CARRIER PIGEON MAGAZINE - VOL4 ISSUE4 by Travis Witmer

C A R R I ER PI GE ON I LLUS T R AT ED F IC T ION & F I N E A RT

MASTHEAD EDITOR & CHIEF Russ Spitkovsky

CUR ATORS

Matt Barteluce, Joo Chung,

GR APHIC DESIGNER Travis Witmer

STAFF DESIGNER Matt Barteluce COPY EDITOR

Desiree Burstein CONTENT EDITORS Desiree Burstein, Ben Schaeffer, Russ Spitkovsky BUSINESS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS Ben Schaeffer,

Matt Barteluce EVENTS

Christina Pumo EXHIBITION COORDINATOR

Christina Pumo, Russ Spitkovsky, Evan Summer, Bruce Waldman SHIPPING AND RECEIVING Denise Braunstetter

DIGITAL COMMUNICATIONS AND SOCIAL MEDIA Dr. Spitz

HELPFUL HANDS Joe Kupillas, Justin Sanz, Rie Hasegawa, Alex Banner, Stephen Fredericks, Denise Kasof Jason Roth, A.J. Springer,

Kirsten Flaherty

Lauren Goldstein

ADVERTISING

CONSULTANTS

Christina Pumo,

Chunwoo Nam,

Russ Spitkovsky

Ellen Peckham

CHIEF WEB DESIGNER

PRINTED BY CREATIVE CULTURE GROUP ZNC

Matt Barteluce

Kyunghee Nam, Director

PHOTOGR APHY

INTERNS

Christina Pumo

Christian Eldridge, Rachel Stewart

READERS BE ADV ISED: This magazine contains adult language and subject matter. DISCLAIMER: All characters appearing in this magazine are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental or satirical. CARR IER PIGEON IS PUBLISHED BY PAPER CROW N PRESS LLC. All Inquiries should be referred to www.carrierpigeonmag.com Â© CARR IER PIGEON, PAPER CROW N PRESS, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form without written permission.

TA BLE OF C ONTENTS I L L U S T R AT E D F IC T ION S

P OR T F OL IO S

AND HER ALSO

RO B SWAI N STO N

AUTHOR: ADAM NEW ILLUS T R AT OR : R AI S H A F R I E D M A N

PRINTS OF DARKNESS

TALE S FRO M U K R AI N E

P E TE R K R A S H E S

AU T H O R : TAT I A N A R YC K M A N ILLUS T R AT OR : FR A N C E S J E T TE R

ACTIVIST & ARTIST

H O DG E P O DG E O â&#x20AC;&#x2122; FL A S H FIC TIO N

JAI RO ALFO N SO

AU T HOR : C H A D V. B R O U G H M A N ILLUS T R AT OR : B R U C E WA LD M A N

HOARDING & DISASSEMBLING

TH E MAYO R O F ROS E S

AR T WE RG E R

AU T H O R : J O S H S A LT Z M A N ILLUS T R AT OR : B O E E U E N C H O O

TRANSITIONS

111

118

TH E M I R RO R E D M I N D

S U SAN ROSTOW

AUTHOR: MEGHAN MCDONALD ILLUS T R AT OR : M A R I E RO B E R TS

SCULPTURAL BOOKS

141

148

CO NTE NTM E NT

S L AVKO DJ U R IC

AUTHOR: SCOTT ARCHER JONES ILLUS T R AT OR S: J O O C H U N G , S U H Y U N LI M , M I N K Y U N G K A N G , J I N G YAO C H E N , MINJU SUN, AMANDA KONISHI

IN PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

VOLU ME FOUR , ISSUE FOUR

THE FEATURED PRINT R O B S WA I N S T O N : W H O OW N S T H E S K Y ? WOODBLOCK AND SILKSCREEN PRINT

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AND HER ALSO AU THOR: ADAM NEW ILLUSTR ATOR: RAISHA FRIEDMAN

There were ten of them lined up against the wall. Twenty more faced them from a distance, each holding a rifle smartly at his side. Those against the wall stood up straight and held their heads high, staring out past the men with guns to something far beyond that only they could see. Those with rifles found interesting spots on the wall to fix their gazes. They all hoped that their stillness would hide their fear. And she, standing with her back to the wall at the very end of the line, felt herself to be the most afraid of all. Even after mentally preparing herself for death, after doing all she could to erase that fear, the thought of the unknown void that awaited her lingered in her mind. After working so hard for so long to strip herself of thoughts of heaven and hell she could not help but wonder what was left after death. What did it mean to not exist? It was not conceivable to a mind whose whole experience had been existence. It seemed to her that she spent a lifetime standing against that wall waiting for the officer to give the order. Finally a man walked over from a nearby building and exchanged a few quiet words with the officer in charge. Though the man wore no insignia or medals, only a well-pressed suit, the officer remained rigid at attention and nodded curtly each time the man spoke. She heard birds chirping on the other side of the wall. It seemed very strange to her that anyone should die on such a warm spring day. She had always thought of spring as a time of birth and renewal, a time of unimpeded growth. But it occurred to her suddenly that many creatures must die in the spring as well. After all, wolves still needed to eat even as the flowers blossomed. This man who wore no uniform and did not walk with a military gait walked up

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and down the line, slowly examining each one of them. What he was looking for she could not tell. He would look from their toes up to their hair, pausing for an extra few seconds to stare deeply into each set of eyes before nodding his head slightly, as if satisfied, before moving on to the next and repeating the same routine. When finally he came to stand in front of her she tried her best to stare right back into his icy eyes. She drew up every ounce of rage and fight still left in her body, let it burn through the pain and fear and hoped that somehow it would leap across that tiny space between them to scathe him just a little. If he felt it he showed no reaction. He examined her as coolly as he had all the others and turned back to the officer standing attentively next to his men. “I’ll take that one,” he said, nodding towards Emanuel, the largest and fittest of the group. Emanuel made no acknowledgment of the man’s choice. He continued to stand with his back straight against the wall, silent. “C’mon,” said one of the guards, nudging Emanuel with the butt of his rifle. “Get moving.” “I’d rather stay here. If I go, we all go,” he replied, maintaining a stoic face. The strange man turned back with a smile creeping over his face, “Believe me son, you don’t want them with you where you’re going. Now come.” Any potential fight went out of the big man. His head and shoulders drooped. With another, firmer prodding from the rifle he placed one foot in front of the other and shambled forward, following behind the man whose face had returned to a blank mask. They were walking slowly away when the strange man paused and turned back to look over the figures on the wall once more. He motioned toward the

end of the line where she stood and said in a low voice, “And her also.” The bar code scanner emitted periodic beeps each time the woman behind the register swiped a product over its surface. The cashier pressed a little peddle with her foot and the conveyor belt rolled forward, moving the food along. She turned to look at the line queuing behind her and saw the dull gazes looking for something to look at. Some of them turned to look at the touchedup skin on glossy stock which would never quite satisfy their caresses. Their own eyes looking forward must have seen a similar dull gaze looking back at them. The woman in front of her arranged all her items carefully on the conveyor belt while she waited. Her cans were all lined up perfectly, bordering neat columns of pasta boxes and a phalanx of pears. She was an older lady but not so old. Perhaps as old as her mother had been, she thought, when it had all changed so long ago. The thought flitted quickly through her head and she stuffed it back down. Once memories had been a comfort, now they only brought pain and regret. At the front of the line a man was paying for a stack of frozen dinners. The cashier deftly bagged the boxes and handed them to the man. He nodded kindly in return, wished the cashier a good day, and turned to leave the store. The next in line moved forward to take his place at the card reader. The woman in front of her shuffled forward, keeping a careful eye on the ordered battalions of groceries marching forward on the conveyor. And her also. It had been many years since those words had been spoken, many years even since the man who had said them had drawn his last breath. Yet

“ N OW TH ER E WER E P LE NT Y O F LIVE LY MOM E NT S ONC E AGAIN ”

they still resounded in her head as clearly as they had on that day. They had come out so casually, an afterthought. That day was meant to be the day of her death, she had known that long before she stood up against the wall. And she had died that day. That was the only way she could see it, the only way she could make sense of the long years since. “And her also,” why not, might as well, give it a try and see what happens. That’s what he must have thought, that man, looking back at the line of people against the wall. They had hardly even been people anymore at that point. They were closer to corpses by then, closer to their graves than to any lively part of their lives. Now there were plenty of lively moments once again. There was the feel of bare feet on pavement, claws scraping against asphalt, shivering up her legs and through her whole body, pushing her ever forward. There were the quiet unsuspecting victims, walking home in the late hours unaware of the danger creeping up behind them until she sank her claws into their backs, her teeth into their throats, dragging them into dark corners before rushing forth once again into moonlit streets, blood dripping from her jaws, down her neck and over her chest, bursting into little splashes of crimson in her path. She felt the whole world spinning underneath her, felt the wind swirling around her and could feel its breezes carried from the furthest corners of the globe. Everything fit, everything was clear. There was purpose and intent. There was no doubt, no aching confusion. There was only a need and its fulfillment, and her ability to obtain it. To take it. To take them. And what of them? What did they lose that wouldn’t be lost later? What had she to worry? What if they caught her, what if she was killed? It would only be a final release,

and she would not regret it. Not in those moments anyways. It was worth all the risk in the world, it was worth the world, to feel as she did on those nights. The hunger and its satisfaction. Yes, the satisfaction of it, but also the anticipation of that satisfaction—the yearning for its end but having it prolonged. The satisfaction of having to earn and fight for it to go away. She loved these nights, nights that made her feel alive and new and reborn. Nights where life and death blurred and lost meaning, where she was happy enough to be alive and would have been even happier to die, if only that moment would come and offer release. But until it did she would revel in a sense of purpose, a clarity of intent, a meaning and action to bend her whole being towards. In one night of becoming and devouring she felt right with the universe. The mornings after she would lie spread out on the floor with arms outstretched, unable to move. Her back flat against the wood slats, she would stare up at the ceiling hoping for a release, for even the tiniest hint of what she had felt the night before. But it was all gone and could not be recovered. She couldn’t understand how so much could be lost in a night, how her reality could shift so abruptly and so completely as to be unrecognizable. And she could not make sense of this new one. Here was no satisfaction, no yearning except only to yearn. It was only now, afterward, after the change back,that the feelings of shame and horror crept in. The curse lay not in the change but in the human form that one had to return to. To live as the beast was bliss, was freedom. In comparison, life as a human was a cage from which one felt only weak and fleeting releases. And her also. Night after night after that night the moon

