stone-cutters
Harvard-Westlake School Volume XXVII
This is an annual publication of Harvard-Westlake’s Stone-Cutters Arts Collective, a studentdriven, faculty-guided group of visual artists, writers, editors, and designers. The purpose of the spring magazine is to celebrate outstanding creative endeavors and artistic achievements by members of our community. Submission is open to all students at the upper school via stone-cutters.submittable.com. The works are curated by an editorial board of students leaders and advisors; names and identifying information are removed during the review process so that each work is considered without personal bias.
To the Stone-Cutters Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated Challengers of oblivion Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down, The square-limbed Roman letters Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well Builds his monument mockingly; For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun Die blind and blacken to the heart: Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained thoughts found The honey of peace in old poems.
– Robinson Jeffers
Dear Readers, This issue of Stone-Cutters is unprecedented—not only because it is the first produced from our homes, but also because we received more submissions than ever before. We were incredibly inspired by the way artists and writers in the Harvard-Westlake community found the time and strength to express themselves during a global pandemic. In these uncertain times, your unique creative voices are more important than ever as a way of coping with the struggles of quarantine, connecting with others from a safe distance, and challenging the injustices that still exist in our society. We hope that Stone-Cutters—as a club, as a publication, and as an arts collective—can continue to recognize and support art as a vehicle for racial justice and social awareness. Follow @studentartactivists and support their work. We would like to thank everyone who submitted work to our publication. We would also like to thank the essential workers who risk their health every day to keep the world running. We urge you to continue finding the courage to share your stories with the world, even when that world is not always easy to live in—especially then. We hope we will be able to see you in person soon, but until then, keep creating. —Stone-Cutters
Contents Evie de Rubertis Maddie Huggins Alexa Druyanoff Grace Burton Allie Landecker Paul Boardman Abe Kaye Micha Rand Oscar Montanez Garay Maya Doyle Kacey Kim Felicity Phelan Cleo Maloney Monica Martell Zoe Redlich Sammy Kimball Spencer Klink Nicole Austen Katie Frazee Haley Levin Matthew Redford AP Collaboration Alexandra Du Manoir Athalia Meron Sarah Mittleman Katie Mumford Lola Butan Santiago Salazar
5 6-7 8 10 12-3 14 15, 45 16-7 18 19 20-1, 26-7 22 23 24,33 25 28 29 30-1 32 34 35 37 38 39 40-1 42 43 44
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Oh, Honey! — Evie de Rubertis ‘20, wood, 1.5in x 7in. 5 ]
How Do I Know If I Am a Poet? You know you are a poet If you can taste the color purple rich warm pruney Plump syllables inflate against the walls of your mouth Curves feel nice against cold sores It fills you up Until you are immobile And while there is some safety in surrender You need space for breath And secrets You try to spit it out But it likes be held As much as it knows you like to hold So it thickens Sinks deeper Leaving a round indent in the sponge center of your tongue You are especially a poet If you can say with a lilt of pretension That purple does not taste like grape It tastes like purple
[ 6
Maddie Huggins ‘20
You know you are a poet If you recognize sadness by its scent mowed grass pillow lint honey nut cheerio milk and the tremble of letters bumping against the wall of a swollen bottom lip On their way to your ear Merely confirms it You know you are a poet If you sneak a peek at yourself in the mirror when you cry Only those who dare to stare straight at one can tell you There is a certain radiance about a snot slicked face You are lulled by the rhythm Of your own ragged breaths It is a toss up between Peeling glue from skin And un-plastering a crusted strand From the damp corner of your lip
And you can’t bear to tell him That as you feel that drop become possession of his fingerprint crevices He is depriving you of the satisfaction of feeling it roll Pause beneath your chin And fall Humans fear what is small Because we would rather feel everything at once Or nothing at all
Trap yourself behind the cage of their ribs And play them from the inside Like a xylophone Keep time on their tympanic membrane Until your beating is in sync It is not that poets are inhuman They are simply more human Than humans can let themselves be
Impale me don’t puncture Submerge me don’t splash Envelope me don’t touch There is nothing more excruciating Than hurting just enough to well But not spill over You know you are a poet If no matter your size you are always the little spoon Because this way you can spread yourself between the web of their eyelashes And burrow into the curve of their cupid’s bow
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September 2003 — Alexa Druyanoff ‘22, painting, 16in x 20in.
