Ginger Networked feminism
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MISSION
LEIGH SUGAR
JILLIAN JACOBS
LAUREN BANKA
JOEY BEHRENS
Ginger maps networks of creative people. In keeping with the logic of a network, all of the contributors to this issue were referred by an editor or contributor from a previous issue. As a feminist publication, we are committed to supporting the work of self-identified women and queer/trans/gender non-conforming individuals and strive to share the experiences and distinctive voices of those who identify as such. Our goal is to produce a zine with a diverse range of forms, content, and viewpoints.
• ISSUE 1 • ISSUE 2 • ISSUE 3 • ISSUE 4 • ISSUE 5
TRACI CHAMBERLAIN
KAITLIN McCARTHY
HAYLEE EBERSOLE
AMANDA LÓPEZKURTZ
JAN TRUMBAUER
JESSICA LAW
SOFIE RAMOS
• ISSUE 6 • ISSUE 7 • ISSUE 8 • ISSUE 9 • ISSUE 10
LAURA McMULLEN MICHAELA RIFE EMMALINE PAYETTE RACHEL BRODY MARKEE SPEYER
LEYLA TULUN
KRISTINA HEADRICK
LAURA PORTWOODSTACER
NATASHA WEST
PAULAPART
JEN COHEN
HALA ABDULKARIM
JACQUELINE MELECIO
NATALIE EICHENGREEN
JANE SERENSKA TONI KOCHENSPARGER
ALEXIS CANTU
BRITLYNN HANSENGIROD
CARLY FREDERICK
MARIA R. BAAB
MOLLY HAGAN MARISSA BLUESTONE
GRACIE BIALECKI
LIANA IMAM
OLIVIA JANE HUFFMAN
CARLA AVRUCH
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MARIA STABIO
JESS WILLLA WHEATON
SAM CROW
LA JOHNSON
SONYA DERMAN
REBECCA BALDWIN
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WOLFGANG SCHAFFER
DELILAH JONES
KATIE VIDA
RACHEL WALLACH
KATIE FORD
HANNAH MODE
HARRIS BAUER
SOPHIE KNIGHT
NP SANCHEZ
DOROTEA MENDOZA ISSACHAR CURBEON
RACHEL ZARETSKY
KRYSTA SA
ALLI MALONEY LAUREN ARIAN
ENA SELIMOVIC´ ARIEL JACKSON
BRIE LIMINARA
CAITLIN WRIGHT SOFIA PONTÉN
YI-HSIN TZENG
HERMIONE SPRIGGS
LAURA COOPER
NANDI LOAF
COLLEEN DURKIN
JESSE HEIDER
HANNAH NELSONTEUSCH
FREDRIKA THELANDERSSON CLARE BOERSCH
IVY HALDEMAN ANA GIRALDOWINGLER
ELAINE HEALY
KATHARINE PERKO EEL COSTELLO
ELIZABETH SULTZER
STEPHANIE VON BEHR
ABIGAIL HENNING
HANNAH RAWE
COURTNEY STONE
JACQUELINE CANTU
MARTHA WILSON
ALEX CHOWANIEC
MOLLY ADAMS
CAROLINE LARSEN
LEIGH RUPLE
JULIANA HALPERT LANI RUBIN
MIMI CHIAHEMEN
SOPHIE OAKLEY
JESSICA PRUSA
BRE WISHART
LEAH JAMES
MEGAN SICKLES JENNY BLUMENFELD
JOLENE LUPO NATALIE GIRSBERGER
KASIA HALL
JENNIFER WEISS
ASHLEIGH DYE
ALEX VALLS
CLAUDIA GERBRACHT
KATE WHEELER
MOLLY RAPP
LEANNE BOWES
KERRI GAUDELLI
AGROFEMME
INDIA TREAT
MARIA NIKOLIS TYLER MORGAN
SARA LAUTMAN
EMILY ROSE LARSON
BECKY BRISTER
TIFFANY SMITH
HANNAH MCMASTER
ANNIK HOSMANN
BONNIE LANE
KATHERINE TARPINIAN
G I N G E R 3
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Issue NO 10 contributors Sophie Knight .... PAGE 07 Hannah Kathleen McMaster .... PAGE 11 Alexandra Valls .... PAGE 15 Toni Kochensparger .... PAGE 20 Maria Stabio .... PAGE 25 Brie Liminara .... PAGE 30 Sophie Oakley .... PAGE 33 Carly Frederick .... PAGE 35 Becky Brister .... PAGE 40 Kate Wheeler .... PAGE 43 Jenny Hata Blumenfield .... PAGE 46 Kristina Headrick .... PAGE 46 Krysta Sa .... PAGE 57 Kerri Gaudelli .... PAGE 60
Co-founders E DITO R
Markee Speyer D E S IGN E R
Jacqueline Cantu On the cover: The Vessel Is Female (Part of The Vessel Expanded series), by Jenny Hata Blumenfield; 2017; Photograph, Plaster, Paint; 36” x 48”, Created at the European Ceramic Work Center (EKWC) PHOTOGRAPH: SIMONE NIQUILLE
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Sophie Knight
Setting the Course, acrylic on ceramic, dimensions variable, 2017 Collaboration with British photographer Camilla Smart. This image serves as prop documentation. The sculptures will be used in a photographic series by Camilla in Fall 2017.