would wane and her passion would fade with it. That silver sliver in the sky would grow smaller and smaller, eaten away by its own shadow, and she would grow tired and listless. There was a bar a block down the street that she would go to during these periods. It was dark and had corners that she could blend into and disappear if she wanted while watching people drinking, talking, enjoying themselves. Usually she sat at the very end of the bar where she could drink quietly, ignored. It also gave her a good view of everyone that entered and allowed her eyes to follow them up to the bar to order their drink and then back to a table where they sat and sipped quietly as well. Over the course of an hour a few people walked in and followed just this routine. It was early and the bar was still mostly empty. As she was carefully examining the way the melting ice mixed with the whiskey in her glass to create swirling spirits in the amber liquid she heard the door open and looked up. In stepped a very young looking man with tussled blond hair and a bright clean-shaven face. He sat down near the door at the very far side of the bar, opposite her but with the entire length of the bar between them. The bartender took his time cleaning a glass and then walked slowly over to the man to ask him what he would be having. He asked for a pint of some beer whose name she didn’t catch and waited while the bartender went back to the taps to pour it out, letting the foam spill out over the rim of the glass. She was watching the entire interaction casually when for a brief moment his eyes caught hers. He quickly looked away, she lingered before moving on. There weren’t many others in the bar that night, and she found her gaze regularly drifting back over to the young man at the end of the bar. His

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“O N C E TH E GAM E HAS B EGU N YO U HAVE TO SE E IT TI LL TH E E N D”

eyes wouldn’t meet hers again the entire night, but she knew that he was glancing in her direction. The next night, out of curiosity and because she simply had nothing better to do she went back. She sat in her same place, at the far end facing the door. Sure enough, after an hour or so the same young man walked in and looked quickly around as his eyes adjusted to the dark of the bar. The corners of her mouth curled up slightly and she felt as though she had just won a bet. He walked in and this time sat down in the center of the bar, still six seats away from her. The whole night he never got up and never said anything. He just held onto his beer taking occasional sips. She took care not to watch him too closely, but from the corner of her eye she noticed that he was glancing over at her regularly. Still she didn’t look back. She was playing a game of hers, waiting to see what he would do. Waiting to see how accurate her predictions were. She came back for a third night. Once the game has begun you have to see it to the end, she thought. Again she came early, again he came later. He sat only one chair closer to her this time, very disappointing. She had thought there might be something here, had thought he might have a little more courage, but five chairs was an unbridgeable chasm which allowed no crossing. In the sky the moon still waned. People hardly noticed the changes from night to night, the shrinking was too gradual and slow. But even as it shone brightly she felt it every second diminishing, and herself diminishing with it. Yet suddenly a new impulse crept up in her. She looked up from her glass and watched him stare intently at his beer. He was attractive, if young. And quiet, which was better than noisy. At least with the quiet ones you didn’t have to hear all the inane things running through their minds, they kept

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their thoughts to themselves. She pushed her chair back from the bar, picked up her glass, and walked slowly over. Without a word she sat down next to him. Their eyes met in the mirror behind the bar. This time he didn’t look away. They spoke little over the next hour but she knew already that she would bring him home with her that night. She looked at her own reflection in the mirror, at the two of them sitting side by side, and for the first time something in the eyes looking back at her seemed to forget what lurked behind them. She looked at the faces which sat to her side and his, some of them quiet and some thoughtful and some boisterous and some smiling. They came here to forget their troubles and find other people forgetting theirs. And her also. Sex was a too brief escape. It was one of the few things that recalled that feeling of a single purpose to bend one’s whole body and existence towards. But so soon it was completed and over, so soon the satisfaction wore off and had to be replenished. It was a pale substitute for those other nights of real, lasting pleasure. But those other nights came so rarely. Shortly after that night at the bar the moon had made its monthly disappearance from the sky. Just as it had earlier diminished it now grew and grew. He came over each night and they tore into each other voraciously for hours, only taking breaks to catch their breath and drink water before diving back in. Afterward they would lay exhausted in bed, recovering. Two weeks went on like that. They rarely talked and never saw each other during the day. Once he brought her lilies and, finding no better container, set them in a tall glass filled with water which sat on

her kitchen table. She thought it strange to cut down things at the height of their beauty in order to express affection, but she said nothing and only waited until he stepped back to appreciate his arrangement to pull him toward her bed. But in the morning, when she woke to the scent of flowers, it was not their decay which struck her but instead the life which they still held within them and which now flavored the air she breathed. And when she looked at him, still sleeping peacefully next to her, a feeling began to creep in that perhaps there was something else, some other angle to view the world which she had not yet found. The next night, while they lay there breathing deeply, he said he loved her. She told him she knew, but she wasn’t looking for that kind of thing. It had only made him want her more, she had known that too. She didn’t love him back, but there was something. And to be loved by another was something as well. Walking home one night, as she walked by the grocery store she passed every night, she noticed through the window an arrangement of flowers. She paused, and looking closer realized that they were, in fact, lilies. A smile crept slowly over her face and she stepped towards the door. But she had not gone two steps when she suddenly froze. From the corner of her eye she had glimpsed, in the reflection in the glass, a bright glowing orb hanging in the sky. She turned her face and fixed her eyes on the full moon. Her heart beat fast, her hairs stood on end, and she felt a sudden thrill run through her. She turned back to the soft white petals bathed in warm light, but the smile was gone. The decision had already been made for her, long ago. She stepped back into the flow of people moving along the sidewalk, her legs carrying her automatically home. With each step her pace

“ SH E TOR E H I M O FF IN C HU N KS AN D SWALLOWED G LE E FU LLY.”

quickened. As she walked she eyed the faces going past her in the other direction. They all closed their eyes and chose not to see the world surrounding them, walking blindly down the street to destinations unknown. And her also. She moved slowly around corners, looking for isolated souls walking home late at night. Noiselessly she crept from block to block until she found one, meandering casually. He turned here, now there, as though with no real destination. Each corner he took she moved closer and closer, hugging walls and shadows. Finally, when she was close enough to hear his breathing and feel his sweat, she pounced. At the last moment, just before she struck, he turned and she saw him. Him. She could still recognize him, even in her altered state, but it didn’t matter. Him, but just another piece of flesh. The thrill of the hunt swept everything else aside. In his own eyes, flashed wide with terror, there was no recognition. There was only the fear of imminent death closing in on him. There was no pause, no hesitation in her action. None of the past two weeks mattered, not now, not compared to this. She couldn’t hold herself back, and she didn’t want to anyway. Once again, as they had so many other nights with so many other bodies, her teeth sank in and ripped him open. Blood streamed from the wound and he cried out as the life poured from him. Soon he was limp and quiet. She tore him off in chunks and swallowed gleefully, her lips and face painted red with his blood. Before long she had moved on again. She quickly found another. This one stood nervously on the street corner. He was waiting for someone. He seemed to sense her approach and looked intently at the

shadows where she waited and watched. He started pacing back and forth underneath the street light, shook his arm and raised his wrist to check his watch, and then took off in the opposite direction. Once again she followed behind. This man walked with more purpose. He had a clear destination, his turns were not lazy and carefree but sharp and punctuated. Every so often he glanced behind him, as though he was aware she was following, but it did not matter. If it spurred him to a run it would only make the chase more entertaining, and there wouldn’t be anyone else out for many, many blocks at this hour. He turned into a narrow street pinned in tight by high buildings on either side, hoping to shake whatever he thought was following him. But it would not be that easy. She pressed herself low against the pavement and moved quickly forward for the final strike. There was a loud bang and a searing flash of light. She raised her hands to her face and instantly felt metal ripping through her. She twisted and jumped hoping to escape but wherever she turned the bites of the bullets followed. She looked up for something to grab and found nothing. Her eyes darted left and right, and running out of options she charged straight ahead at the center of them. They cut her down before she could reach the first one. The muzzle flashes lit up the dark alley as they emptied their clips. The bullets pushed her back and she pressed herself desperately against the wall, hoping somehow to move through it, to disappear. But each shot brought a new pain that nailed her mind to reality. Some of the men had run out of bullets and paused to reload their pistols while the others kept firing. It seemed as though it would never end. She felt the life seeping out of her, saw for once her own blood staining

the street, saw her own reflection in it and felt no shame and no remorse at what she had become. It had never been her choice, but she had accepted what she was long ago. She had been ready to die, then, on that day long ago. Slumped against the wall with bullet casings and chips of brick surrounding her, she raised her head in a final defiant gesture and stared coolly past her executioners at something far off in the distance that only she could see. Then her eyes closed forever. The men heaved a great sigh and cried out in joy and relief. Finally they were free of the scourge which had plagued them for so long. And her also.