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The Blueberry Tree There is a blueberry tree growing in my stomach. No one can say for sure how it got there, but most people guess that I ate too many blueberries when I was little. I’m sure you’ve heard that before, probably from your dad. I’m sure you can hear it now: don’t eat the black seeds or you’ll grow a little tree inside you. The really strange thing is that blueberries don’t grow on trees. They don’t think it’s genetic because my little brother was born with nothing extraordinary in his stomach. My mom blames herself. My dad blames the farmer’s market. But it’s not like they sold us magic beans. It’s also not really in my stomach. It’s in between all my organs, kind of just pushing them all to the side, and they’re all mostly functioning properly. It showed up when I was four. I was sitting on the carpet in the living room playing with the toy cars. I remember that part. My parents rushed me to the hospital because I told them my tummy hurt but that it felt like scratching. I wasn’t only pointing to my stomach, but to my whole torso really, so they got scared, as new parents do. At the hospital, apparently they ran a lot of tests and apparently there are roots in my intestines and branches reaching all the way to my lungs, entwined with my ribs like ivy on the gate. I’ve seen the x-rays. We keep them somewhere, my mom does. I actually have to get new ones every couple months to make sure it’s not growing out of control. I am sitting in the hospital waiting room, a place I have sat a million times before. Today I am not here for x-rays. I’m waiting for a baby to be born. It’s January 3rd, a good birthday day. It’s sunny and my mom believes in good omens. My brother’s wife has been in labor for about seven and a half hours, so really it’s any minute now. The waiting room is full. I’ve calculated that the baby’s birthday will be on a Friday when she turns one, and then when she turns eight, and then when she turns fifteen, which is lucky. My dad believes in lucky numbers. I am thinking about how maybe this is wrong because of leap year when the doctor approaches, announcing the good news. I am escorted into the room third but I get to hold the baby first. There is a feeling like pop rocks. It crosses the line. She is so tiny. As I’m driving home, my brother calls me. I can tell that he is on the brink of tears. He is unable to name his daughter. He is a poet, truly. “If you had a daughter,” he asks, “what would you name her?” There is a cracking feeling in my rib cage but I don’t swerve. My hands stay steady on the wheel. I notice the light changing to yellow, to red, and I stop safely. I do not rear-end the car in front of me. I pause. [ 10
Grace Burton ‘20
“I have always liked the name Harper. Uncontroversial. Like Harper Thomas from middle school. She was sweet.” “It’s not enough.” He sounds so frustrated, but not at me. He gets in his own head about stuff like this, about words. When we were little, we never asked Henry to say grace. We wrote all his thank you notes. He started therapy as soon as he began being assigned real English essays, around middle school. The school allowed him to skip the foriegn language requirement. I still write most of his emails. It took him months to figure out how to propose. When he finally did he brought a notecard to make sure he didn’t mess it up. While he was writing his wedding vows, he learned how to meditate. His therapist says it helps him empty. “I’m coming back, I’ll be there in fifteen.” I return equipped with magazines, newspapers, and a copy of Pride and Prejudice, which I found in the hospital gift shop. I find my brother’s room and spot scissors near the sink. They are slightly bloody so I rinse them. My brother is sitting on the floor, his back against the cabinets and his hands on his knees, white knuckles. I start cutting: letters, words, parts of words. Even names, punctuation, and other proper nouns. Even colors and pieces of the advertisements. I hope God does not get mad at me for cutting up the pages of Pride and Prejudice. I assemble the clippings on the floor in front of Henry. It looks like some kind of crossword puzzle, deconstructed, or a bizarre board game. “This must be hard for you,” Sarah says from the bed. I’d thought she was asleep. I stand up and notice her exhaustion. She has a way of looking you straight in the eye like she is seeing into the back of your skull and reading something projected there. “I’m sorry if I woke you up.” I wring my hands. I sit down on the bed next to her. Sometimes I think I can almost feel the tree twisting around my ribs, wrapping over itself like yellow caution tape, a warning, sticky, a reminder of the rules, of control, a reminder of what has room to grow there and what never will. “You can come over anytime, you know. We’ll need help.” “I’d like that.” I wring my hands. “I’ll throw her birthday parties and let her eat ice cream for breakfast when you guys go out of town.” I watch my brother sort, his fingers sure. I wonder about the blueberries, whether they fall. Maybe they just hang there, on tips of branches, waiting for wind.