Knight’s work transitions between abstraction and representation, curling more towards the in between and carving out a crawl space between the tangible and ungraspable. This recent body of work marks new material explorations in her work between ceramic sculpture and oil pastel on large raw canvases, consequently focusing in on a more narrative vocabulary of domestic objects and markers. The title “Freedom is a Breakfast Food” is taken directly from E.E. Cummings’s poem of the same name. Knight used Cummings’s broken syntax style as encouragement to bridge the gaps between an erratic creative process in the studio.
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As Freedom is a Breakfast Food, oil pastel on raw canvas, 60” x 48”, 2017
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As Flagpoles are Markers, oil pastel on raw canvas, 60” x 48”, 2017
Victory I, unglazed ceramic, 13 1/2” x 11” x 7”, 2017
Sophie Lourdes Knight is an American-born British artist living and working in Oakland, CA. She received a BFA in Painting and Drawing from the California College of the Arts in 2014 and a BTEC in Art & Design from the Wimbledon College of Art in London in 2011. Her work has been shown nationally in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York and Pittsburgh as well internationally in Paris and London. • sophielourdesknight.com • @sophielourdesknight
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Hannah Kathleen McMaster Magician’s Daughter
A
t some point, you may have heard from a man that doing magic tricks was their hobby when they were a child; I personally haven’t heard from many women that they wanted to be magicians when they grew up. Magic kits are one of those gendered gifts rarely bestowed upon young girls. It doesn’t help that women in magic are typically being sawed in half while wearing a bikini. My father has been interested in magic since the age of six, but unlike the aforementioned hobbyists, he chose to pursue being a comedy magician full-time, professionally, the same
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year he was expecting his first daughter—me. This holds special significance to me as an adult, having chosen to dwell professionally in the realm of fine art. I am now older than my mother was when she had me, and having a child right now would certainly appear to be a setback in career, if not detrimental to my art practice. Yet, he made it work. As my sister and I grew up, he made a living teaching camps and classes, performing at birthday parties and libraries over the summer, writing how-to books for kids that I’ve found in my own city library, and selling articles to magazines. Eventually, he built a business that has since earned him thousands of private gigs, regular appearances at the Magic Castle in Hollywood, and for a few years, an associate editorship at Magic Magazine. All the while I realized—quite possibly also around the age of six—that I would be an artist. I never stopped drawing and am now a printmaker. Throughout the years, people have asked if I was ever interested in becoming a magician. There were jokes about learning all the secrets and carrying on the family business. I can barely shuffle a deck of cards! But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t thrilled to be “in the know.” I’ve been humblebragging about what my father does to friends, coworkers, and boyfriends for years. The first thing people ask me is whether I know how the illusions are done. And the answer is no. As far back as I can recall, my dad made it very clear to me that my disappointment upon learning the secret would outweigh any satisfaction of knowing the truth. Still, I wanted to know! I would demand that he explain, assuring him that I could keep the secret. For example, when he took us to see David Copperfield and a plane appeared onstage, I was furious that he wouldn’t tell me. Everyone knows it’s just an illusion. But I’d grown up with a magician. I knew a little more about misdirection than most people–how was I still fooled? I don’t feel as frustrated anymore. Leaving that show marked the end of mesmerized innocence and catalyzed the cynic within me, always looking for the fumble, the mistake, the awkward timing or the bad angle. If you’ve seen the episode of Netflix’s original series Love, where Gus takes Mickey to The Castle, then you know where I’ve landed. Combine Gus’ excitement to be a part of this world and to show it off, along with Mickey’s intense skepticism. That’s me. I joke that it takes a lot to impress me now. It’s not like I don’t appreciate a well-executed technique—it’s more
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like, how do I respond to seeing the same disappearing coin/ close up card trick/levitating carnation on the 50th viewing? I’ve forgotten how to act appropriately as an audience member; I don’t gasp or laugh or clap unless I’m seeing something completely new. My father has had just about the same act for almost 25 years! I have his routine memorized. How does he not get tired of the repetition? When my mom stopped attending his headlining performances, I understood why. My dad always had a home office and was in all respects the stay-at-home parent. Being the most available parent meant having to be the most flexible parent in our house. I remember calling home for forgotten lunches and emailing him homework to be printed out before he left for his shows. Over