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R O B S WA I N S T O N PR IN TS OF DA R K NESS

A R T I S T S S TAT E M E N T VOLU ME FOUR , ISSUE FOUR

I love manifestos. They read like pornography—saturated, vulgar, degrading, uplifting, fantastic. In an art-world full of self-reflexive doubt, a good manifesto is like a day at the beach. I hate manifestos. They’re smug—full of pronouncements and marching orders, totalizing and exclusionary, art-speak at its worst. We don’t need any more manifestos. Yet, every time I sit down to write an artist statement, out comes a manifesto. I wish I could write poetry or prose. Something you read not just till you get off, but to the end. But alas, I have come to realize printmaking needs a manifesto. The poetry is in the print, not the pronouncements. Printmakers need a manifesto to lead us out of the prisons of our own making; the prison of technical fetishism; the prison of self-exclusion from the art world’s only remaining common language, critical discourse; and the prison of life reduced to representation that we helped to print. Listen! Humans are not just consumers of icons, brands, and logos. We are observers and producers of images. Images are not just given; they are invented, and continue to be reinvented by artists and industries. All of our images are the result of historically negotiated assemblages between humans, machines, materials, and social structures. In a society where knowledge and power have become pure image, print technology is historically central to this transformation and can act as double agent. Artists working in print media can be chameleons moving between image-makers and image reproducers. Master Printers are technocrats, proto-machines, and image-smiths in building a spectacle world order. Now that we have built perfect image-making machines, why are artists still acting like machines? We need a new model—The Disaster Printer. Who Owns the Sky? backflips the line between master printing and disaster printing. The series’ images are constructed, built, repeated, overprinted, recombined – endlessly negotiated. On paper, the works are a bricolage masquerade of print media – in which lithography, woodblock, silkscreen, intaglio, collagraph, and inkjet go marauding and occasionally fail to impersonate each other. On these pages, the works are photographs. By becoming a centerfold in Carrier Pigeon these works have undergone another re-encoding. They are not simply illusions of light and shadow built out of line, shape, and pattern—they are images built out of images in deference to their own ‘imageness.’ For the disaster printer the press bed is not the window of illusion through which we enter our own prisons; the press bed is the space for social tinkering. The space between abstraction and representation resists instrumentalization and recuperation. We will not be hacked—we are chameleons, we are artists, we are humans, and We Own the Sky.

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ALL IMAGES: WHO OWNS THE SK Y? (2014)

LITHOGR A PH Y, WOODBLOCK , SILK SCR EEN, INTAGLIO, COLL AGR A PH A ND INKJE T ON PA PER

24” X 18”

ALL IMAGES: WHO OWNS THE SK Y? (2014)

LITHOGR A PH Y, WOODBLOCK , SILK SCR EEN, INTAGLIO, COLL AGR A PH A ND INKJE T ON PA PER

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24” X 18”

TA LE S FROM UK R A INE A U T H O R : TAT I A N A RYC K M A N I L L U S T R AT O R : F R A N C E S J E T T E R

BUT THEN MY GRANDFATHER SAYS,“THEY’RE FAMILY,” HE’S TEARING UP NOW, “AND YOU SHOULD FEEL WELCOME THERE ANYTIME.” BEFORE I CAN BE TOUCHED BY THIS, HE QUICKLY AMENDS HIS STATEMENT: “ALMOST ANY TIME.” JUST COVERING HIS BASES.

ODESSA HAS THE SECOND MOST BEAUTIFUL OPERA HOUSE IN THE WORLD Ivan Ivanovich’s arms expressed the swell of his operatic voice on the ancient stage. Tanzi saw the invitation to accept his expansive embrace, to call out to him, “Brad!” She closed her eyes, still seeing him bathed in garish light but also the old peasant women sitting on decaying theater seats in a barn, eyes sparkling and brimming with tears as the stage lights reflected off their creamy cataracts and the shellacked piano. Brad’s uvula waved in the monstrous wind tunneling through his throat. The women wept. They reached out to him. A cartoon character, a Fantasia-era Mickey Mouse, or some kind of small dog, flew past the dangling uvula and down, down, into his pink lungs, where Tanzi watched them swirl in the tempest of his inhale. A cartoon rope was secured to the quivering body at the back of Brad’s throat in preparation for the finale, the great contraction of capillaries that would send Mickey & Friends back out into the grey tangle of old ladies’ hair. They released the rope. It flapped like a flag, proudly, in the gust of Brad’s crescendo. A crescendo that (when combined with the power of his innocent smile, dimples and cummerbund) charmed the skirts off of the old ladies. Charmed off their aprons and dresses and dusty, sagging old brassieres. Tanzi opened her eyes, Ivan bowed and exited to the audience’s wide applause. Tanzi leaned toward her mother, who was picking something out from under her nails, and whispered, “I just saw some fucked up shit.” For which her mother lightly slapped Tanzi’s arm and scolded, “Some people here do speak English.”

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VERENIKI: ROLLING DOUGH IN MY MOTHER’S COUSIN’S KITCHEN, BEFORE THE AIR CONDITIONER The tips of our fingers are sweating in the flour. Marusha says making pierogi is easy, but she doesn’t like this flour. Also, they’re only called pierogi in Poland and our family’s backward town—I imagine this is because they embrace part of their once-Polish-occupied heritage. The tiny Ukrainian village has effectively transferred all animosity to the Russians for sending them to Siberia to watch their parents die, and so never found a reason to go back to the Russo-Ukrainian word for cheese pocket, Vereniki. It’s an easy recipe: a pinch of salt and a cup of water (not a measuring cup—just a mug about the size of the one that was sitting on the counter at the time), an egg or two, and enough flour to make the dough sticky, like the ball Marusha holds between thumb and forefinger. I nod gamely as a drop of sweat mimics the slow crawl of an insect down my back, wondering how many pounds of flour I’m going to waste trying to make the dough “like this.” THE REST OF THE TIME We were eating.

DINNER IN THE VILLAGE, AT THE NEIGHBOR’S HOUSE I considered moving here to marry the neighbor boy, but then I found out he was already married. And my cousin.

-which I understood, but then the dentures started their dance around Baba Hanka’s mouth again and watching them migrate behind her moist lips cleared my mind of translating their wide gestures. There weren’t any tears in their pale, old eyes, but there were tears in their warbling voices.

THE BURDENS OF THE BABAS HANKA I couldn’t have been in the kitchen five minutes when Baba Hanka began telling me, through undulating dentures, that someone had died. Probably that everyone had died (except, magically, she and the other Hankas). She struggled to straighten her arthritic fingers so I could see how many had died or how depressingly young they’d been when they’d gotten around to doing it. My Baba Hanka was busy alternating between mumbling and yelling at Dentures Baba Hanka, “She doesn’t understand you!”

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My Baba Hanka less than the others, but that was made up for by the appearance of Teary Baba Hanka. Teary Hanka was still talking about her dead husband and blotting her wet eyes on the apron she’d just used to clean chicken shit off fresh eggs. She picked up right where she left off the last time the Babas Hanka had me cornered in the kitchen (only this time I wasn’t naked, and Dentures Baba Hanka wasn’t trying to wash me, as I gradually contracted into a tight ball).

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PETER KR ASHE S ACT IV ISTS & ART ISTS

A R T I S T S S TAT E M E N T VOLU ME FOUR , ISSUE FOUR

My work as an activist and artist extends from the same set of values. All of my works are derived from meetings I attend or events and initiatives I help organize. Because there is a range to my advocacy, there is also a range to what my work captures, from actions with immediate results to actions designed to affect change over time. Our block association hosts an annual block party and we paint children’s faces. I repaint their painted faces on paper to evoke the self-empowerment, liberation, and fortification they receive from the face-painter’s attention and touch. In past actions we assembled a “factory” to make seed bombs, and laid large sheets of cardboard on a closed street so that children could make collaborative paintings. By repeating the seed bomb-making process in paint, and retracing the children’s brush marks, I amplify the original actions and make them more permanent. When decisions are made in City Hall or the State House, messages have to be strategically shaped to cut through the degrees of separation. Protest signs, the backdrop of a rally stage, even simply turning out a crowd, embody a message. If you are lucky enough to have a camera or a microphone pointed at you, you have an opportunity to magnify your message. Whatever the immediate result, the community you create can have force and effect, and the process of your group efforts is elevating, even beautiful.

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B LOCK PART Y (2014)

R A L LY S TA G E ( 2 0 1 0 )

CAMERA BANK

GOUACHE ON PA PER 10.375” X 7.75”

GOUACHE ON PA PER 18” X 24”

FOR THE GOVERNOR (2012)

GOUACHE ON PA PER 48” X 72”

SUMMER STREETS (2012)

EGG PAINTING (2015)

OIL ON LINEN 63” X 72”

GOUACHE ON PA PER 65” X 48”

S E E D BO M B FAC TO RY (2011)

NYPD & FENCE (2014)

HAN D PAINTE D SIG NS

OIL ON LINEN 63” X 84”

GOUACHE ON PA PER 18” X 24”

ARE MORE EFFECTIVE (2014)

GOUACHE ON PA PER 18” X 24”

M O R E F I L L E D S E AT S MAG NIFIE S

GOVERNOR & FLAGS (2014)

THE MESSAGE (2009)

GOUACHE ON PA PER 56.5” X 63”

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HOD GEP OD GE O’ FLA SH FICTION AU T HOR : C H A D V. B R O U G H M A N I L L U S T R AT OR : B R U C E WA LD M A N

“CREED IN THE AFTERLIGHT” The night my wife died, I strolled through the corridors of the hospital and chanced upon a chapel. There, an elderly man, full splay and fair skinned, knelt beside a yellow-haired lass; each one’s hands tightly braided in prayer. So as not to disturb, I tiptoed to the end row and tilted back my head, resting it against the wall. Soon after, a spindly fellow scurried in, and slid into a pew opposite the petitioning pair. From beneath his coat, he pulled a knitted kippah, garnet and gold with the Star of David stitched across the top, then positioned it just so. Stillness befell us. And the twilight fanned out, issuing its purple-blue glow through the glass… a young, swarthy lad stirred at the entryway. He plucked off his sneakers, pecked at his iPhone, studying the screen as it steered him to Mecca, the far west corner. He unfurled a lush, sea-colored rug, crept atop it and stooped down, face to the floor. From behind her twisted fingers, the yellow-haired lass peeked toward the bustle, eyes like a deer. “Stop ogling,” the old man chided, slanting toward her, his mouth bunched to one side. Caw! The woman’s wail bounded off the tile as she banged into the vestry, striking our ears like wasps. Seeing his wife, the Jew roused, stripped off his cap and headed toward her. But her second bawl cut him to the knees. “No!” He bayed, over and over. At first, his whimpers were thin, fragile. Then he mewled, “Damn you, God.” His snivels grew to howls, and soon, his shoulders bobbed like

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pistons. The man’s grief burned like paper. And the broken couple mourned alone, he upon the floor, she slumped against the threshold, her fleshy legs curled under her like a fist. I could not bear to see. With the initial touch, he jerked, and drew in sharply; I lifted my eyes at the stir. Still he writhed like a molten snake. But the girl with yellow-hair had tiny, soft hands, her strokes rhythmic. Anon, the young boy’s too. Both children patted the stranger’s head lengthwise, taking turns, one after the other. White, brown. Brown, white. Their palms like waves, and he undulating in their tide.