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[ 12 Secrets 3 — Allie Landecker ‘21 , silver gelatin print, 8in x 8in.
Secrets 8 — Allie Landecker ‘21 , silver gelatin print, 8in x 8in. 13 ]
Midnight Musings Knot
Paranoia
Cherry, Your candy smacks of cough drop — so saccharine, your medicine, lick after lick of Tootsie-roll-pop. How deep do you go? It’s easy to bite. I suck all your blood, and you turn a pale white. I’ve heard a good lover Can knot you with tongue — so why, again, are you so far-flung?
We used to sing, so innocently — before the words had meaning. Now, to ring around the rosie, one’s pocket truly lacks posey. They say to have poise. But how can we? In such noise.
Paperweight A boulder is a place to sit. And it’s where I think of how water can shape, a rock. Pebbles dispersed, so casually, into drives, we kick them, trod and crunch. For what have we destroyed? A nice place — To sit, for one.
Final Draft Ah, the finality. The resolution, justification for a last moment’s edit. It was never planned from the beginning. And that’s the beauty of it — people change, our work unfinished. I certainly did, so why resist — the urge — to hit, submit? Name Tag A bark’s bite is worth more than a dog’s head, or at least the collar round its neck. For after all, time is up — and the pound just can’t hold on.
[ 14
Paul Boardman
Waking — Abe Kaye ‘20, black and white medium format film, 6cm x 7cm. 15 ]
Chicago I’d expected the air outside the airport to feel better than the stale air of the overpriced restaurants and stained lounges, but instead of a fresh breath, I was slapped by the fragrance of cigarette smoke. “Taxi!” shouted my father to each cab that passed by, and each driver would motion to the back of their cab, indicating the customers they already had. “Taxi!” “They need to be prearranged,” said a middle-aged man. “What?” “They need to be prearranged.” The father pointed to the sign above: Prearranged cab pickup. “Where do you prearrange them?” shouted my father. He began walking towards the man so he could hear him better -- there was a lot of noise, for some reason, although very few planes were taking off at the moment. “I think I can pull up the number,” said the man as he pulled out his phone. He became absorbed by it as did my father until a cab pulled up near us, its driver asking for a passenger. He was an aged black man. “There’s a cab here,” said the man to my father, who promptly said thanks and began lugging our bags toward the taxi. “We need to get to the Herald hotel,” said my father, “how far is that?” They exchanged a few words before we began loading the bags. My shoulder with my guitar slung over it was beginning to hurt. I threw a couple bags into the trunk before squeezing into the back of the cab with my backpack, carefully pulling the guitar in after me so that it rested on my lap. My sister and then mother came in after me and my father sat shotgun after he and the driver had finished loading the trunk. The airport’s pale lights guided us away from the terminal; they looked more tired than my father. “How long is the drive?” asked my father. He lay his head back on the headrest and inhaled for the first time that night. “Hour forty-five minutes,” said the taxi driver; a thick African accent that my father had trouble parsing. “Over forty-five minutes?!” “No, sir -- hour forty-five --” “No, I thought you said the drive would be eighty bucks --” “Hundred eighty, sir.” The terminal was already disappearing behind us. My foot was angled strangely under the driver’s seat, but I soon realized that the cramped space in the back left little room for movement. [ 16 Micha Rand ‘22
The tension between the two people in the front formed a noose tightening in on the cab. “No, let us out right now you told me this would be eighty bucks. I didn’t know the hotel was that far.” The cab keeps moving, the side of the driver’s face visible in the side view mirror. “Let us out!” repeats my father. “Sir, I can’t stop right here!” His accent was thick. “I’ll get a ticket!” The airport was becoming small on the horizon. My father’s eyes were not so different from those of a hunted deer. “Stop the car!” He screamed. “Sir, I need to go ‘round, I don’t want to get a ticket!” My father’s lack of understanding prompted my sometimes-too-helpful mother to join in: “Bob, he needs to go around or else he gets --” My mother was cut off abruptly. The rabid fury in the two men sitting in the front was ready to blow, my father ready to erupt. Turning back to face my mother was a father I didn’t recognize: “Don’t argue with me!” he shouted, his words shaking my vision. Grave silence as the cab finally stopped in the middle of the freeway. The driver