The Collective Magazine: Issue 006 by The Collective Magazine

TEAM FOUNDER/CREATIVE DIRECTOR Chantal Vaca EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Eunice Alpasan EVENT PLANNER/ASST. CREATIVE DIRECTOR Emma Sielaff CURATORS Eunice Alpasan Rusty Green Emma Sielaff Elle Terrado Chantal Vaca COVER ARTIST Emma Sielaff WRITERS Anna Pevey Chantal Vaca LAYOUT DESIGN Rusty Green Iffat Memon Emma Sielaff Chantal Vaca

ISSUE 006 19

Reader Check-In

frosted flakes treilage

Rebirth of the Naked Baby

Letter From the Team

The Garden of Ediacara

Alina

stagnant stretching

Maggie on Bricks

Something Like Memory

Lick

Blast From The Past

Comfort

Inner Bliss

All Done Here

Emotions in Art

Untitled

Coloring Page

‘An academic in sex work’

From the Windy City, Through the Plaything Cornfields, Across the Atlantic and Back: Interview with Cover 56 Artist Emma Sielaff Overworked, Underappreciated

Life Giving Energy

82:88

The Book of Fuzz

Smug Lil Mugs

Traveler’s Disposition

Meet the Artists

Wait For Us, Just For Now

May 2020 Dear Reader, The Collective Magazine is more than an art magazine. We are a community of artists and students that collaborate, express, share and enjoy each other’s company through the array of events we host throughout the year. These moments we share together are what make The Collective what it is. Each semester, we rely heavily on being with one another to make each issue as special as they are. With the efforts to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, we haven’t been able to gather as a community as we usually would. Issue 006 is still as special as each issue that came before it. This issue is not only a celebration of the artists, work and team that created it, but is most importantly a way to connect with one another while we can’t in person. Even though we can’t be there to share a hug, drink, kiss, cry or laugh, we’re still together through this issue. So, sit in the sun, get comfy and put on a smile because we’re here to celebrate in solidarity but as a community. As always, thank you for supporting us. We hope to see you soon. For now, enjoy. With love, The Collective Magazine <3

ART BY BRENDAN O’SHAUGHNESSY The Garden of Ediacara (2020)

ART BY KRISTINA SUTTERLIN Alina (2018)

ART BY ILAN ELENBOGEN stagnant stretching (2019)

ART BY KAITLIN SMRCINA Maggie on Bricks (2020)

ART BY ST. ROBBERY Something Like Memory (2020)

Reader Check-In Traditionally, The Collective Magazine publishes the hand written responses of attendees at a house show in Urbana, Illinois, to a question we asked. With a statewide stay-at-home order in place, we checked in with our readers through Instagram by asking a series of questions. GRAPHIC BY RUSTY GREEN

What are you happy about today? - Waking up early and being productive - Repotted some of my plants - My cat - The rain

What have you been binge watching while staying home? - American Horror Story - Bojack Horseman - Harvey Birdman - That 70s Show - Steven Universe

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What is your goal for today? - Make art for my class instead of for myself - Make tea and sit in the sun - Make vegan brownies - Sleep before midnight - Take a walk

What have you been doing during lockdown? - All of the yoga, so I can be zen as fuck - Crocheting a cardigan from scratch - Catching up with my family - Trying new recipes - Writing poetry - Art my dudes!