time, running a business and staying patient with us competed for his attention. When the recession hit, things became tense between my parents. There was a time that I felt my dad needed to be doing more than magic to provide for us. I believe he found the balance. I never felt like his desire to be in the entertainment industry came before my wellbeing or my own interests. Put plainly, my mother may have been the “breadwinner,” but he was always the voice of encouragement for my artistic pursuits. And now, having had the privilege to hold jobs in the art world, I wouldn’t want my future spouse questioning the credibility of my profession, especially if that profession is also my passion. My father’s onstage alter ego is snarky, sometimes condescending, and slightly egotistical. He’s someone you can laugh at, as are the volunteers that fall prey to his orchestrated mishaps. His stage act is an exercise in humility, for audience and performer alike. That’s what I’m amazed with now, as an adult. Not the brilliance of coattails or doves, but the unspoken agreement made between magician and audience member. Night after night, they go through the same motions, but the results vary, beautifully. I appreciate the example he has set for me in refusing to settle for anything ordinary.
Hannah grew up in Southern California. She received her BFA in Photography and Printmaking from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. These remembrances are part of a series of interviews with other magicians’ daughters. Hannah is based in Chicago, the birthplace of close-up magic. • Instagram: @hkmcm
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Alexandra Valls Aplasticalypse; a Plastic Post Apocalypse
corporate executive plastics
The science is in and production has won. Surfacing as earth’s most bountiful man made material; it is indestructible and will outlive us all. This series is about plastic on an earth sans humans; a plastic trajectory. The plastics and plastic bottles in this series represent the better strata of the plastic world. They are the polished, white-collar plastics behaving and existing in their aplasticalypse.
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plastics becoming one
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pregnant plastic
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plastic during plastic surgery
Alex Valls a multi-media visual artist. Born in 1988 and raised in Miami, FL as a first generation Cuban-American. Graduated from Emerson College in 2011. Currently resides and practices her work full time in New York City. • alexvallsart.com • @alexvalls.jpg 18
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Toni Kochensparger psalms i-vii
ii, 18x24�, acryllic and marker on newspaper paper
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iii, 18x24�, acryllic and marker on newspaper paper
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iv, 18x24�, acryllic and marker on newspaper paper
v, 18x24�, acryllic and marker on newspaper paper
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vii, 18x24”, acryllic and marker on newspaper paper
Toni Kochensparger is a postlanguage poet from Kettering, Ohio. Their practice includes pamphlet, psalm, n printmaking. Their practice includes a minimalist horizon line includes work that fosters discipline n routine. Their practice is built on byanymeansnecessary experimentation on th backbones’f bards that’ve babblyd. She has a spool to unravel. She has long dark hair she currently resides n Harlem she is twenty-six years old. Follow @miss_uppity for photography n art projects, @postlanguage_archive for daily practice, or visit www.missuppity.com.
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Maria Stabio Hey Girl
Take the bucolic back roads. Drive through vast farmland and pass the cute but weathered homes. Cross the one lane bridge on Bernhard road and take a left past the bbq place and Wos Wit. I’m a new resident of rural Pennsylvania. It’s three hours away from New York, but it’s closer to West Virginia culturally speaking. The appalachian mountains connect these two regions, along with coal miner pride and opiate abuse. I’m headed to Walmart because it’s the only place to really shop for food and supplies. I hate the place but I’m a sucker for the convenience. In my early 20’s I lived in San Francisco and had all the available urban conveniences. So of course when I visited my Dad in rural Montana I’d stubbornly protest each time we pulled into the Walmart parking lot. “They kick out local businesses and the don’t offer benefits or pay employees a living wage!!!” He just smiled. Now I’m 31, cynical, and without enough money or other local options--just like everyone else. I see a man approaching in a motorized wheelchair so I immediately back up to give him space. As I take a quick glimpse, I see that he clearly is very obese and his arms and legs are covered with irregular white spots. As he passes me, he unexpectedly says “You’re beautiful girl, you know that? So pretty. You got a boyfriend? You married?” Totally not bragging here but this is the second such occurrence of this same language being used to approach me in a public place. I deploy my usual deflection of unwanted attention tactic and just don’t acknowledge. And yet he persisted. “Well?? Do you? Huh?” “I’m not going to comment on that” I say. “Well you’re beautiful, damn.” “I didn’t ask you. But thank you.”