dug his hands through his frizzy hair. Cars continued to pass us. We could barely see the airport. “Sir if I stop here I get a ticket! I need to go ‘round!” My younger sister buried her face in my mother’s jacket. My mother stayed quiet; her eyes reflected vividly the passing headlights. Now that the driver had stopped, my father took time to consider the best course of action for his family, the driver agonized over the possibility of a ticket any second. “Fine,” said my father, “take us around. “You see, I stop here, I get a ticket!” said the driver. Slowly the cab began moving again. My father looked the driver over, then glanced out the passenger window. He took another breath. “Okay, it was a misunderstanding,” my father was now quiet. “Just take us around.” “I would have got a ticket!” The driver cried. “I need to take you ‘round!” His hands were carefully placed on the steering wheel as if he were taking a driving test. “It was a misunderstanding. Take us around,” my father repeated. After two minutes of silence the cab stopped at another terminal. My father opened his door while the taxi was still in motion. The rest of us -- my mother, sister and I -- waited for a complete stop, and even a couple seconds after that. The trunk opened and my father started tossing our luggage onto the sidewalk. My mother exited, then my sister, then me, with my guitar and my backpack. “Bye,” said my father. He wanted the driver gone. “Bye!” The driver opened his door, shaking, and looked at me, then my sister. Through the airport’s noise, he asked us a question. “Children, what kind of father is that?” He shook his head, stepped into the cab, and drove away hastily. stone-cutters 2020 17 ]
[ 18 Dame un abrazo — Oscar Montanez Garay ‘20, acrylic on panel, 48in x 36in.
The House That She Built I never liked it when my mother’s parents would come over. Their visits meant a smothering of unwanted affection — my lola’s love is a paranoid love. She won’t go to the beaches in Manila because she’s afraid of getting snatched in broad daylight by a kidnapper. When we drive down Chautauqua, she warns us not to give money to the beggars. They’ll pull you out the window, she promises us, wide-eyed. Every time they would visit us in LA, we’d make the pilgrimage to Max’s. Max’s of Manila is a Filipino fried chicken chain restaurant. It is also in Glendale — which meant a two-hour ride with all six of us squeezed into the car, my sister and I shoved into the back. All for food that sat too heavy and unfamiliar, just like the menu. No matter what odd time we got there (3:00 or 1:45), we’d have to wait for a table in the front area full of huge Filipino families, with lolos and kuyas. After my lolo died, I held her hand and walked her to a seat. My lola’s bones are like a bird’s — hollow and light enough for flight, even though I know she hates leaving her house. Max’s felt like a punishment for some crime my sister and I never committed. The chairs were sticky, the food wasn’t anything we’d eat, and I could only read half the menu. They didn’t even have real ketchup — just banana ketchup, sickly sweet and much thinner. My lola doesn’t kiss me — she just leans close and sniffs with suspicion — she’s always suspicious. Her hugs are like a vise, sometimes, but brittle. She presses me close into her and sniffs. She’s delicate; she collects Beanie Babies, because she’s certain they’ll be worth money, and they sit in a glass cage in her house, all of them stacked on each other with their black eyes staring out into the living room. Every now and then, before my lolo died and when he seemed close to it, we would all go over to their house, even though there is not enough room for eight people. The furniture is stiff and antiquated — a farce of some old period — and I can never get comfortable on the couch. Her house is stuffy and hot, stagnation hanging over everything. And the TV is always on, blaring in the background. Maybe none of us liked going to their house, but it’s the duty we owe. I think I hate Max’s. It’s because of the car ride that winds towards Glendale for two hours, because of the voices that crowd the waiting area, and the unfamiliarity of the tongue. And, maybe, I don’t always like being with my lola either. Max’s is another duty I owe. Maybe it’s what I owe when my lola gestures me over before she leaves and presses a hundred-dollar bill into my palm. Maybe it’s what I owe because I don’t respond to her emails on time, letting them sit in the inbox, unopened. If it isn’t cash, she gives us bracelets and earrings — I’ve let my ears close up. And so we go to Max’s. Maya Doyle ‘21 19 ]
[ 20 Oppression — Kacey Kim ‘21, vinyl structure and markers, 3ft x 3ft x 3ft.