What is the first thing you will do after quarantine? - Go back to campus to see my friends - Kiss all the homies goodnight - Have a picnic with friends - Party until I drop - Go to the club

ART BY TEST TEST (2019)

ART BY ILAN ELENBOGEN frosted flakes treilage (2020)

ART BY MARIA SPECK Rebirth of the Naked Baby (2020)

ART BY VICTOR AVITIA Comfort (2018)

ART BY MARIA SPECK All Done Here (2019)

ART BY TEST TEST (2019)

ART BY BRENDAN O’SHAUGHNESSY Untitled (2019)

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ART BY EMMA SIELAFF Letting out my FEELINGS (2020)

met Chicago native Emma Sielaff in the fall of 2016 my freshman year at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Allen Hall. She lived in the dorm next to mine, and we quickly became friends. We shared a communal bathroom with the rest of our floor, we ate dinner in the dining hall and we explored Urbana house shows. At the time, she was a division of general studies major and always drew on USPS priority mail stickers and randomly placed them around town. I’ve never met anyone like Emma. She’s loud, silly, adventurous, free-spirited and loving. On a summer night before our sophomore year, I told Emma my idea for creating The Collective Magazine. Immediately, she was on board. She became one of the co-founders and took the role of head of event planning. Second semester of sophomore year, Emma transferred to the new media major in the School of Art and Design. She is an illustrator, papermaker and zine maker. In honor of her last semester at U of I and working with The Collective Magazine, we chose Emma to design our sixth cover. Without her support and dedication for planning numerous events, ranging from art galleries to house shows, The Collective Magazine would not be where it is today.

Up Bird Chronicle” by Haruki Murukami, along with a blue Bic lighter, a half melted candle and an inhaler. A clear string lined with pink and orange butterflies hangs from the ceiling. The walls are covered in art and posters I recognize from her freshman year dorm, like the Alice in Wonderland poster that hangs above her bed with the Chesire cat smiling down at us as we chat. You’ve been working with The Collective Magazine for three years now. How does it feel to work on the cover for our sixth issue? I’m like, “Hell yes, bitch!” I’ve been waiting. It feels right though because this is my little baby, and I’ve had work in it every time. I’ve always wanted to do the cover, so it feels good as my little parting from the magazine. It feels right. It feels like a nice goodbye and a nice ending for me. You’re graduating soon. How do you ART BY EMMA SIELAFF Stuck (2020) feel about pursuing an art education through a university?

I don’t like new media, just the program itself here. I think new media is a really cool art form, and I think it’s really underrated, and no one really understands or talks about it, so it’s really cool to learn about it. Being an art student at a Now as seniors, we sit on her bed and chat about research university hasn’t been as fun and experher experience as an art major and her artwork. imental as you want art to be. A lot of my profesOn her bedside table lies the book “The Wind- sors, and the school in general, just kinda drill

certain techniques into you just because they’re like, “You have to learn this!” I wish the new media program was a little bit more fun and a little bit more experimental that challenges more of your personal growth, which is what I got ahold of when I went to London, and I was learning illustration, which is what I really wanted to do. The only reason I’m in new media is because I didn’t really like a lot of the art majors they offered here, and new media seemed like the one that was broad enough for me to be able to dabble into a lot of things. I didn’t want to just do painting. I mean I paint things, but I didn’t want to just paint. I didn’t really want to just do graphic design. So, I chose new media, but illustration was what I was really intrigued with, and that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to do drawing and illustration, so when I went to London, it was really fun because I felt pushed to pursue my own personal style, rather than pursuing what the school wants to drill into me, so I can get a job. I think going to art school is really great, regardless of how much I don’t like it here. Just the community is really cool. I think it’s important to see other artists at your age and what they’re doing, not to compare yourselves to them but to be open to what you can make. I would not recommend going to art school here for anyone, but it is getting better, so that’s cool. How would you define new media? How they teach it at this school, I would say it’s really video and coding based. You’re learning a lot of video techniques, and you’re really pushed to create different sorts of videos under whatever category they assign you. It’s very video based and very coding heavy at this school, like website design and learning design coding, which is useful and interesting to some degree. After a while, it becomes the same old thing. It’d be cool to get more hands-on and animation-type digital stuff, but that isn’t something they teach here. New media is really weird to define because it’s something that’s been around for a really long time.

