#2 the relationship issue
honor roll zine art by teens
this is a zine that contains all types of art work from all types of teens. the goal of this zine is to bring young creatives together to form a supportive and strengthening community that encourages art-making and art-loving. i want teen artists to feel that they aren’t isolated in their work, that there are people who also know what it is like to just want to create. which brings us to the theme of this issue: “relationships.” relationships can be complicated and simple and icky and wonderful and painful and rejuvenating, all at the same time. basically, they are a whirlwind of emotions and it’s important to reflect on them before you get caught up in it all. i decided to make it the theme for this issue because it is the summer, and summer means focusing less on schoolwork and more on relationships with friends and family. so, in this issue, you will find self-reflection by our contributors of the relationships in their lives.
-Lola Chalmers-Dibbell, creator-of-zine august 2018
Contributors Danielle Balcita Ladasia Bryant Natalie Carranza George M. Carvajal Ari Dworkin-Cantor Kiernan Francis Destiny Harris Kylie Langley Jillian Lynch Leah Malan Bao Nguyen Osame Osayande Nancy Perez Penelopi Perez Alexis Villagomez Nyah Wax cover work by Penelopi Perez all background art from Georgia O’Keeffe by Georgia O’Keeffe, 1976
“‘Dream Girl’ is by far one of my favorites shoots that I’ve designed. I got together a group of friends to help set up sheets I thrifted in front of my house and brainstorm some outfit ideas. This shoot is one of my favorites because I was able to work closely with some of the people I hold so close to me.”
by Kylie Langley
Car Trouble sometimes the car stalls out, the tires break off their axel or the engine stops churning and the gas just sits at the bottom of the rusting belly heavy and acidic. or the treads on the bottom of your sneaker melt into the top of the brake pedal and the car fills with the stench of burning rubber and the car won’t move because at this point your foot and the pedal have melded into one amorphous metallic being welded to the plush tan carpeting of your father’s old subaru and that’s how this kind of missing you feels.
or maybe it’s more like going down a hill backwards blind wheels moving of their own accord, in second or third i’m not really sure, but i miss you the same way i drive stick shift cars lurching and loud, all grinding gears. and it hurts.
by Ari Dworkin-Cantor
by Penelopi Perez
“I love the [film photography] process of having to develop negatives and create prints that have an old-timey, grainy look.�
by Alexis Villagomez
“I started doing these last summer for fun on Snapchat.”
“[These photos are] about my relationship with myself, my partner, the world, my two best friends, and my cousin.”
by Leah Malan When I was in kindergarten, every so often there would be days when a mom of one of the students could volunteer to come to the class to read a story before nap time. Every time this occurred, the class would get all giggly and nervous, and whoever’s mom it was that time would sit tall and proud as their mom -an adult- read to the class. For months and months, I begged my own mom to come to class and read my favorite story: Click Clack Moo. All I wanted was to sit on the shag blue carpet and tell the whole class that my mom was the one reading the story that I knew they would love. Every week, though, I would watch the door to my kindergarten classroom open, and every week a different student’s mom would walk in. I remember my heart pounding when the handle turned and falling when I saw who had turned it. Towards the end of the year, I had given up hope. I began sitting towards the back, staring out the window while the story was read to us. Seeing everybody else’s mom come again and again. Near the end of one of these days, there was a soft knock on the door. When it opened and I saw my own mom walk through, I remember smiling and jumping up to greet her. My mom was an advanced practice nurse who worked a lot, and she had used her one break during her 12 hour shift to come read me Click Clack Moo. I (rudely) shoved other kids to the side to see my mom read, and when she finished, everyone applauded. I clapped until my hands hurt.
Next year, I’m going to be a senior in high school. Every day, part of me keeps watching the door, waiting for my mom to walk in and make everything feel better. Every day, I see other people bonding with their moms and gaining new experiences while I’m left remembering all the ones I’ll ever get. Seeing my friends bonding and growing up with their moms makes me so happy and so proud to have these people in my life, but I can’t help but feel bitter that my door is closed forever now while everyone’s around me keeps opening. Coping with death makes me feel sad, confused, guilty, angry, and everything else we try not to feel. But when I see this picture of my mom, I see her as she was. I don’t see any of the fights we had, any of the things we did to hurt eachother. All I see is her sitting in her scrubs reading Click Clack Moo, smiling back at me the entire time.
by Kiernan Francis
“Considering most of my work is regarding the adolescent landscape and what it means to be immediately fulfilled, both emotionally and physically, I try to emulate how out of body these experiences can feel and playing around with the concept of loneliness.�
by Nyah Wax
“I work without planning things out. I believe that art shouldn’t be forced or monetized. My artistic process is who I am.”