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On the ISS When Olstad grabs you and says, Come look at this, you are expecting one of the rats to have surrendered to radiation and grown a second head. He brings you to the window, where Hayakawa is, and she is crying, but the weightlessness means her tears are unable to fall; they cling to one another instead, nestling atop the ridges of her cheeks. To the left, Boardley’s laptop is latched to a desk and buffering a video call; the other side is frozen in 240p. You ask Olstad totell you what is happening, but before he can answer Boardley shoots into the room, Chernyshevsky in tow, and you whip your head to look at them, so you end up seeing the flames not in their true form, but as a wash of red light over Boardley’s broad, bearded face, as though San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk came to life like something out of Pygmalion’s workshop. Hayakawa says, Oh, God, so you turn again, and Hawai’i is ablaze, and it’s at that moment that the world discovers man-made shooting stars: a bushel of them streaks out of North Dakota and makes a great arc over the country before it impacts just past the globe’s curve. The image on Boardley’s laptop crystalizes into his bleary-eyed wife and messy-haired young sons; he pushes off a wall to meet them, and though it is, of course, impossible to see, you feel a house light up in the suburbs of Chicago. Chernyshevsky is clutching the radio receiver, paging Roscosmos, and the ESA, and NASA, and no one is answering. Los Angeles is hit, and Houston, and New York. Lake Michigan’s vast nocturnal blackness gives way to autumnal amber and Boardley loses connection. More missiles. Swaths of fire trace their way like bright orange adders down from Hudson Bay to Cape Horn. Hayakawa and Olstad hold a slumped Boardley between them. The receiver crackles to life; Cherneshevsky lunges for it. I’m so sorry, says the ragged stranger on the other end, There is no point in coming home. Chernyshevsky slams the receiver into its station. He pinches the bridge of his nose. The five of you watch the Earth twirl slowly on its axis. Smoke billows out toward the sea, evacuating each freshly-decimated metropolis. At their deltas, rivers splinter and metamorphose into drizzles of molten glass. The missiles stop coming. Olstad leaves the room and returns with his favorite rat, Anakin, in a portable cage. The six of you watch the fires go out. One after another after another.
[ 22 Felicity Phelan ‘21
Two Girls — Cleo Maloney ‘21, oil paint, 10in x 8in. 23 ]
Explain the Stars It is so unfortunate That I have never met a story I couldn’t finish, Because you, You are a story, And you could never start one. Start one properly, I mean, You fall asleep when watching movies at night And don’t understand them come the morning. Not even sitting with the stars outside, Where the night is dark and the dark is deep, Not even that could hold you My pleas, to stay awake, just a little longer while I explain the stars, Not even I could keep you tied to consciousness.
[ 24 Monica Martell ‘20
Curious I watched you shift beneath the shadow of their hungry eyes. There is no room for shade where masterpieces are concerned. You learned that before lunch, with the whimpering noise in your room that you couldn’t escape. But you don’t believe in ghosts. Anyway some things still slip beneath the door no matter the fingers we jam underneath. I know some things. You tripped up and won them over before the whistle was blown. And the game was called. And they went home. You cried lakes into trophy cups and wanted to drown peacefully in them.
(We must stop these funny thoughts, though.) We must or else we are at risk of forming parallel through concrete cities, sick of ourselves and suffocating. Anyway it’s all to say that when you win there is pain in your left thumb. When you were seven, slammed in a car door, by yourself. (But not in that way. Innocent pain.) You say you’re a happy person sometimes, and I like that. I want to know more about everything you’ve felt. Something in that story, I spin a bit around it. Anyway, some touch memories last. What can you do?
Zoe Redlich ‘20 25 ]
[ 26
Yellow Fever — Kacey Kim ‘21, acrylic, 9in x 12in each.