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Hey Guurl You’re Beautiful, 2017, spray paint, embossing powder, transfer paper pigment and message pad stickers on paper, 11 x 15 inches
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I Didn’t Ask but Thanks, 2017, spray paint, embossing powder, transfer paper pigment and message pad stickers on paper, 11 x 15 inches
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It’s over in five seconds. There is no good way to deal with these encounters. I know because I’ve tested different witty comebacks and aggressive responses. People will always say what they like and there isn’t a way to reason, argue, or convince them otherwise. My only reprieve from this behavior was in the Middle East, in Doha, Qatar where I did an artist residency for 10 months. It was a vacation from unsolicited sexual advances, among other things. A day after the Walmart encounter, I went on a long bike ride with my boyfriend. Currently the ongoing theme of our relationship involves a lot of banter and mostly playful jabs at one another. As we coast along the rails to trails paths, he reminds me that there are “plenty of fish in the sea” in response to some kind of gripe I have regarding him. “Well there are that’s true. I was hit on at Walmart yesterday by a man with a skin condition in a wheelchair. So maybe I’ll go on a date with him.” Mike just looks confused, doesn’t reply. To all the men out there who like to “compliment” women in public. I wish I could forget you and your behavior but I can’t. Give it up. Sometimes women just want to buy some freaking car wax and a water bottle and then get the hell out of a store they don’t want to be at in the first place.
Maria Stabio is a is a first generation Filipino-American interdisciplinary artist working in painting, social practice, carpentry and comedy. She’s fond of making lemons into lemonade, although very often it’s super tart, unappealing to the general public, and probably would never pass muster at any lemonade stand. We can’t all be Mikaila Ulmer, ya feel me? • mariastabio.com • @mstabio
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Brie Liminara She’s Awake
I type this as I get ready for bed, another day spent tired and not in possession of myself. I anxiously push the boundary of my waking hours in an attempt to come back to myself, to reclaim and settle into this body. Time when I could be sleeping, closing the sleep gap—the disparity in sleep quality and length between whites and blacks that contributes to a variety of negative health outcomes. Between awakened states when I must where a mask and desperately needed sleep states, when I’m not aware of myself, when will I get to have me?
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Brie is an avid thinker, pariah and mental wanderer doing social justice work in Los Angeles. The themes of the mind, emotional justice, and occupational health are her frequent companions. Her identity and self image are often in flux and she dabbles in photography as a mode of expression. • mrbrie
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Sophie Oakley ‘Me’, 2015
The World is silent I have no arms, no ears. I can’t hear my own voice when I speak. The only sound in my head; “You” “You” “You” No other words. No other thoughts. No other Yous.
Sophie Oakley’s (b. 1984, London) writing practice runs parallel to her work in the art word. She was the director of 20 Hoxton Square Projects in London before joining the Bruce High Quality Foundation to head up their studio and free art school. She has curated and managed a number of exhibitions including Betty Tompkins ‘Real Ersatz’ in 2015 and ‘The Last Brucennial’ in 2014, which was the largest exhibition of female artists to date exhibiting over 700 female artists. Sophie has worked at Blain Southern, London since January 2017. Sophie Oakley’s poems create a tension of contradictions, while offering access into the soft and quiet depth of female emotion, a narrative mirrored by the exhibitions she’s worked on. They remain largely unseen and unpublished apart form an intervention in April 2016 when she anonymously pasted a number of poems on the streets in Paris and New York.