They persisted, soothing the fallen fellow, with grace and affection. And no more words. Then, his wife roused in the doorway – an effigy. Hands on her ample hips, mascara tracks, black and medieval-like. Her cheeks pink and swollen. In her grip, the fair-haired girl’s rosary swayed, the string of beads draping over the conquered Jew. I watched in horror as his suffering bride stalked over to them, snatched up the sacred strand and tossed it to the carpet. “Well, isn’t this rich?” she barked, scanning the room with quivering chin and eyes as red as a bloodhound’s.

“It’s okay,” the young girl trilled. “Shhh…” the boy pressed his pointer finger to his lips. “Innaa lillaahi wa innaa ilayhi raaji’oon,” he chittered.

Pulling her husband through the archway, she tripped on the shoes of the Islamic boy – they scudded several feet. Slow and clumsy, the grieving couple retreated, she cursing, and he never looking back. “See,” scolded the graying man,

“What’s that mean?” she cocked her head in earnest. He looked at her quizzically. “To Allah we belong,” he spouted “and to Him is our return.” More of an inquiry.

“I told you.” The wrinkles in his forehead pronounced. He nodded toward the exit then fell in behind her; all rapport forbidden by his hardy frame.

“Whose Allah?”

“No?”

After their departure, I watched the duskyskinned lad, standing alone in his snowy white garment. Yet when he glanced my way, tears poised to drop, I said nothing. Just cast down my eyes and listened to the silence as he ambled away…

“No. But I like that name,” she whispered. Her smile wide as a melon slice.

That night I looked through the stars to the heavens and wept.

“Me too.”

For my wife. For me. For all mankind.

“God.” “Oh. We don’t call him that.”

“THE YELLOW SASH” Late June, chickadees gargled through the heavy, humid dawn as Hazel and her brother clamored onto the ledge, stumbling over little feet and worn satchels. Their boxcar was full and the wood slats smelled like piss. Some kids cried, some slept – and all of them understood the promise of “you’re headed west.” Hazel wriggled her back against the damp panel and patted her lap. “Up,” she bid. Lloyd crawled into the cotton of his sister’s frock, rested his head on her belly and played with the bright yellow sash around her waist. She stroked his fresh hair and watched the other orphans with great curiosity. With wide cow eyes, the waifs scanned one another and sulked at the new fares elbowing their way aboard the brimming train – each new traveler posing a threat. The older kids spat into their hands, slicked back their hair

and dabbed at their siblings’ faces.

And no one waved goodbye.

A sticky breeze rushed through a narrow vent near the ceiling, and Hazel closed her eyes, following it back and forth like a puppy as it whistled and looped.

By and by, the children grew restless and loosened the chains that held them in, the wobbly door pushed open. For a moment, the hawing stopped – unexpected beauty poured forth. The train cut through Pennsylvania’s weald – meadow upon meadow of flaky browns and myrtle green. Then the vagabonds erupted again, sparring for a glimpse of the wide, open spaces, worlds away from the dark shadows of New York.

“No one’ll lemme thit by’um.” A sloppy girl tugged at her fat, pasta curls. And when the locomotive jolted into place, the frumpy girl tottered, “the twain’s leavin’”! Her eyes flashed, celestial blue, against her soot-black hair. Hazel patted the brittle straw beside them. On a starlit Tuesday morning in 1854, the first orphan train veered from its depot, carrying forty six waywards – frightened to go – frightened not to – to their castles in the sky –

But Hazel and Lloyd and their sputtering friend did not scamper to see; they bore down in their berth, held each other tight and imagined their tomorrows. A merciless winter and a biting summer gale proved too much for the tracks over Foggy Creek, the toppled rails poked outward like crooked teeth.

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“ TH E RO PES B EEN STR E TC H E D PLENT Y SO IT AI N ’ T GO N NA HU RT.”

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the fury in her neighbors’ eyes. The villag- “Hang her!” brayed the throng. Thompson nodded buoyantly at Sarah, pulled the black ers of Beaumont had never performed an hood over her face then brought down the execution, let alone a woman’s. rigid, fat knot – awkward against her dainty And they bumbled through it – desperate, neck. The coarse braids bit her jowl – she twitched – but bowed her chest, stood taller. roused. “Killer!”A wrinkled woman crowed from the crowd, sparking outbursts… “Release!” “Butcher!” The deputy pulled the lever. “Stop!” “Murderess!” A rumpled man clamored at the base of the scaffold. Over muddy banks, broken dreams and “Just like we talked about, Sarah,” Sheriff tattered knapsacks, an incidental father Thompson whispered, “the rope’s been “It was me!” dangles from a noose of pretty yellow lace. stretched plenty so it ain’t gonna hurt.” He cut off, his face twisted like he’d swal- And Sarah plunged toward the earth, “HANGED” lowed brine, a hard whimper burst free. then a sickening thud. Sarah stood atop the rickety gallows, shud- Sarah watched him struggle. dering in the misty, gray morning. Damp winds rushed through the hamlet square, “Don’t be sad,” her voice sweet, her eyes burnished. The sheriff sucked in hard, thought tipping hats and rustling leaves. From face of other things. to face, she turned her gaze, bewildered by And the silver-haired crewman sent to flag approaching trains still grieves his son – a green, restless soldier who, at the hands of the Sioux, perished on the dusty Kansas plains. “It was a noble death,” the letter read. Against a rigid cedar, he leans, steeped in despair. Then the boxcars crash into the marsh below, one atop the other, and he lurches from his slumber. “Forgive me!” he wails, ambling amongst the carnage and swigging the last of his Crow.

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JA I RO A LF ONS O HOA R DING & DISASSEMBLING

A R T I S T S S TAT E M E N T VOLU ME FOUR , ISSUE FOUR

Throughout my career, I have been interested in exploring material culture from an archaeological perspective, particularly the multilayered nature of objects, their history and symbolism, in paintings, sculptures, installations, videos, performances, and mixed media works on paper. More recently, I have started developing a new body of work, reflecting on the relationship we as human beings, establish with the objects we create, use, and discard. I explore two forms of relationships: hoarding and disassembling. I address hoarding as horror vacui ( â&#x20AC;&#x153;fear of empty spaceâ&#x20AC;?) drawings. These works depict the accumulation of objects, devices and accessories from everyday life, piled up, and drawn closely together, so as to flood the pictorial space. Each object is represented life-size. Hoarding is often a sign of consumerism and anxiety during economic crisis. This sociological truth informs this series. I pair the act of drawing with that of consuming goods, which is why I fill these metaphorical boxes with objects of every kind. The title of the works indicates the number of objects drawn in it. In another series, I focus on a single object, and the act of disassembling becomes an anatomic lesson of sorts. This allows the viewer to metaphorically immerse themselves into a new world composed of the history, ideology, materials, and shapes hidden in the artifacts. From the works of hoarding and disassembling, I then extract objects that become subjects of my videos, realized in the technique of stop- motion animation.

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B E R G E N L I N E AV E U N E (2 0 1 5 )

386 (2013)

POLAROID I (2015)

WATERCOLOR, PENCIL/PA PER

89.9” X 89.3”

55.1” X 78.7”

39.4” X 55.1”

193 (2012)

POLAROID II (2015)

WATERCOLOR, PENCIL/PA PER

55.1” X 78.7”

39.4” X 55.1”

184 (2013)

TELEFUNKEN I (2012)

TELEFUNKEN III (2012)

WATERCOLOR, PENCIL/PA PER

39.4” X 55.1”

38.4” X 55.1”

39.4” X 55.1”

340 (2014)

362 (2012)

WATERCOLOR, PENCIL/PA PER

55.1” X 78.7”

78.7” X 159”

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THE M AYOR OF RO SE S A U T H O R : J O S H S A LT Z M A N I L L U S T R AT O R : B O E E U E N C H O O

The village of Stately Stone prided itself on being a most handsome village. The townsfolk worked hard to keep their town the picture of perfect, especially the Mayor who prided himself on being the most handsome man in the most handsome village making him, dare he say it... the most handsome man in the world.

the visitors were put through the wringer. The Mayor’s men scrutinized every product at every booth. Any sign of unattractiveness and you would be sent packing to return to wherever you came not having sold a thing.

plant. Stately Stone had never been more gorgeous. Everything was as it should have been. Bewitched with charm. Like a splash of cold fetid water the Mayor was yanked from his charming stroll when he was stopped in his tracks by a sight that forced vomit past his mouth and into his nose. “What in the world is that!?” he screamed. “That is the ugliest thing I have ever seen.” And it was the ugliest thing he had ever seen. There, in between two fine booths, one selling beeswax candles and the other salad bowls carved from tree knots, was a stall that could only be described as a wheelbarrow full of animal shit. It reeked of soft feces because there were mounds of it cascading from a wheelbarrow. Standing knee high in the manure was a poo-covered man with brown teeth, two lazy eyes, a massive nose with what appeared to be another nose growing on top of it, but on closer inspection was just a wart sprouting three coarse black hairs.