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existentialism in the eyes of a sixteen year old track runner What do you mean when you talk about love? I guess everybody just has to do the things that make them feel the most real What can people do with their wasted youth? and how they feel about their friends after their thirtieth mistake? I have a theory now that I’m older. My theory is that I loved swimming so much as a kid because whenever I went underwater I could just be there, underwater, without a gun to my head or anything. Aren’t you tired of choking on air?
[ 28 Sammy Kimball ‘21
and of saying “god bless you” whenever your enemies sneeze? Who do my parents think they are, telling me what’s good for me? There isn’t a kid in the world that doesn’t wiggle their loose teeth. Don’t you feel like you’re on the brink of a realization? Sir, the realization is as good as it gets! As close as you’ll ever get! To unadulterated oneness with reality! Can you see the shine off of my new shoes? I just got them, they’re adidas. You won’t believe what my mom said to me this morning she said: “text while driving if you want to meet god”
Homage to the Internet — Spencer Klink ‘20, digital collage, 20in x 20in.
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Pantomime in Red As I ascended to the 45th floor of the building where my audition would take place, I checked my ill-defined reflection, a spirit conjured into partial reality on the transparent elevator glass. I reached into my purse. Smeared on more lipstick the brazen, glossy red of a pomegranate seed. The other girls were spread around the waiting room like carefully positioned flower arrangements. Some of them were trembling. I could almost see the wilting petals in their hair. When the girl next to me was called, I shot her a vermillion smile. “I hope you do well!” She didn’t reply. At least, her lips didn’t move. But a whisper seemed to flutter, mothlike, from its nesting place in her dense fake eyelashes: “I hope you don’t.” I found that I couldn’t get my lines out that day. They were burrs – they stuck to my tongue, prickled my throat, choked me. Surrounded again by the elevator’s glass, gliding down the skyscraper like a tear making its path down a steel cheek, my reflection had become whiter, less than a whisper on the elevator wall. “So, how’d it go?” “Oh, alright,” I breathed, and turned my head away, feeling listless despite the partygoers and waves of red solo cups that churned around me. From behind, the bodiless voice spoke again. “Do you think you got the part?” I retreated to the bathroom, tossing glass excuses over my shoulder, not waiting around for them to shatter. Looked in the mirror. I had grown paler, almost translucent. The veins in my eyes were symbols traced with red string in snow, my lips a bleeding gash. On my forehead, a pink splotch had bloomed. I left the party early. I wondered if, in some utopian dimension, there was a device with which I could erase my blemishes. I wondered how it would feel to erase myself. At the next audition, I recited my lines perfectly. I slipped easily into the quicksand of being someone not myself. The pretending was a sauna, soothing my sore bones and filling my head with fumes. The lines cradled to their breast a sadness like a bundle of stones with words carved into them in another language, tied together with string. I wept reading them, the salt of the tears branding my skin. The man behind the desk narrowed his eyes at me. “That was good. Could you try it again without the crying?” So I did. [ 30 Nicole Austen ‘21
Afterwards, I wiped viciously at my face in the bathroom, as though trying to tear off my red-rimmed eyes, my red offending mouth, the blush red of the pimples breaking out across my forehead. When I looked in the mirror, my face was cleaner, and paler somehow. The outline of the bathroom stalls projected sharply through my reflection. Like I’d been worried at with a bad eraser, partly faded. I sprinted back to the waiting room, clutching the walls to steady myself. “Can you see me?” I demanded of the other girls, voice cracking around the razors that my body had become. “Am I disappearing?” “Of course not,” one of them said. “You alright though? You look awful.” I staggered back to the bathroom, hands fumbling in my purse to be certain I had what I needed. Concealer for the zits and the faint scratch-marks I’d left with my own nails, long pink bars down my face. Eye makeup so no one could tell I’d been crying. Lipstick, a stop sign, holding back the words no one wanted to hear me say. When I looked in the mirror again, my face was gone. All I saw was red.
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[ 32
Adolescence — Katie Frazee ‘20, oil on canvas, 24in x 30in.
Giant Steps I am the giant Who throws the blanket over the sky at night Who wakes up the sun and paints rainbows in the sky. The globe only spins because my footsteps turn it, And you do not have the courtesy To lay out a place for me to rest when I fall.