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Carly Frederick Southern Carole
W
hen I think of Carole, I think about her bathroom vanity, a treasure trove of thick, luxurious creams, and vibrant lipsticks. She never left the house without ‘putting on her face’ nor went to bed without slathering on potions promising everlasting youth. You see, Carole wasn’t your typical grandparent. She didn’t bake treats, pinch cheeks, or tell me how special I was. A woman full of contradictions, she was an artist, intimidatingly beautiful in her younger years, conservative to her core, fashion forward, terrified of anything or anyone she didn’t understand. Unraveling the mystery that was my grandmother taught me lessons, and raised questions, reaching further than the con-
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fines of familial ties. I’m now able to reflect on her life with a more rounded understanding that could only be realized after a fair bit of growing, and a realization that initial beliefs, even long held ones, aren’t always the rule. While I held an innate interest in my grandmother and all that she could impart, I was under the impression that she held very little interest in me. I gathered this from the way she’d begin teaching me to sew or telling me a story, and then suddenly lose interest and shoo me off. She was always nice, but never warm. Always happy to see us, but her touch often felt forced and unnatural. Years later, I’d see the same awkwardness while my younger cousins danced around and crawled all over her in the kitchen. It suddenly occurred to me that she wasn’t a kid person, not that she wasn’t a ‘not Carly’ person. When I spent those summers with her, however, I was too young, not emotionally evolved enough to understand that maybe it had nothing to do with me at all. But I’d made my mind up about her. Carole was a result of Lamesa, Texas in its heyday. Lamesa is a panhandle town where tumbleweeds casually roll by, where the Pampered Lady boutique, with it’s Brighton jewelry and fussy attendants, once served as its social mecca. I’m told that when my father and his three siblings were growing up the town was thriving and bustling, teenagers making eyes as they drove dusty cars in opposite directions around the town square. But today, in the midst of a sluggish economy of farms struggling to make ends meet, Lamesa now hosts empty storefronts, unaddressed potholes, and hard times. For many summers throughout my childhood, my parents would fly me down to spend a week with grandma, sticking wing pins in my top and waving goodbye at the gate. Carole dutifully met me at the Lubbock airport, taking me to Luby’s for mac and cheese and Jell-O before driving the hour south to Lamesa. She loved classical music, and we’d listen to it, not speaking, as I looked out at the vast emptiness of dust and dilapidated buildings. We’d play dominos at night with her special friend Hap (who she eventually married) and watched the television at blaring levels so he’d be able to hear the newscaster’s tempered warnings or make out the cowboy’s smooth drawl. Special outings involved long visits to the salon, where Carole would urge the stylists to give my stringy hair life, to make me look like a proper lady. I was simply an observer to this life so different from my constant activities, scraped knees, and attentive parents. Carole had a slew of very strong opinions that I never knew quite how to deal with. She once refused service from an Indian woman at a department store, and when we left I didn’t want to ask why. She claimed she didn’t learn about homosexuality until the AIDS epidemic, and believed her neighbors when they told her it was God’s punishment for unholy acts. Even at a young age, it was clear to me that some of her opinions were unfair and hurtful. Inquiries regarding her stance meant assigned readings from the Bible, condemning me to sit in my father’s childhood room until I’d learned the ‘right’ lessons. In-
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stead of confusing, I found the whole routine incredibly boring and unworthy of my time. There was no arguing, and no understanding. All it took was one last summer spent with her, the months following my 18th birthday, to alter my views of Carole as a stubborn woman on the wrong side of history. Maybe it’s because she began seeing me as an adult, or maybe she somehow intuited our time together was running out, but she finally let me in. Over salted watermelon and drawing the flowers in her backyard, she shared stories of living in a small, conservative town with old-fashioned ideals, fear-inducing headlines, and no room to break the mold. The constant message was that those who were different from you are dangerous, that epidemics and violence are the punishment of loose morals and queer behavior. A naturally feminine woman, she didn’t resent pressure to be beautiful and well kempt. She fit neatly into her life in all the expected ways. That seemed to change when she lost her husband and suddenly found herself in the role of a young, single mother to four children. There no longer existed a mold to form to. We never spoke about that time in her life, the years of loss and financial strain, the path she never thought she’d lead and all she never got to do. Part of me wanted her to be better than her bigotry, to have the power to decipher opinion from hurt. In retrospect, I would have thought her eventual hardships would be followed by greater compassion. The other part of me, however, saw the lack of empowerment throughout her life. Ability and gumption don’t always go hand in hand. Some women boast stories of pulling themselves up by their bootstraps. I never got that impression from her. It’s hard to say what grandmother did and didn’t accomplish, but a particularly happy life did not seem among them, at least not in her younger years. This is not to say that happiness is the beacon of a life well lived. She found art and music, and found joy in studying them with great intensity. She wasn’t perfect, but she was special, talented, and did the best she knew how to. A growing sense of compassion made way for appreciation and affection, gave way to fond memories of lazy afternoons lounging on her velvet couch, pulling on the shag carpet as she serenaded all of us with her skill on the harp. No bad will ever came from her fingers plucking those strings. There’s a lot of talk about cutting people out of our lives in this highly polarized political climate. I think about my grandmother. It’s brought up an internal conflict within myself of when to turn away, when to cut off, and when to try to empathize. How do we decide when it’s worth trying to change someone’s mind? I realize the notion of lending an ear to someone spouting ignorance is an unpopular one, and for good reason. The vitriol and violence that has become more visible today due to the faster spread of information and video, but has always been present in society, is at the least befuddling