A famous story was the apple farmer that had come to sell his red apples. The Mayor had inspected every single round red orb How did Stately Stone get so handsome? and found that each one was perfect. But The Mayor had a saying he was fond of the apple farmer’s daughter had some old repeating “The only uglier thing than ugly boogers caked around her nose. The farmer is handsomeness seeing ugliness and doing and his family were beaten with clubs and nothing about it.” It’s not a well worded then banned from Stately Stone. That apple saying, but the Mayor wasn’t known for wordiness, he was known for good looking- farmer, losing an entire market to sell his apples to, went destitute. He came back ness; and at that he was very good. Truly to The Stone to beg The Mayor to be let there was nothing ugly in or about Stately back in. The Mayor just yelled over the wall, Stone whatsoever. “Dear sir, please let your ugly feet take your ugly mug far away from here. You’re casting But surely there must be some ugliness your hideousness everywhere.” He quickly lurking somewhere in some back alley. Some opened the gate to take the perfect apples, old crone hacking up lung? Some town nut which he did not pay for, “What would who pissed his pants and stumbled along someone with a repulsive snot encrusted leaking on the quaint cobblestone streets? “What is this heinous creature?” the Mayor daughter need money for anyhow?” Some building sagging? A paint chipped cried. wall? A lopsided shrub? A misshapen mole? The apple farmer threw himself off a mounNo. You can look, to the buildings and the The poo-covered man said, “I am a man tain the next day. All the other vendors made people, and many do, but Stately Stone like yourself, good sir.” He then admitted was perfect and the Mayor made sure of it. sure to keep their noses clean from then on. that he must smell something awful, but + that’s what was necessary to grow the One fine Sunday the Mayor left his glorious Every Sunday was the town market. This most pristine roses anywhere in the valley. green garden and decided to stroll through took place around the large stone, which In front of the old poo-covered man were the market. He felt the sky was the perfect gave the town its name. The stone stuck bunches of the reddest roses anyone had blue hue and the air had the scent of crisp up like a prideful obelisk dead center in ever seen. True beauts. They had green pears. He walked through the booths and the market square. Farmers, artisans, and stems that made you think of a park after to his surprise everything was looking quite craftspeople came from afar and set up rain and red petals the colour of the blush fine indeed. Booth after booth and stall their carefully manicured booths to sell their on the cheeks of a lover seeing her beau after stall; everything was organized with wares. Each booth had an adorable painted smile. The Mayor cared not. He smacked sweet symmetry. The fruit organized in fine sign and every precaution was taken to the roses out of the old poo-covered man’s pyramids, the vegetables aligned by colour look charming and organized. For Stately hands and stomped them into the ground. in accordance with the rainbow; tomatoes Stone was not kind to strangers and for the beside carrots beside yellow peppers beside most part didn’t let them in their walls. The artichokes beside purple onion beside egg- “My friend,” The old poo-covered man said, exception was on town market days and then

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“ TH E Y REM I N D YO U THAT E VEN B E AUTIFU L TH I N GS HAVE THOR N S.”

Ugly things always conjured the most un- ugly screams. What they found was one of town guards. His arm was scratched up comfortable feeling in our Mayor; feelings and blood was squirting all over his shirt. of profound emptiness. Things should be beautiful. Beautiful things are pleasing and “What is the meaning of this?” the Mayor demanded, “Why have you stained your generally smell good. Even if they have “What is that supposed to mean? Of course shirt!? Why are you making these ugly thorns they still have petals on the top and they have thorns. They’re roses. Is this some noises?! This is a banishable offence.” that counted for more. He got into his goose weird metaphor? I don’t get it. I probably down bed and closed his eyes. It was a trying don’t get it because it’s coming from a The Guard pointed to the long thorny day, probably the worst day of his life. But poo-covered old weirdo. And if there is one bramble that was a foot off the ground. the good news is that the man was beaten thing I know about deformed loathsome severely and the cobblestone on which he freaks it’s that they are worthless and make stood had been buried and replaced. Yes, “I was inspecting the grass length as I do no sense.” every morning, your Handsomeness, when tomorrow would be a prettier day. I noticed this ugly vine had grown up. I + Everyone in town nodded in complete tried to remove it, but its thorns scratched It was a pleasant night as the moon rose agreement. The out-of-town vendors also above the hills of Stately Stone. The towns- my arm up.“ nodded so as to not catch ire from anyone folk had all gone to bed early so as not in town. The Mayor examined the twisted thorny vines. to get wrinkles. Not one of them had any They stretched for miles. From this vantage inkling that as they slept in their moisturizing The Mayor removed his Egyptian cotton they could see that this new shrubbery had facemasks that the poo-covered man made handkerchief and held it over his mouth encircled the whole town. The Mayor called a circle around the town. He was dropping as he continued his rant “I mean, you have upon his brother, The Sheriff, considered poo in your ears. Your ears! And your eyes, seeds from a large sack he had slung over to be the second most handsome man his humped shoulder. they’re not going in the same direction. in Stately stone, and commanded him to Ugh! Guards! Security! Gendarmes! Get this remove these hideous creepers. The Sheriff It was almost sunrise and the circle of seeds troll out of our city. His stink has tainted our nodded. He put on gardening gloves, which was a mile in circumference. It’s center the town forever.” granite stone that gave the village its name. were hand knitted andembroidered with silver and were probably the most beautiful The poo-covered man wandered on down “Please sir, I would like to stay and sell the village road away from Stately Stone. gardening gloves ever created, and grabbed my beautiful roses.” “And I’d like you the vine at the root. The Sheriff let out a and your poo wagon to take a hike.” He looked back and thought, Screw these yelp as the thorns easily severed off three handsome jerks. They gots what’s coming “ S i r, p l e a s e . I n e e d t o s e l l m y of his fingers as if they were sticks of butter. r o s e s . I h a v e a f a m i l y t o f e e d . ” to them. He made his way out of the valley The townsfolk gasped in horror. and was never seen nor smelled again. “And I have a bar of soap to buy to wash my + The Mayor shrieked! The Sheriff held eyes to cleanse them of your repulsiveness. The next morning during the Monday ritual of walking through the town square and con- his disfigured hand at his brother face. Who’ll pay for that soap, Poo-man?!” It pumped blood in a rhythmic pulse. gratulating each other on how good looking they were, a blood curdling scream from “Help me, dear brother.” The guards beat the poo-covered man with beyond the walls stopped the procession. + sticks and the adorable children threw rocks The townsfolk gathered around The Stone. The “What an ugly noise!” the Mayor said, “We at his face as he scrambled out of town. Mayor climbed atop and addressed his people. must get rid of it.” + “It was with great dismay that I have banished That night as the Mayor was scrubbing off my brother, The Sheriff, into the ugliness of The townsfolk followed The Mayor past the his exfoliating face cleanser he had a vision the wild. We cannot have a disfigured hand in of the poo-covered man. He shuddered. town gate and into the hills towards the with white foamy grossness at the hinges of his mouth “Have a rose. They remind you that even beautiful things have thorns.”

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our perfect village. It’s like I always say ‘The only uglier thing than ugly is handsomeness seeing ugliness and doing nothing about it.’ But fear not, I have sent my dear brother out with all those who have scratched themselves. We can all rest assured that Stately Stone will remain unblemished. But we must keep a vigilant eye out for anyone who may have been tarnished.” One young man asked if they should spend some time considering how to get rid of the thorny vines. The Mayor scrunched his nose and said that they’d already worried enough for one day. Worrying makes dark rings around your eyes and that’s ugly. If they continued to worry they would all have dark rings under their eyes and then Stately Stone would be just as ugly as the world outside. After the town meeting everyone went back to their adorable cottages for their afternoon nap and subsequent grooming. The boy decided to forgo his nap and left the town walls to inspect the unwelcomed intrusive species. He scrambled up the hill and was struck with horror when he discovered that the vines had thickened and tangled together to create imposing thorn bushes. They had

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grown significantly. No longer just a foot off the ground, now they were ten feet off the ground, and much denser.

The mayor grabbed the boy and told his assistant to ring the town bell.

The townsfolk gathered once again outside the town walls at the towering thorny The boy walked the circumference of the vines. They were twenty feet high now. thorn bush wall and quickly understood that both himself and the people of Stately “This is a predicament indeed. This is probably the greatest problem our town has ever Stone could soon be trapped. He picked up faced.” the Mayor said. The boy began to feel a large stick and tried to push some of the better about his situation. Maybe the Mayor brambles away, but as soon as he did the would realize that he needed to put beautifivines, propelled by alien tendrils, slithered cation aside and address the serious trouble. up the stick. He quickly dropped it as if it were a sandwich with a spider on it, and “We have a boy, whose thumb is mangled. This watched as the stick was fully enveloped. disfigurement threatens the perfection of our town.” The boy gulped. The Mayor continued, He took a step back and was sure that the “But now it seems we have an even graver vines were creeping towards him. He was problem which must be addressed first!” too nervous about his predicament to notice that the thorns had nicked his thumb. The boy sighed in relief. “We have no way + of expelling this unsightly monstrosity from It wasn’t until dusk that The boy ’s mother brought him before the Mayor. our view. This of course threatens everything Stately Stone stands for.” “My beautiful boy has been scratched. His thumb has a nick and he tried to hide it from me!” The Mayor put a consoling hand on the moth- The boy pleaded, “Don’t you see? The vines are growing tall and wide. They will er’s shoulder and told her that she had done be at the town walls by morning! They’re the right thing. He added that she should dry her eyes, “The salt in tears can dry the skin... already taller than the walls themselves” and you don’t want to have dry skin do you?” The Mayor nodded. He had to think, not his favorite activity. Then inspiration hit. The mother gulped and shook her head no.

“A-ha! It seems even ugly things can have beautiful ideas. Fetch me a ladder taller than the walls.” The boy shook his head in disbelief. Less than an hour later a giant ladder was raced up the hill. The boy was surrounded by the town guard. A white linen was placed over his thumb so as not to upset the town’s faint of heart. The ladder was placed against the thorns and the boy was commanded to climb up and hop over never to return. He went to give his mother a hug goodbye, but she turned away, preferring to remember her son the way he was before he had been completely disfigured by the tiny cut on his thumb. Good riddance, the boy thought as he began to climb.

sploosh and soaked the first three rows of on-lookers. + The Mayor was in a pickle. He had to admit there was a big problem in Stately Stone. Something even more problematic then mere ugliness. By Sunday there would be no market. It didn’t bother him that this would mean no food or candles, but it did mean that their face creams and shoe polishes and other esthetic enhancers would become in short supply. Troubling indeed. He decided to think about it in the morning. All this was far too stressful and he needed to put his mind at ease. Putting his mind at ease was an easy task. He would admire himself in the mirror until he felt better, but this proved to bring forth an even worse horror to his eyes than the one of seeing a young boy shredded into a salsa like substance.

I’ll get out before it’s too late. When the boy was about half way up, the vines began to wrap around the ladder. He tried to climb faster but he missed a rung and fell. But the boy did not land on the ground. He was shredded to meaty pulp instantly. Buckets of blood and hamburger meat splashed onto the grass. It made a big

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A GREY HAIR! He had a gray hair. The Mayor of Stately Stone! “A horror.” He muttered. He plucked it out and hid it in a bag and left his stately home to bury it before anyone could know what happened.