Monica Martell ‘20 33 ]
[ 34
Snail — Haley Levin ‘20, ink on paper, 11in x 14in.
made in Google Docs Title WIP Times New Roman font 12 point size; no more, no less 1.5 spacing now it’s time to write starting is the hardest step all downhill from here but first a quick break ...one more video can’t hurt what’s the time again? 11:50 due 11:59 9 minutes. that’s fine 71 words out of how many? oh, wow but it’ll work out right?
Matthew Redford ‘21 35 ]
Mud Angels There is a certain melodrama that can’t quite be filtered out of the air, come dusk. It rattles around the chambers of my lungs and attempts to excite something within my steady veins. Then the heaviness empties, and it was the clouds holding their breath, so now it is raining. Naturally, it is time for a tea party, so I delicately pour my two cups of chamomile and sit on the edge of my bathtub, talking with the mirror, and occasionally to the reflected mouths, whispering in the tiles, gathered around my toes. After a brief and rather heated discussion regarding the presidential candidates and their individual chances of winning the upcoming season of America’s Got Talent, we turn to philosophy and with almost no hesitation, give up on the idea of self-worth. But only for a moment. Then we sing sorrowful versions of lullabies stolen straight from our mothers’ mouths. Mother’s mouths? Either way, one of us ends up channeling Pete Seeger which is most certainly the delayed result of our father’s DNA tangled up somewhere around our bones. Our fathers’ DNA? It all becomes slightly foggy in that way, that is, the singularity of what we’ve become. Fortunately, I remember I left the twine from the undone cat toy beside the sink, so I tie my parts together again, really quite neatly. I then try to tie the rain in too, but it is elusive as always, and I end up in the yard, soaked through, andmaking snow angels in the mud. How pleasant the idea is of being inside now. Look there! My mother at the phone, humming through the receiver, fingers tapping out melodies on the kitchen table. And there! My father working on the puzzle with the missing corner piece, now lying quietly in the stomach of the sleeping dog. And oh, how lovely I look perched by the window, breathing. A picture of serenity in the midst of the downpour. While someone else lies shivering in the grass, drenched, the water diluting her burning blood.
[ 36
Zoe Redlich ‘20
Remote Collaboration — AP Art & 2-D Design, digital painting, size variable.
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a chrysalis of quilt For: Mom. i am overwhelmingly aware of all the attention you commit to building castles out of toothpicks, they rock back and forth side to side drifting cautiously on the edge of bubbling waves as they crash firmly on the shore, never betraying structure in response to impact again and again, a never ending hydraulic cycle of sensitivity that requires strength the whole process must be nauseating, producing some hybrid of sea sickness and unconditional love you nestle a magical, swirling portal of tolerance for shrugs, for dirty socks, for missed goodbyes, for neglected breakfasts. your compassion! the thickness and absolutely motionless grip it maintains on its love is nothing short of a miracle i may not pray in the way you would prefer, but i can promise you that if i searched in the skies for a God, the first thing I would ask of Her is that She protect you [38
Alexandra Du Manoir ‘21
because you have tirelessly stitched together a quilt around our home it shields when it needs to, but allows sunlight to drift in on its own accord i can observe the outside world intently, without tripping over my own toes without wincing bruises and shallow scratches the quilt is made up of bandaids of vaseline of lemon and honey that drips continuously into our drains healing and rest and rejuvenation and growth: my skin is slowly but surely being woven into squares of this quiltits sticky consistency seeping through my clothes one day, i will exit the oval portal- glistening and watchful and curious- and i will be a quilt woman like you and like you have raised me to be.
The High Line — Athalia Meron ‘21, enamel on glass, 8in x 10in.