There were a lot of groundbreaking artists in the ‘60s and ‘70s that were doing new media stuff, but it wasn’t defined as that yet, like Nam June Paik was really big. I think it’s playing around experimentally digitally, so kind of what we’ve been taught with video and coding. It’s all technology and video based, and then I think it’s kinda what you make out of it. How do you think your semester abroad in London impacted you as an artist and your work? It definitely changed everything entirely. Before I came into it, I was doing a lot of drawing, and I knew that’s what I wanted to do, but I wasn’t really pushed to do that through the school. I was really into papermaking and just exploring a lot. When I came to London, I was ready to finally learn what I’d been wanting to learn because I hadn’t been pushed (at U of I), which is still an issue here, and I think you just have to push yourself on your own. I was really intrigued on learning illustration and drawing because I’ve always been interested in drawing cartoon-like characters and stuff. I still draw a lot of that, but I think (London) changed a lot of me because of structurally how the school is run, which is much more lax and it’s up to you to create whatever you want, and you can do it in your style, and it’s really open ended. When you’re given a little bit more freedom, which is what I wanted, it just felt so much better. The first project I did there was definitely in my safe zone. I just created a digital drawing. What really changed was the second project I did. I started making more experimental work because I was pushing myself. I felt like I drew a lot and it had to be clean and precise, so I started just fucking around and experimenting with different materials and started painting a lot of abstract things. The second project really changed me because I made a whole puppet box and built it from scratch out of wood and never did any woodwork before.

ART BY EMMA SIELAFF Indifference (2019)

ART BY EMMA SIELAFF Icon (2019)

I painted the whole thing, and I wrote a whole story, and I made all the characters and the set, and then I had to perform it. It was something I’d never ever done before, and I realized I loved it because I loved being hands-on with my work, rather than being super digital. You work across many mediums, including photography, papermaking, zinemaking, illustrating and painting. Is there an artform you like working with the most? I think illustration is really big and broad as a category. It’s not just drawings and cartoons. It can be so much more, and I think illustration is really about telling a story with whatever you’re creating. My work is somewhat illustration based, but I don’t think illustration is a medium. You can do illustration with photography and obviously with painting and drawing, but currently I’m really interested in papermaking because it’s really fun and hands-on. It’s really fun to create the material that I make my work on. Papermaking itself is an art because making the paper and dying the paper and what you can make the paper out of is really fun. I’m also currently interested in zinemaking, and I think illustration really flows into that and book arts. I love making little books. It’s so satisfying to see spreads of things. Zines are fun. Zines are my calling right now. I just want to make zines forever. The first zine I ever made was in London. I remember it was the first time I was using InDesign and we had to write an essay about what we wanted to do. Mine was about what I want to do with my future with what I’ve learned. We had to write the essay and then design it in InDesign. I remember formatting it in InDesign, and I put all this imagery in it. A few days later, I was like, “I’m gonna make a little book of random images, and it’ll be a little book of random images.” I made this zine because I thought it would be fun. Little did I know, it would stem into my life now. What intrigued me about it was the materiality of it. A lot of the zines I make are my imagery, so paintings

ART BY EMMA SIELAFF Little Motto (2020)

and pictures or weird things I’ve edited on photoshop. It’s a good way for me to encapsulate a lot of the things I’m making instead of just showing a painting I made. Here’s this painting, and I blew it up, and I digitalized it, and I put it in a zine. I think it’s a nice way to put a lot of work I made together in one and to fuck around with imagery, which is something I’m intrigued with. Looking at your work, I’ve noticed you use a lot of eccentric colors like lime green. I’ve also noticed you use a lot of primary colors. What attracts you to these colors? I’ve always really liked vibrant colors in my work. That’s something I’ve always had in my work. Color is fucking fun. It just makes something pop. If you know me, you know I’m super eccentric, and I want all the attention on me all the time. So, when I make my work, that bleeds out into it, and I want attention put on the work, so I want the 26

A lot of my art currently has been stemming from questions that I ask myself or thoughts that I’m having as a way of therapy. That’s helped a lot with my mental health. A lot of it has been writing out what I think and creating art from it to better understand sad thoughts that I have. That just comes out when you’re creating, and you’re thinking a lot and feeling a lot. That’s what’s been what’s happening because I feel like I’ve been thinking a lot and making a lot and feeling a lot. I think that’s a part making art, trying to find truth in your own art. What has been the most challenging piece you’ve worked on?