Like a thief in the night the Mayor ran out amongst the shadows, clutching the bag that held the incriminating evidence. He made for the town gate. As he strode through the town square he could hear screams and moans. He didn’t let this dissuade his mission. This grey hair could be the ruin of the entire town. He got to the gate and for the second time in a week he stopped in his tracks and vomited in his mouth. The thorny vines had filled the entrance of the gate. He stepped back and looked to the city walls. The vines slithered over the sides. He thought of how steam poured over the lid of a pot. The vines grew fast. They climbed into windows and moments later cries of anguish bellowed out and were then snuffed out. It was pandemonium. Very attractive people were in the streets running this way and that. They were pushing each other into the vines and watching as the once perfectly crafted faces and bodies were sliced into ribbons.   The Mayor pushed more people than anyone. He had forgotten about his grey hair and was making for the highest point in town; the top of the stone for which the

town was named. The vines flooded in like a tide. A man grabbed the Mayor’s shoulder. He turned around to see eyes staring at him from a face with no skin. The Mayor grabbed this monster’s shirt and flung him into a batch of vines.

circumference of the reddest roses anyone had ever seen.

The Mayor heard the liquid sound of pulp hitting the cobblestone.

The End.

It was silent and the Mayor wondered if it was at all possible to somehow get back into his house to get his face scrub.

The Mayor made it to the stone and began to scramble up. A young attractive woman was climbing up behind him. He kicked her in the face and tried not to listen to her flesh mince. He pulled himself higher. He made it. The rest were doomed to death, but at least he, for this moment, remained the handsome beacon of Stately Stone. He knew that the fallen townsfolk would forever be grateful. The sun rose and the Mayor was alone atop his stone. The vines growth had ebbed and then stopped just at the peak. Stately Stone was nothing more than a giant bramble of thorns. It’s roots greedily drinking up the pulp and blood. When the sun finally rose the Mayor was treated to a beautiful sight. The vine’s buds blossomed with beautiful roses, as red as blood. A circle a mile in

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A RT W ERGER TR ANSITIONS

A R T I S T S S TAT E M E N T VOLU ME FOUR , ISSUE FOUR

In the year 2000, I began a transition to a new stage of life. I moved from Georgia to a new job in Ohio. I endured surgery and dealt with the passing of parents and friends. Soon after, my children came of age. They left the nest and my marriage dissolved. Out of this, a new life slowly evolved, with a new love, new friends and the maturity to more fully appreciate them all. These types of life experiences can be expected by anyone, if they are lucky enough to live a long life. We each find our own ways of coping with dramatic change. I respond by making art. My manner of dealing with this transitional time was to begin a narrative in the form of mezzotint prints. I use representational imagery and cinematic storytelling devices in my work to weave themes from my personal truths in a way that can be freely interpreted. The resulting images can be read individually as simple stories but can also be integrated by the viewer in an infinite number of complex ways to create an endless range of meaning. The mezzotint medium forces me to work slowly. The filter of this medium, with its rich, soft focus brings a layer of metaphor to every scene, as each transient event is transformed into a scrutinized composition. When printed together on one sheet of paper, individual images are punctuated by embossed plate edges, emphasizing the transitional gutter that requires the viewer to enter the story and provide closure. How is this image connected to the last one? What time or space has transpired between images? What meaning are we to derive from it all? The resulting metanarrative of imagery currently numbers close to 500 images, ranging in size from an inch square to two feet square (the square representing a fragment of time, like a day on a calendar page). In creating a mezzotint, I take a fleeting moment in time and make it physical, attempting to create something immortal and meaningful.

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101

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103

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105

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1 07

STE ADFAST (2013)

HOME LIFE (2014)

THE PREVIOUS OWNER’S

ME ZZOTINT

12” X 12”

ME ZZOTINT

DAUGHTER (2012)

14” X 14”

ME ZZOTINT

SECRETS (2014)

ME ZZOTINT

12” X 12”

ON THE GO (2014)

ME ZZOTINT

14” X 14”

6” X 6”

SHORT STORIES IV:

SHORT STORIES V:

TORMENT (2013)

THE MYSTERY (2012)

INTERLUDE (2012)

ME ZZOTINT

12” X 12”

ME ZZOTINT

SHORT STORIES X:

NIGHTLIFE (2014)

OVERLOOKED (2012)

ME ZZOTINT

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6” X 6”

12” X 12”

ME ZZOTINT

12” X 12”

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THE MIR ROR ED MIND AU THOR: MEGHAN MCDONALD ILLUSTR ATOR: MARIE ROBERTS

“Anything else?” asked a stout waitress with a cream-colored apron. She made a nail mark into her pencil — this man was her least favorite customer. “Check,” the patron responded, not looking up. Internally, he was counting how long it would take for the server to turn away in embarrassment. Predictable, really — and all in the internal mechanics of the brain. Waitresses hated when you refused them small talk. And three, two, one. Cassandra the waitress, feeling slighted, sighed and turned around — not a second too soon. The customer chuckled. And again, he thought, the cognitive scientist Leroy Batz proves he can figure out the mental processing of anybody at all. He closed his book and packed up his belongings. He really was never wrong. Three and a half streets over, on his regular park bench, the sun couldn’t have been positioned at a better angle. For a Tuesday, it was quite lovely. And everything was in its right place. Half a second later, his view was disrupted by a bright glare that appeared to have been caused by a silver locket from a woman sitting on the park bench across from him. Hmm, he mused, not immediately diverting his gaze. He couldn’t quite pin down what was off about her. There really wasn’t anything extraordinary about her on the outside, he thought, examining her relaxed position. Ah, but the inside — that is always another matter. And not a challenge he shied away from.

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Leroy had resolved the mental workings of famous senators, bishops, dictators — even his own mother, for God’s sake — but somehow this woman was stumping him into a serious state of cognitive confusion. Of all the things to run into at his daily spot. He remembered awing family and (few) friends with his predictions of how the mental patterns of influential politicians would pan out — he was always right, of course. But these facts were fleeting. For here he was, positioned at his daily bench, in front of the biggest mental mystery of his life, unable to predict or detect any mental pattern whatsoever. Leroy sighed, perhaps too loudly. He reminded himself not to act like those dominant extraverted feelers who hang out at the Midway Country Club — golf club in hand and laughing in such a showy manner. Showiness. What a frivolous Jungian function that extraverted feeling — certainly not one of Leroy’s four dominant traits. And yet, the female mental mystery sat gracefully unaware of the chaos she was causing Leroy with a wilting purple daisy tucked delicately behind her ear as she turned a page of her Jane Austen novel. Leroy thought he had her understood once she pulled out her book, however, normally introverted feelers, tended to pocket Austen novels, and this young lady did not have the facial expression qualifications of either an introverted feeler (reserved and timid) or the dreaded extroverted feeler user (expressive and obnoxious). Oh, intrigue. A man in a casual suit approached the two parallel benches with a polished walking cane. Leroy rolled his eyes as he detected that the man’s extraverted sensing function would do a double take at the mysterious

lady across from him. He was right. Oh vainest of vain dominant functions, extraverted sensing. Leroy shook his head and returned to the mental equation on the bench across from him. The problem: the lady with the purple daisy had facial and bodily features that existed with each of the contradicting cognitive function categories within an eight-minute span. If Leroy could only hear her vocal projections, he might be able to understand her mind. Lost in thought, Leroy knocked his elbow off of his briefcase. “I’ll be damned!” Leroy said in frustration to his own busy mind (and aching elbow). The girl, previously enveloped in her book, looked up through her blonde eyelashes at the exclamation. “My apologies, Ma’am,” Leroy said, removing his hat shakily. If, Leroy thought, he made one more remark to her — his brow was sweating, he noted — she may make the vocal projection he needed to lead his analysis. The dainty lady removed her sunhat as well, placing it next to her purse and shawl, and smiled (extroverted feeling?! Leroy thought). Her freckles were scattered across her face like spilled pepper on a tablecloth. Leroy shut his open mouth, trying not to gawk in anticipation at her features — both mental and physical. “Quite alright, sir, but I would suggest not using such caveman remarks, especially in the presence of a lady,” she said (No, no, introverted feeling?! Leroy mused). Caveman remarks? Forget the mental mystery of this woman, Leroy spat to himself. This was preposterous. However, as Leroy’s face grew more and more red, the

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mysterious woman did not lose face — she merely returned to her book. Leroy, being the direct man that he was, had two logical options: Either he walk away now and find another daily spot somewhere far away or he marry her. After furiously looking her over (lingering on her lovelier spots) he couldn’t help but favor option two. Would the impossible female agree? Leroy shook his head violently; he was going to literally shake his mentality back, he thought. The wild shaking motions caused the lady to lift her eyes up again. While he at least contained his caveman-like profanities in his head this time, his violent motions did raise a reaction from her previously stoic face.

I will have to ask you to show some respect or … be still and leave!” (Oh, God, those vocal projections! Leroy spewed both furious and intrigued.) “I will have to politely decline both options,” she said. Leroy fumed. An older lady was multitasking by reading a book and walking her dog at the same time. Leroy predicted that her extraverted intuition would detect the pile of dog droppings on the path in front of her. He was right — again. But that only sustained his pride for a moment. “Declining a request is not polite at all,” he said, grasping his briefcase. “I would have thought that someone reading sophisticated Austen would know that.”