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and at the most horrifying. We’re forced to consider where to draw the line with those closest to us. Can anyone say they come from a family where everyone is on the same page politically? If so, I envy you and would love to hear about that. It’s hard for me to believe, however, that this is the majority of families’ experience. We share articles on Facebook and Twitter and choose a quote to highlight, making it clear exactly where we stand. We make claims about who we will or won’t interact with based on their stance, ‘unfollowing’ and ‘unfriending’ left and right. Comments on comments of thoughts, some well considered and others sputtered with no depth. We sit at the bar or over coffee and talk about “them” and how stupid and sad they are for not believing in science, or religion, or basically anything we see as fact and they don’t. So interactions are narrowed, editing relationships and validating one another in our shared beliefs. I never had the chance to maturely speak with Carole about her views, but if I could, I would try to come from a place of empathy because I loved her and knew the complications of her life. And I certainly wouldn’t be typing my insights or questions that are really an attack (with no right answer) in a comments section. Understanding others doesn’t justify their language or actions, but it does give way for communication that could just possibly lead to change. Not everyone deserves an open ear, and where you decide to draw that line is up to you. But when we begin to actually consider cutting off our loved ones, and cutting off a stream of information that might eventually change their minds, what progress can we really expect?
Carly Frederick is a writer and editor living in Austin, TX, where she recently moved to from Chicago, IL with her husband and their cat baby. Her work can be found in Chicago magazine, RedEye Chicago, Collective Quarterly, The Riveter Magazine, and Michigan Avenue Magazine. • @carly_fred 38
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Becky Brister Home
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Becky Brister, a Southern California native, earned a BA in Studio Art from UCR in 2003 and an MFA in Studio Art from UCLA in 2006. She teaches photography at Moorpark College and freelances as a photographer and photo editor. Over the course of her practice, her subjects have represented her origins, connections with those around her, and aspects of herself represented in Southern California landscapes. In each photograph the viewer is invited to see home as she seeks it in the desert, the stadiums, the people she came from, and those people she has inextricably linked to herself. Her most recent work captures her truest sense of home, so far, with the journey that lead her back to the house she was born in so she could take care of her grandmother. • beckybrister.com
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Kate Wheeler
My Best Friend is a BDSM Queen My best friend is a BDSM queen, she tells me about her radiant bruises. They feel hot, she says, because the blood is rushing to them. Yes, right, I say, I know. I picture them pressing from underneath her skin like purple stones. This might not be sustainable, she says, and I agree. Something could break, she says, it could be permanent. You need time to heal. Her lover says he wants to share the ruin of her limbs. This is what I want from sex, she says, this supreme care.
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The Selkie In Ireland I collected stones: one in my pocket, two, click, click. The water called, its ease and darkness. You never saw a sea so vast or gray. The sky was gray, it was all the same, the water and the sky. I’d think I was gone, ‘til above a canal or on those ocean cliffs the weight of water balanced out my own. Oh, Ireland. All those drowned women, all the stolen skins that could have saved them.
Self-Portrait at Twenty-Seven Midnight at the twenty-four hour laundromat: skins shed and shifting. Hush, hush, the wide, stark space. Before the change, the loss. So simple, to leave a life behind: set that water turning and walk out. But sit still. Stay. Before the change, the wait. Sheets, socks, shirts, sweaters: wet, unwearable, strange. Quarters in the slot, that sweet, hot air. After the loss, the change.
Kate Wheeler grew up in North Carolina among green things. Her work has appeared in Electric Literature’s Recommended Reading, Green Mountains Review, PANK and elsewhere. She lives just outside of Brooklyn. 44
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Jenny Hata Blumenfield
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Blumenfield’s intentionally 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional ceramic sculptures use the identity of ceramics as a platform to explore themes that parallel that of the human identity. Depicted through the experimentation of color, form, composition, material and gesture, the vessel acts as a symbol throughout Blumenfield’s work. Whether exploring more traditional practices attached to ceramics such as wheel throwing to more industrial approaches to construction such as 3-D printed models, each finished piece acts as a drawing within space. Vessel Study (Part of The Vessel Expanded series) 2017; Acrylic, Canvas, photo-collage; 24” x 16”
Jenny Hata Blumenfield was born in Los Angeles, California. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She graduated from Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, RI with a BFA in Ceramics. Jenny Hata Blumenfield’s work has been exhibited in Rhode Island, Los Angeles, New York, and Italy. jennyblumenfield.com • @ablueandwhite
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Kristina Headrick Self Love in an elevator.