ART BY EMMA SIELAFF Big Happy (2020)

work to be vibrant and stand out. Primary color wise, I don’t even know. They stand and they go well together. I don’t know why I’m so attracted to them, but I literally today walked out the house wearing this yellow sweater and my red jacket and my blue jeans. I don’t know why I like them. I just like them because they go together and they stand out, and I want my art to stand out.

That book I just made, “Fried Egs.” That was a fucking crazy experience. Currently, that was the most challenging piece. I’d had the idea, had it all semester. Basically, it came down to wanting to make it for the exhibition. Honestly, this exhibition came sooner than I thought, and I lost a week for personal reasons. I made that whole book in a week. I printed out the images on a Sunday, and then that week went by where I didn’t do anything, but then our exhibition was on Friday and I had all the materials, but I hadn’t done any-

I’ve also noticed that while there’s bright colors that are associated with happiness, there’s a theme of sadness. Can you share more about this contrast within your work? My personal feelings have really bled into my work. A lot of my work is very childlike. I love using vibrant colors. I love scribbling things. I love Hello Kitty. I love very playful very childlike imagery. I love cartoons. I love smiley faces. I think that’s always been a part of my work. Currently, a lot of my personal life has been stemming into my work or a lot of my thoughts and what I think to myself, especially about graduating, going through some things with relationships, being here in the cornfields and having nothing to do.

ART BY EMMA SIELAFF Big Sad (2020)

ART BY EMMA SIELAFF FRIED EGS (2020)

thing. I spent the week making it. I cut all the fabrics, ironed all the fabrics, and then I had to lay out all the fabrics. A lot of it was me thinking technically about how I was gonna sew it, and how they were gonna be laid out. I made the pages, and then I had to sew the images onto the pages, and then once all the pages were made, I had to sew them all together. We had to set up Thursday, and I sewed it all Wednesday night. I stayed up ‘til 2 or 3 a.m. every night that week making shit

for that exhibition. I was super nervous to sew that book because I had to sew it inside out so the seams don’t show. That was the hardest thing I ever made because I did it in an incredibly fast amount of time and because I was under pressure. Now it is my child, but that was really hard to make.

ART BY SUNCLOUD0 Life Giving Energy (2020)

ART BY YESHUA XXX 82:88 (2020)

ART BY SKYLAR CHISM The Book of Fuzz (2020)

ART BY ELLE TERRADO Wait For Us, Just For Now (2020)

Art is the union of creation and expression. Art’s catalyst, inspiration, is like art, boundless and exists in all forms. I spoke to local artists Valerie Morrice and Conner Meek about their artwork’s sources of inspiration.

Valerie Morrice Graphic design and new media major at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

“I think I make my best pieces when I am desperate for something new to happen to me, or I’m mega sad and frustrated. I tend to feel like this after I go to a party and see that everyone is happy and having fun, and I’m getting hit with sleepiness or boredom. A lot of the art I make is me summarizing places and events I go to, expressing it through my art.”

ART BY VALERIE MORRICE Portrait of my friend Abi (2018)

“The first time I went to a college party I was super overwhelmed with feelings of being underdressed and out of place. I felt severely uncool seeing everyone drink in their stellar outfits as I went to that party with the clothes I wore to class with my backpack. The next day I tried to summarize the party in my sketchbook with really shitty line work and sloppy coloring, and I ended up loving that style, and to this day, I still try to imitate that type of art.”