“Sir, are you alright?” the lady questioned. “I am quite well, thank you,” Leroy said. “I was merely suffering from a brutal bee badgering at my personal space. And might I add, this spot happens to be my daily meditative spot that you are interrupting, so

“Declining a request in a public place is, in fact, polite and of my own discretion, especially because this is a public park, dear sir. Now, if you don’t mind…” she said turning a page. “Declining a request after a request

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has politely been made is, in fact, impolite as is you declining my request to pay some respect to an established doctor of the brain,” Leroy said, grabbing his hat and making a move to leave. She had set down her book at this point. “While you may have made a strong point, my good sir and doctor of the brain, my decline was appropriately defended through your uncivilized remarks — also, might I add that the book I’m reading is not Austen but Adler, studier of the individual mind, not the flawed science you speak of.” Leroy did a double take. I must know this woman’s name — he knew he must marry her. He looked up at her face for any hint of her mentality that would suggest her feeling the same way. He swallowed twice — noticing that he was nonstop salivating. “Well…?” she said expectantly, her hands touching her hips and then reaching for her book again. Leroy caught a whiff of her light perfume, lavender of some kind — this was not helping

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his overflowing salivary glands. This woman was impossible — but since that in itself was impossible, she is only impossibly possible, he thought. He could feel his mental composure deteriorating. “Don’t think too hard, or you’ll explode that precious brain,” she said. I am in love, Leroy thought. “I … what are you doing reading Adler?” Leroy asked. “I am studying to be a children’s counselor,” she said from behind the pages of her book, not looking up. “Children?” Leroy said. “Why not study the internal workings of adult’s minds?” “Haven’t you figured out that adult’s chaotic minds mostly result from the happenings of childhood?” she said, still not looking up from her book. (She must be an introverted thinker, Leroy thought. Although, she is using the logic of an extroverted thinker? Or is she using both in an intuitive form?)

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“Children?” Leroy said. “Why not study the internal workings of adult’s minds?” “Haven’t you figured out that adult’s chaotic minds mostly result from the happenings of childhood?” she said, still not looking up from her book. (She must be an introverted thinker, Leroy thought. Although, she is using the logic of an extroverted thinker? Or is she using both in an intuitive form?) “Fascinating …” Leroy said. “Of course I knew that, but I never studied the brains of such undeveloped…” “Please ... “ she said. “Speaking of functions and underdevelopment, save the arrogance for the dominant extroverted thinkers.” She speaks my language, he deliberated, dumbfounded. Leroy had met many fair women worth looking at, but he hadn’t spoken with any that were mysterious, met

his mental capacity, or spoke his profession’s language. No wonder he couldn’t figure this woman out.

Leroy sat down and pulled out a newly purchased Adler book. The woman’s eyebrow twitched.

She was he — a sort of feminine mirror of himself. No wonder he was in love, he thought. She, once again, returned to her book. He couldn’t help but notice that she scrunched up her mouth to the side just as he did. My God — he may understand her even less than he figured. A female Leroy, perhaps? Intriguing. But how does one confront oneself, or... not oneself? Leroy shook his head, smiling this time. He gathered his weathered hat and briefcase and headed home. When he returned the next day, he was not surprised to see a dainty lady with a wilted daisy tucked behind her ear. There was room next to her on the bench.

“Excuse me, Ma’am, may I bother you for your name?” “Leanne,” she said not looking up. Smiling, he too picked up his book and turned the first page of his new, undiscovered epoch.

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SUSA N RO ST OW SCULPTUR AL BOOKS

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My sculptural books are visual diaries created to look and feel like unearthed relics. Time and natureâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cycles are themes that are often repeated in my work. I invite the viewer to touch, hold and interact with my sculptural books as all the tactile qualities are not visible at once. Surprise elements, little worlds, intimate and bold, reveal themselves in the process of turning the pages. As the viewer becomes engaged in the sight, feel and smell of the piece, they experience a sense of visiting a strange but familiar place. The work becomes a reminder of the constant stream of change, which affects us all. The process begins with a walk in the woods, beach, or city. Objects are collected. A series of prints are created from the found materials. The prints are bound together with the objects using a mixture of mud, glue and pigment. Paper, tree fungus, roots, soil, bones and shells merge together, growing into the sculptural book. With the addition of each object a new dialog begins, the piece evolves. The work becomes a journal, recording a culmination of events taken place between nature and myself.

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B L U E H A R V E S T:

INSIDE (2015)

OUTSIDE (2015)

D E TA I L ( 2 0 1 5 )

MI X ED MEDI A A RTIST BOOK

21” X 33” X 39”

CONTROLLING MOTION:

B L U E H A R V E S T 1 S T O F F S H O OT:

VIEW 1 (2013)

VIEW 2 (2013)

VIEW 1 (2015)

MI X ED MEDI A A RTIST BOOK

24” X 24” X 19”

22” X 15” X 15”

3B B L U E H A R V E S T 1 S T O F F S H O OT: VIEW 2 (2015)

MI X ED MEDI A A RTIST BOOK 22” X 15” X 15”

M E D I C I N E C A B I N E T:

B L U E H A R V E S T 2ND O F F S H O O T :

COVER & BACK (2013)

OPEN (2013)

(2015)

MI X ED MEDI A A RTIST BOOK

13” X 11” X 16”

22” X 15” X 15”

DRAGON OIL:

TREE’S PLACE

COVER (2013)

OPEN (2013)

(2013)

MI X ED MEDI A A RTIST BOOK

9” X 8” X 7”

14” X 15” X 9”

8 HORN BOOK: OPEN (2013)

MI X ED MEDI A A RTIST BOOK 10” X 20” X 26”

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C ONTENTMENT AU THOR: SCOTT ARCHER JONES ILLUSTR ATORS: JOO CHUNG, SUHYUN LIM, M I N K Y U N G K A N G , J I N G YAO C H E N , M I N J U S U N , A M A N DA KO N I S H I

I, Joseph, am King of all I survey. The steam roils off the water and into the dry crisp air over the village, anointing my subjects like incense. I loll back, silver hair streaming from my temples. They always say that I look like Leonard Bernstein. The principal difference is that I am tone deaf, and he is dead. It’s been a perfect day for me, so far.

scalp and flies away as a crumpled up wing out over his left ear, angling off towards the Taos Mountain that looms above us. The Viagra and my hypertension medicine make a potent mix and they have improved my fantasy life – the drugs help me see his thoughts. A cartoon text balloon forms over Carl’s head. It reads, ‘Just this once.’ Carl’s voice comes through the steam. “Let’s troop over to the Plaza Café after we shower. I want a five-thousand-calorie salad and a Pinot Grigio.” The bubble flashes ‘Bacon, cheese – lots of cheese.’

I say, “Noha, they are always strong, or you wouldn’t be interested.” She squirms just that little bit and my loins tingle. I have had that ample plump dessert – and I would go back for more. “Yes, Joseph. You’re not jealous of youth, are you?” Her bubble indicates, ‘Time for another face lift, my friend.’ “Unlikely, sweetheart. They have stamina, but I have guile. They have a certain charm – not to mention supple and unwrinkled skin.

My contentment stretches out before me. I turned sixty-eight last week and the proper But I have a true appreciation and undernumber of people paid obeisance – this I remembered at the moment of awakening. I count nods of assent all around. I an- standing of women.” The market opened up in New York, ren- nounce, “And so it shall be.” Beside me, my Mara, the fourth friend in the hot tub, inEgyptian beauty Noha stirs, irritated by my dering life even easier. I arose at seven and terrupts us, once again about her mother. patronizing tone. Her thought balloon reads, shaved away all my body hair, taking due She and Carl are burdened by family, unlike care with the razor. I then drove here to the ‘Really, Joseph. Shut up.’ She perches upon Noha and I. my right hand as I drape my arm around gym. After the tanning bed, I visited with behind her. Her delicious bottom presses up Becky of the Black Tights and attended a Instead of flying free, they drag their aged against my palm. She is a full and charming spin class, followed by the easy version of woman, with beautiful skin and black hair, parents along behind. water aerobics. Now, here in the hot tub long and luxurious. Her eyes are huge and float three of my friends and a ravishing Mara is Irish-fair, and as we say, beat-allbrown. I feel her weight shift as she leans stranger. I recline in the hot water, sense to-hell. Even for seventy, she would be forward and her thigh presses into mine. the morning’s strain of body maintenance rough and hard – and she’s sixty. She had melt into liquid magic and into camaraderie, Noha is our cougar. plaited her hair, really iron gray but dyed flawed as it is. We all paid the price, spent to its original red, up onto her head, but it We hear of all of her encounters, real our hour or more panting and heaving. In has begun to fall in the steam. The balloon that shaky, ragged feeling from the work- and imagined, with the young men that over her reads ‘I’m twisted off!’ She leans she – well – hunts. outs, we’d retreated from the fitness center over to Noha and touches her knee under to our hot tub outside. To my regret, our the bubbling water. I believe Mara must stranger rises up, water cascading from her “Philip was my trainer this morning. We did have been a lesbian, before she gave up lunges on the half ball. Each time, as I moved hair and body, and in the twenty-degree sex for bitterness. from the floor onto the ball, you know,” and weather flip-flops for the door. She’s quite she glances over at me and flares her eyes. young, about forty-five, and I undergo that “Noha,” she says. I watch the bubble spell stirring I call the Viagra Aftershock. I’ve felt They are enchanting eyes, like fireworks. out, ‘My angel.’ Mara pauses, a claim for our it several times this morning. attention. “Your Mother and Dad are dead, “He’d steady me on each lunge. At first he aren’t they?” Across from me sits my old friend, Carl. gripped my waist, but then he moved to my knee, to keep me from drifting. At least, he Besides being the best orthodontist in started at my knee. By the end, his hands “Yes, Mara. You know I flew home to Egypt Taos, he is the original comb-over man. I’ve two years ago when my mother passed on.” had moved up my leg – just below, nearly stared at that comb-over for twenty-five there. I became all flushed. He’s so strong.” “That’s right. Lucky you.” years. Now though, it has parted from his

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“ TH E WI N D AT T WENT Y D EG REES CUT S TH ROUG H M E.”