How To Ride A Bike I remember the first day I learned how to ride a bike. I was just a small girl then, and I’d often stumble. I would stop pedaling and I’d feel myself falling to the side with no one to catch me. And I guess it’s almost like falling in love. 1. Make sure you’re secure sitting on your bike. That the seat is the right height and it’s comfortable with your helmet and knee pads on. I remember the first day I met you. I was just a bit too confident with myself and my leftover bruises. I sat down too soon and kind of started to fall to the side. You awkwardly caught me and I sat down farther than my legs could reach and I sat there for a while forcing the pedals higher instead of just trusting my feet to fall on the pedals. 2. Find confidence in yourself to put your feet down on the pedals and start moving your legs forward pushing the pedals feeling the bike start to move, and if you stumble and fall off just repeat steps 1-2 and try again. It was awkward at first because to my own ignorance I was just TOO ready too soon and you were not like that. And with that I scraped my knees a few times and maybe it was the thrill of sitting on the bike or the idea of what would happen when I finally took off that encouraged me to keep trying.
by Nancy Perez
3. Once you’ve got a handle on pedaling, you’ll soon find it natural to keep going until you can feel the wind blowing through you. The silent joy of moving past everything around you. I don’t know what it was that suddenly worked with me talking to you. Maybe it was patience and the idea that I should take my time to understand you. I’m not quite sure what it was but I’m so thankful because after all the awkward slow bike rides around the block, I am finally starting to feel the joy of losing myself in the sights and breeze of all the pedaling I’ve lost track of. The late nights and rainy mornings, the thrill of dangerous times making it all the more worth it. 4. This is the best part. The final step in this amazing process, this wonderful adventure. Finally, remove your training wheels and your elbow pads. Keep your helmet on, just to be safe and enjoy your ride wherever it may take you. You are my newfound adventure, whatever path we’ll take.
by Ladasia Bryant
“[This is a] series of the relationship between people, their cultures, and their religion. I wanted to make it feel like some sense of security and beauty surrounds it. What you believe or have grown and become connected with can make you feel very secure and that's a beautiful thing.�
"This is the photo documentation of how a photograph underwent the cycle of life and death.”
“I printed the triptych and asked people to write their thoughts about the photo onto the print.”
“I took pictures of their writings and made a new composition from them.”
by Bao Nguyen
“I then burned the print.”
“The ash was then released back into nature.”
“The original triptych underwent a new cycle of life again."
by Destiny Harris Poetry & Pain, An Unbreakable Relationship Whenever I begin to write a poem I feel my artistic abilities judging me & Whenever I step up to the mic Present my body for performance Or rehearse my rhythm and rhyme schemes For class recitation I get anxious detect the uncertainty in the way that the crowd snaps & I feel the audience questioning me. Asking Why she always writing poems about pain? Don’t she got some to live for? Don’t she know oppression ain’t the only issue she can write about? & to that I am speechless Cause they don’t know the struggle & this time I’m not talking about oppression They don’t know the struggle They dont know that I’ve been trying to execute a happy poem since finding out poetry was my happy place
They don’t know the poems about pain are unintentional They don’t know that it isn’t easy to silence my suffering Or that’s it’s much harder to shape my smiles into simile They don’t know That to me the best poems are The poems that personify pain The ones that complicate shit The ones that simultaneously summarize suffering as both the antagonist & protagonist of life. They dont know Or maybe they forgot That some people never got a chance to Speak a similar truth Or tell this same story So the next time I get up on a stage with a sad poem Please tell me you’ll appreciate it Cause you’ll never know when that suffering might silence my voice Might take me away from this earth For good.
by Natalie Carranza the people pictured are Anthony Ortega and Lesley Carranza
“Friendships are something that can be long lasting and important. You’re able to blossom with your friends and learn new things about one another, as well as learn to care and know how worthy you are for each other.”
“I took this photo to capture the moments that me and my brother spent walking together after school.�
by Osame Osayande
A Night of Regret I wish it didn’t end like this staying up regretting it I never meant to break you when you were already so delicate what happened was inevitable I just wasn’t ready I’m just really sorry everything just got so messy I wish I had said what I wanted but I had run in shame you said your heart was aching and I couldn’t take the blame I was such a horrible person after everything was through and now I lay in bed thinking things I shouldn’t have done to you
I wish I never met you so I never had the chance to ruin your life and run away and leave you in a trance you didn’t deserve the hurricane that I brought along with me my storm had just destroyed you with everything else you see I just wanna say I’m sorry for being in your life you never deserved the pain you don’t deserve the strife I wish you the best but before I say goodbye just know with everything I said I never told a lie
I truly did enjoy the time I spent with you I was so into being happy even if I was the one that broke us that I never understood I’m still hurting too being happy never meant anything until things just weren’t good
by Danielle Balcita
by Jillian Lynch
“You primarily need this strong, healthy relationship in order to have others: a relationship with yourself. I feel it is pertinent to have a healthy self relationship.�
by George M. Carvajal If I were romantic I would look at you as if it were the last time seeing you. I would listen to every word with such focus as if it were the last time hearing your voice. I would stare into your eyes as if every time they fluttered an eternity would pass. I would visualize you in my head every second, as if I had eternity. I would sing to you as if my voice would never grow hoarse. I would hold you as if you would never vanish. I would kiss you as if my lips would never become chapped. I would compare thee to a summers day as if your beauty would never fade. I would love you as if my heart would be swiped at any second. I would even go so far as writing a poem about you. But only if I were romantic.
thank you for reading.
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