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Bermuda You and I were different two years ago when we met. You were pastel, Bermuda shorts, watermelon gum and coconut shaving cream. You wore Mickey ears and stole away to the French room to practice with Madame Julie. You wore rose velvet pumps and straightened your strawberryblonde hair in the oval mirror in your room painted over with gold. You sang though your voice was shrill, told stories in the shower even when your ideas were chopped and flaking like hangnails and your emotions were rotting away in the spreading mold of time. You followed the trends a month behind and blossomed in quiet, ripening with the passing of weeks and grades in the mail. You shook your head at rumors and pressed your hand easily against your cheek - you had nothing to hide - and gave the world an earnest look with coal eyes that blended seamlessly into your lashes. Your freckled forehead slanted up in the spring and down in December, when you wrote about Quebec during Christmastime and your love for lemon wedge-meringues. You were a sunbeam peering curiously through a cloud, with no anticipation, just fascination with us, just little dolls in little dresses at a little school with little emotions. Your mind bled through your body so your actions held every question in the muscles and skin. You knew everything, but just barely so, and you were a curiosity. I met you and I hid behind a sheen of sweat so bright I thought the stars would burn your eyes. We reached for one can of raspberry lemonade - I pulled away, you clenched your fist twice as hard and fished it out of the ice, condensation running down your wrists and rusting your golden chains. I ripped a cuticle from its resting place and fiddled with the water dispenser until you disappeared. Two days later, you asked me do you need a ride home today? Yes, I said. Great. You gripped my arm and led me from the bus stop. Now? Yes. My mom said I couldn’t stay, but I did anyway. We ate packets of dried seaweed by your saltwater pool and watched your puppy roll around in the dew as the sun set, brandishing fireflies and the smell of sweet corn and barbecue sauce. Are you staying for dinner? you asked. Can’t. I wiped my sticky palms on my ill-fitted jeans - I didn’t have a belt. See ya. Bye. I came home with sunscreen imprinted on my nose and a henna tattoo on my bicep. My mom smudged off the flecks of white from my cheeks and asked me if I was in love. I told her hardly. She asked me if I’d made a friend. I told her I don’t know. [40
Sarah Mittleman ‘22
That night I lay in bed and watched the summer bleed into black. It was going to be a rainy autumn, I just didn’t know it yet. I slept to the scent of coconut and lemonade, seaweed in my teeth. Now I see the weight of your shoulders and the crunch of every leaf under your pumps, the frizz spiking up off the top of your scalp and the unsteady way you rise from your seat in class. I wonder, each time with a jolt, if this was caused indirectly or directly by me - I already know it was my doing - and if I would take it back. You were a neon light in a shroud of gray, a natural in a world of desperation, and I was another girl who always slips the mascara wand down her eye and strikes her hair too hard with the comb. You were a bolt of pure, radiating energy in the sea, causing tide pools and crashing waves with every turn. We were faded in the background like old stamps on ancient mail. In the cafeteria, you won’t eat salt or fat or dairy. You brush your hair in the halls; I catch you singing Taylor Swift with the teacher in the practice room; you patch up your freckles like they’re gaping wounds. The mirror flashes an image of you back at me, and I see your youth and fresh, hot blood that poured through your porcelain skin and circulated through you like honey. Where did you go? I ask you. Nowhere. I tap my chest. Here, I mean. You laugh. Pretty sure my ribcage is still intact. I laugh. You walk away without saying goodbye. Sometimes you come back in the form of crystal - I watch you notice your reflection, notice how your eyes sparkle once again. I’d love to see that sparkle for me. Where did you go, girl? The Bermuda Triangle. Where did you go? Grocery store, last week? Where? To study for a test with Mr. Bernard. Where are you? Up your ass. The world is too large for someone so small to hold.
stone-cutters 2020
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River Styx— Kate Mumford ‘20, oil and acrylic on wood, 9in x 6in.
Untitled — Lola Butan ‘21, oil on canvas, 24in x 36in.
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A special thanks to Anna, Emma, and Zoe— the best seniors editors—for their incredible work the past three years.
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stone-cutters 2020
al lado — Santiago Salazar ‘21, black and white 35mm film, 8in x 12in.
Stubbing My Toe — Abe Kaye ‘20 , b&w photography, 20in x 8in.
Senior Editors: Junior Editors: Staff:
Anna Katz, Emma Poveda, and Zoe Redlich Nicole Austen, Maya Doyle, Athalia Meron, and Santiago Salazar Elise Chen, Alexa Druyanoff, Sarah Mittleman, Maddie Morrison, Frances Ross, Izzy Welsh, and Joie Zhang
Faculty advisors:
Jesse Chehak ‘97 + Lucas Gonzalez
All typeface is Prensa printed on 100# FSC Certified paper stock with 4/4cp and PUR bound. 250 copies of this book were printed at Paper Chase Press in Los Angeles, CA and distributed at Harvard-Westlake School in the Fall of 2020.