ART BY VALERIE MORRICE Salt (2018)

“I am heavily influenced by nature and mythology. Turning my wife or friends into depictions of old and powerful heroes or goddesses paints a story for me that is better than any book I could read. I was a biology major in college because of my fascination with the natural world. I am also influenced by pain. Vincent Van Gogh took years of depression and anxiety and used that energy to create enthralling and mystifying imagery. I view him as an inspiration when I use my own experiences with drug abuse and depression when attempting to convey these struggles with beauty.”

ART BY CONNER MEEK Untitled (2019)

Conner

Meek Writer and digital artist from Jacksonville, Illinois. Meek wrote and illustrated the fantasy novel, “The Complete History of Zuran.”

ART BY CONNER MEEK Untitled (2020)

“I believe the definition of art is the physical expression or representation of emotion. Emotions influence every decision a person makes in my opinion. In my own work, I enjoy self-portraits for just this reason, like a form of self-therapy. I have depicted myself as powerful, sickly, scared and stupid. I have painted myself in a cruel light and that of a savior.

During my detox from drug abuse, I depicted myself with self-deprecating tattoos and snakes erupting from my mouth and nose. Even if you don't know me and weren't told the backstory of the piece, I feel it is fairly easy to see that the artist was coming from a place of sadness or pain. My most recent self-portrait is bordered with animals and flowers. The piece still invokes some somberness, but I think it appears much more uplifting and hopeful than my previous work.” 38

ART BY VICTOR AVITIA Lick (2018)

ART BY JACK SCARO Blast From The Past (2020)

ART BY TAYLOR CHISM Inner Bliss (2020)

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ART BY RUSTY GREEN Plaything (2020)

ART BY RUSTY GREEN Overworked, Underappreciated (2020)

ART BY ANNABEL HUBER Smug Lil Mugs (2020)

ART BY KRISTINA SUTTERLIN Traveler’s Disposition (2018)

Meet the Artists Does this make sense what I’m saying? IG: @big.smiley.face

EMMA SIELAFF

Kristina is a freelance and commission artist that specializes in expressive portraiture and considers storytelling to be a vital part of her work. IG: @kristina.sutterlin.art

KRISTINA SUTTERLIN

I work with non-functional forms that strive to simplify art sculptures in a satirical way, making art objects more visually accessible and appealing to any audience.

KAITLIN SMRCINA 59

I am excited about the intrinsic playfulness of fiber and textiles and how it relates to the bizarre ecology of cnidarians, fungi and porifera.

BRENDAN O’SHAUGHNESSY

I photograph locations I find interesting regarding shapes, colors, textures etc. and use them to inspire my design. U of I class of 2023, BA in Graphic Design.

ILAN ELENBOGEN

give me all your money.

ST. ROBBERY

Meet the Artists My paintings are forms of social criticism. I build worlds which reflect human nature and the shifting conditions of the real.

MARIA SPECK

Bobby is an artist and a human. Bobby Loves You.

BOBBY SAX (SUNCLOUD0)

Give yourself over to joy and your life will flow.

SKYLAR CHISM

Hey! I’m Victor, and I like making all kinds of art. IG: @victoravitia

VICTOR AVITIA

Yeshua XXX: art hoe, faggot, stoner. www.yeshua.xxx IG: @shu.b.doo

YESHUA XXX

I am really fun. IG: @etrdo TikTok: @mouseboob

ELLE TERRADO 60

Meet the Artists My art to me is just raw and unplanned. I’m a strong believer in saying it’s not about the equipment or money, but how you’re able to capture a moment. IG: @jackscareoh

JACK SCARO

Fake it ‘til you make it. IG:@ IHateRusty; @Rustll

Making art brings me so much joy and I hope I can keep creating for the rest of my life. I love it as a hobby, I love it as a job, and I love it when it brings happiness to someone else.

TAYLOR CHISM

I’m a junior industrial design student, but I have a great big passion for ceramics and sculpture! IG: @a.k.huber

RUSTY GREEN

ANNABEL HUBER