gawked at the roses that delicately decorated her rousari. When my friends asked about my mother, I felt ostracized because of her differences. Her inability to assimilate embarrassed me, and I became increasingly irritated by her assumed unwillingness to be like everyone else’s mom.

I no longer held her hand on our daily walks. I spitefully corrected her English, at times to spare my own pride. Despite my cold treatment, she still smiled as she stumbled through sentences. Her radiance and rosiness warmed our home as we relocated from city to city. Neither my harshness nor the frigid Michigan winters chilled her affection.

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NASRIN

She had taken root and refused to wilt.

At the time, I did not understand the beauty of her English.

Admittedly, it wasn’t perfect. “Nima, can you explain me this?” she would ask, pointing to an unfamiliar word.

Though she did not understand the difference between teach and learn, she taught me a language completely foreign to her. To an outsider, my mother’s English seemed defective, but she took pride in its brokenness. Her English was not faulty, merely unrefined.

My mother’s name is Nasrin, or “wild rose” in Farsi.

Wild roses thrive in strange conditions, places that seem too harsh to support such delicate flowers.

When we see a rosebush, we often forget the adversities it overcame to flourish in its environment.

We mistake its beauty for belonging.

We forget that its beauty stands as a testament to its resilience.

Its vibrancy and confidence allow it to belong and stand out simultaneously.

My mother did the same.

She took root in new gardens, each time more confidently than the last.

She never felt shame for her differences, and instead took pride in their beauty.

She found solace in a garden nurtured with mispronunciations and misspellings.

WRITING Nima Babajani-Feremi

Cindy

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