“We want something useful to show for being angry.” —Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés My building in Athens had one of those quintessentially Athenian elevators. Old, creaky and equipped with mirrors. The inspection dates were questionable, at best. But oh, the lighting. Naturally cinematic, darkly saturated hues gave it the effect of having been art directed to fit a Wes Anderson Film. When I arrived in Greece and started to feel “drunk up” as it were, by the eyes of men, it scared and enraged me me. I was appalled at the parts of myself that enjoyed it. in some ways i felt afraid to go outside. I recall texting my best and smartest friend about the phenomenon: I was at once put off by and conditioned to enjoy this attention. It sickened me that it took up any of my mental energy at all. The elevator became the place where I had my last minutes of alone time before heading out, and the first place I was ever really alone upon coming up. Time in the elevator took on a ritualistic tone. I loved the colors, the privacy, the portal-like effect. And I began to take self-portraits on my iPhone. Otherwise known as a “selfie.” In a sense, I became “unafraid to be looked at” during this time. Many days I experienced a sense of disgust at the presence of the mirrors. Funny enough, this was nothing compared to the male gaze that literally awaited. For a long time, in internet years at least, I bordered on anti-selfie. My social media life took place on the twittersphere. I wanted my face out of it. The last year or so, I began to feel less shame around the idea that if I posted a nice photo of myself, someone might say “oh she posted that because she thinks she looks good.” I was ashamed to curate my own representation of self, yet spent 27 years complicit in letting others consume me through whatever lens, to whatever extent they wished. This act became one of self-preservation. I tried to capture myself via photo to claim myself as mine on the way out, and reclaim the self on the way in. I became my own ally. It was self-care, and best of all, it was FREE. What resulted is what I’d like to call Self Care self-portraiture. While there was often initial disgust (oh, programing) at seeing myself, I remembered this project was an act of self-love. It didn’t involve spending money on face masks (I fucking love face masks) or clothes or asking a friend for external validation of my situation (You know those phone calls where we call people basically to get them to agree with us)? In these occasionally odd moments, I learned to commune with self. We made friends and by the end, came into a contract of self-protection.
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What’s the use of all this gazing // “They can’t have me.” When you bring up the way Greek men stare, people make light of it. It’s very “boys will be boys.” They tell you to just get used to it. In the same way the onus falls on survivors of sexual assault to clean up the mess, again women are somehow expected to clean up the results of male behavior. On this day, I recall the thought repeating itself, “if men could stare at me and drink me in, if that’s ritualized in this culture, what’s ritualized for women?” How could women drink themselves in? Should we have to expend mental energy on this self-encasement? I don’t want the prospect of being routinely checked out to interfere with how I moved about the world, with my inner world, whatever I needed my mental attention for. I resented the game. This interplay of private self and public world was one I couldn’t stop negotiating. So, this gesture happened reflexively. I wanted to touch myself. Not in a sexual way, but to make contact with image. I felt good about my body, something I’m almost afraid to feel because, as women, we’re taught not to be cocky. (As an eating disorder survivor, feeling good about my body is actually a radical act.) This habit of reaching out and touching the mirror, which played out in a number of selfies I took throughout the summer, was the most empowering of all. Funny, the ways we try to protect ourselves. There’s a defiance here, as well. These men could gaze and whisper under the breath, but they never dared to touch me. Only I got to do that.
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“Full moon July 8th/9th, time to strengthen personal boundaries.” How is it men have a free pass at visual violation? I questioned whether it was ok to “just get used to it.” Was I somehow complicit in the act? I’ll never forget when sometime in the 3rd grade, my blondehaired, blue-eyed neighbor told me, in front of other girls, that I looked “Clammy.” Since then, I’ve been insecure about looking tired. I frequently wear sunglasses in photos or avert my eyes. I’d gone out late the night before. Athens did that to me. The city’s energy is seductive, and I surrendered. This was a rare occurrence, this taking my eyes off of myself in the camera to look into them. The immediate physical effects were jolting. The gaze, returned by oneself. Making eye contact with others can try us, and with ourselves, it can be downright terrifying. The other side of that coin is how it’s really fucking powerful, like plugging yourself into your own power outlet. What of the majority of human history where we lived without cameras, without clear mirrors? Our appearances can, in some ways, be more owned by us now than ever. If someone lies to us about our appearances, we can take a look in the mirror for proof. I find solace and a sense of self-reverence.
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“July 8, resurrection, tits” Braless. Refusal to care. A brief thought that my nipples would draw attention. I’m becoming unafraid to be looked at and choosing how to dance with the energy. Feeling conflicted… on moment, empowered. The next, like I might want to put on an invisibility cloak And what of when I look at people? The elevator mirror revealed things I couldn’t see in my apartment. I contemplated, upon seeing myself this close in the mirror, whether i should have worn a bra. I rarely do, but today my breasts look a bit fuller and i wonder if this would garner unwanted attention. I get mad at myself, briefly, over the mere fact that I’m worrying about it, then policing myself for worrying about THIS. A fear of my body acting involuntarily and betraying me. (those nipples) How can we show love to ourselves in moments of programed self-defense? ((Self-Love to the rescue)) I recall how this trip feels familiar. How I have resented when precious mental energy is expended on this kind of questioning. RESURRECTION:: a beautiful concept that I think actually has nothing to do with afterlife but rather how all we have is the present moment, and so each present moment is this opportunity for rebirth and to care again for yourself. To give yourself a chance to reframe the narrative from a stance of empowerment (hint: perspective can always be shifted in such a way, and the idea that it can’t is one of the biggest cons of all time.) In that moment, I decide they—anyone with a pair of eyes — can’t dictate how I present myself. And even though I know it’s a decision that’s been made, is made, thousands of times a day by some for whom personal safety is a factor, in this moment I take it seriously for myself. I walk with my chin higher than usual.
I’m a human, an important distinction in a time where Artificial Intelligence parades around the internet. I work primarily as a writer, content strategist, and movement/yoga teacher. I’m also the creator of Delphi Reclaimed, a publication and community that elevates the voices of Greek creatives around the globe. I’m as passionate about the potential of tech innovations as I am about tactile experiences. One could say I’m exceedingly curious. I frequently feel overwhelmed by the digital world. My passion for writing, philosophy, healing, and creativity extends to the realm of movement. I’m a certified yoga teacher (RYT 200), Reiki 1 level practitioner, and Greek folk dance freak. My off-screen life involves a lot of movement, music, and expression. I also like to write creatively (poetry, humor), play my grandmother’s guitar, and participate in intersectional feminist communities.
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Krysta Sa Bancroft Street
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Krysta Sa is an artist and librarian living in Toledo, Ohio. Her work explores our relationship to land and space. Her most recent project, BANCROFT STREET, screenshots daily life on Bancroft St. in Toledo, Ohio. • @ttongues • krystasa.format.com • youtube.com/kkrystaa 58
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Kerri Gaudelli Laniakea
Space, as a place and an idea, has always been my first interest. In my project entitled, Laniakea; Hawaiian for “immeasurable heavens” and the same of our solar system’s super cluster, I use the scientific method of two-point perspective. To me, two-point perspective is one of the first methods in modern times to marry both art and science in the purest sense. Through the use of scientific perspective, I aim to speak about astrophysical and quantum mechanic theories, and ideas that fascinate and influence me as a creator. By layering and sewing material together, I attempt to speak to the intersecting of space-time fabric of our universe. Using these methods, I experiment in combining space, time and material into one work, much like the fabric of space-time shapes our known universe.
Exit, 2014, 6” x 6”, Charcoal and sewn detail on layered paper
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NGC7714, 2015, 6� x 8�, Pencil and sewn detail on layered paper
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Bound, 2015, 42” x 62”, Charcoal and pencil on paper
Born in 1989 in Danbury, Connecticut, Kerri Gaudelli holds a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Studio Art from the University of Connecticut, and a Master’s of Fine Art from Western Connecticut State University. Kerri has taught studio art at Middlesex Community College and worked in the Education Department of The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries nationally and internationally. During a semester abroad in Florence, Italy in 2009, Kerri discovered a love for perspective and the human perception of space through her study of high renaissance art. Developing an interest in space as both a place and theory, Kerri Gaudelli uses the scientific method of two-point perspective to explore astrophysical and quantum mechanic theories of space and our universe; further examining our place in the vastness of space and time. Through her drawings, Kerri hopes to learn more about space, time, and humanity’s fascination with our place in the universe. Kerri Gaudelli currently lives and works in Danbury, Connecticut. • kerrigaudelli.com • Facebook.com/kerri.gaudelli • @kerrigaudelli
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