Noha shakes her head, a furrow chasing sadness across her forehead. “Mara, that’s cruel. I loved my mother. I miss her every day.” Mara’s thought balloon reads, ‘Typical.’ She snorts, an ugly sound of mockery. “Be glad you got out when you were young. I remember the old joke about life begins when you’re forty sleeping with twenty.” We all chuckle for her, but she doesn’t want a laugh – she wants a tirade. “I always thought life began when your parents died.” “But Mara,” I say. “Your mom lives in a home in Kansas. Surely she can’t be ruining your life from there?” “She expects a call most every day. And I have to visit, every couple of months.” Carl’s bubble displays, ‘My turn! My turn!’ Carl stutters when he’s in a hurry. “My mo mo mom lives over in Arroyo Seco and it’s a lot of work, taking care of the details she can’t handle anymore. WhWhWho would have believed I’d be babysitting when I turned sixty-three?” Mara’s bubble reads, ‘Who gives a shit, Carl.’ She ratchets back up. “Mom will live to a hundred and ten.

what it is, a horror.” Mara’s cartoon bubble shows, ‘I could kill the old bitch.’ I think, who wouldn’t hold on to the last bitter second? A bed you’re dying in is better than the casket on the other side. I say, “Mara, it’s not that much of your time. You have a great life here with us and I don’t think you miss much. With a butched-up body like yours, you’ll outlast us all, much less your mother. Don’t worry so much about it.” She says with raised eyebrows, “Why thank you, Joseph. That makes me feel all better.” The balloon reads, ‘Screw you, you old lecher.’ “You’ll see, darling,” says our delectable Noha. “This weekend will be our usual round, as Joseph says, of parties and laughter. I promise you at least a good meal and lots of wine.” I see her bubble waver up over her head, half-formed, murmuring, ‘A long afternoon with my trainer. A private workout.’ Carl heaves himself up by grasping my hand and jerking. Water cascades from his meager shoulders and off his pendulous belly. His balloon reads, ‘You’ll be dead in a month.’ My mouth drops. He shakes his head over me, dripping down into my iconic face. He sloshes to the tub edge, grabs his towel. “Mara, I promise you a drink right now. Come with me to the Café and we’ll eat spinach salad with fried cheese croutons, with sliced egg and hot bacon dressing.

She looks like it already.” Noha tries to defuse the so-unpleasant rant, “It’s only natural, Mara. They took care of us. So we take care of them.” “No, it’s unnatural. Old people should croak in their late seventies, not hang on-and-on ruining our glory times. All those drugs and treatments, they drag it all out. It’s just pathetic, that’s

We can even split an order of truffle fries. That and a margarita will hold the Living Dead at bay.” I stand, turn for my towel. The wind at twenty degrees cuts through me. I shiver like the damned. It starts slow, a perception of fullness, a distension of the belly. I get so the wine

doesn’t work – I experience nausea after, and sugary desserts give me intense diarrhea. My back hurts. She hovers across from me, my Doctor. She wears a new perfume – its high-dollar scent wafting towards me. But I don’t care. Not today. “Okay, Joan, I can take it. Is it a brain tumor?” My ancient joke. She flashes me that beautiful smile, the one so nice to wake up to. “Joseph, you wouldn’t be peeking down my lab coat and blouse if it were a brain tumor. However, it’s definitely something. I don’t like your weight loss – I know you think you worked off those love handles by yourself, but your legs and arms look, well, spindly to me. Far too thin.” A cartoon forms over her head, ‘You look like shit.’ “Then I shall return to lifting weights and guzzling growth inducers, dear. I shall bulk up enough to please you.” She ducks her head to the paperwork. “And your blood work isn’t right. You’re hyperglycemic, with some ketone buildup in your urine. I’d swear you were diabetic if you had any history of smoking and obesity. Then there’s that back pain.” “Admit it, Joannie. You’re puzzled. A beautiful mind in a beautiful body, but once again I baffle you.” She chuckles, but she does it for show. “I’ll write you a referral. I want you to see an old classmate of mine in Santa Fe – he’s the best. He’ll order the workup, and we’ll find out what we’re dealing with. I’ll call ahead – I want you in quick.” Her bubble pops up, ‘Cancer. It’s always cancer.’ I am bloody cold lying here in this hospital bed. Off and on for two weeks they have scanned me, probed my orifices, inquired

about the health of my sphincters. They have whittled all of my dignity away. Now they have thrust a hollow sword into my back, through my intestine and into a mass the CAT scan detected and the MRI paints like a bird’s nest in violet hues. I have a foreign body lodged within me, a frightening plague of my own cells. Mara sits beside me. She has driven down from Taos, a two hour journey, by herself. She actually appears to care. At least she has all the right behaviors. My cartoon bubbles have failed me, so I don’t know what she really thinks. Probably ruined by the extra drugs. She hitches forward in her chair. Now I will have to suffer through the explanations. “How big’s the mass, Joseph?” She appears distraught – amusing. “Oh, the size of an orange. Perhaps a grapefruit by today. Of course, it is not a simple round thing. Rather messy, tangled up with my pancreas. And gut.”

Her eyebrows arch and her pupils dilate. “Pancreas!” The bitch already knows, from Noha, but we must pretend. “Yes, Mara, we all know about pancreatic cancer. That’s why they thrust that huge, painful needle into me.” I hold up my hands, eighteen inches apart. “A monster.” Ridiculous, playing the role, she nods.“Biopsy. You’re taking it okay.” I know different. I am a little man inside my godlike head, screaming away. My smart phone delivered the web-page news days ago. Only a one-in-four chance to live a year. I summon a smile – it feels plastic on my face. I work harder, try for sincerity. “I am less worried than you think. I’ve always had luck on my side.” She leans forward to take my hand. “I’m sure it’ll all work out. How long before they get the results?” Her red hair floats forward across my arm. Ghostly. Her kindness makes me want to smash at

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her, and I would too, if I were not so tired. At least with unkind words. “It’s about a week. But they will peer at it through the microscope before it goes off to the lab. That should tell them something.” “And then you’ll know.” I try on the condescending grin. Silly woman. “Oh, no. They won’t tell me. If they were wrong and it’s not malignant, they would have to explain later. And I would sue for mental anguish.” “Surely not. They’ll tell you.” My turn to pat her hand. I know the conventions. “I have become a cog in the machine, Mara.” The little screaming man is louder now – I think he wants out. She slips her hand out from under mine. “So it’s a week. Do you stay here?” “Oh God no, not here. But I have a room at the Residence Inn. The drive back and forth to Taos, it’s too much.”

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She frowns. Her lips have those vertical trench-marks of a woman who doesn’t care what she looks like. “Joseph, you should have told us. We could drive you.” “Hah. You think that I drive myself? No, Carl chauffeurs me. But speaking of back and forth.” “Yes, sweetie?” “They’ll check me out in a couple of hours. Can you give me a lift to the hotel? Drive me back to my modest suite, tuck me into bed for the night?” I watch her grin, the first genuine thing today. “Why, I believe you are trying to get me in the sack, you old fart.” I can feel the burning in my eyes. Tears want to form. I hate it when she is right. I ache for a woman’s coddling, even a burned-out grizzled lesbo’s. At least a distraction. No chemo, no radiation, no surgery. Oh, to be Mara’s parent, lying in a Kansas nursing

home, waiting for my centennial so many years away! Instead I lie in this unimagined terrain – hospice. A morphine-infused wait for the cancer to explode out of my abdomen and vomit across the room. A wait for blood to cascade out of my rectum and float me off the sheets and onto the floor. I hear a skritching in my ears, like dog’s claws on the linoleum. It is my anger. Her head eases round the door, hesitant. Noha is still the most beautiful woman I have ever taken to bed. But now, when I see her, I see what I will lose. “Are you awake?” She among all still deserves a smile from me. “Come in, come in. You’ll relieve this continuous tedium.” She leans across the bed, touches her lips to my forehead. I had imagined they would be hot, like her blood, but they are cool and dry. She asks, “Why are you all the way down here in Albuquerque?”

“No one at home, Noha, no one to shuffle my bedpans or stick morphine patches on me. Carl took my cats over to his mother, and the house sits empty.” “Can I watch the place for you, water plants?” I nod. “That would be lovely, dear. Or better yet, throw them all in the trunk and take them to your place. You can have them.” She tosses both hands up in protest. “Oh, but you’ll be coming home.” “Noha, you saw the sign on the building. I’ll not be coming home.”

about the service, service that cannot matter compared to my Big Event. “They’re quite kind. Sit beside me, beloved.” Not in the chair. She perches on the edge of the bed, bundles my hand up in both of hers. She presses her tush up against my side and my glance flickers there before proceeding up past her breasts. She gazes down into my face. “We’ve had happier times, Joseph.” I clear my throat. “This morning I was thinking about our trip to Florida, five years ago.”

Her face collapses like a melting milk choc- She has the sweetest smile. “All that lovely olate. She didn’t have to confront the immi- sand and the sun.” I chuckle, for her benefit. nence of death as long as it went unsaid.I “You didn’t want to spoil your complexion. Instead you lay under the cabana.” “And have spoiled it. you burned bright pink, racing around in She dabs at her eyes with a pink kleenex. the sun.” “But the pain of sunburn did not inhibit my performance.” “How are they treating you here?” I see no need to swamp her with complaints

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Now her face flares pink, beneath that lus-

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cious Egyptian chocolate. “Just at dusk, lying together, the sides of the cabana hanging down to give us privacy.” I remember that the fabric fluttered like wings as the evening breeze drifted in from the ocean, showing me flashes of the hotel, of the beach, of the lights at dusk. As I poised above her.

The squalor of sickness. I gaze up into her face. “No, not the full shebang. Just a little manipulation. For old times sakes.”

“Dearest Noha.”She is pleased by the memory.

Her forehead crinkles, then clears in a beautiful smoothness. She hops down, whirls to the door, and locks it. Back by my side, she fishes the sheets down, raises the gown. “No catheter? Thank God.”

She smiles, her full lips open slightly to show white teeth gleaming.

“I should allow a man to thrust a tube up my penis? Not until the very last, my dear.”

“Yes, Joseph. It was so lovely.” “Noha, would you do me a favor? The smallest of favors?”

Using the lotion on the overbed table, she straightens me, rubs in the lubrication, begins her motions. “How wicked you are, Joseph.”

“What is it, Joseph?” “Perhaps one last time. Could you . . .” Her eyes open as wide as they can. She stares at me from head to toe. My hair, no doubt sticky and matted, the beard stubble-gray across my cheeks. The gown wrinkled, and perhaps odiferous. Crumpled sheets.

I stare at her, the part in her hair, her head dropped, concentrating on me, on this thing we share again. “That is so very nice. It’s like we are teenagers, in the back of a car.” She raises her face, a grin appearing at the corner of her mouth. “I grew up in Egypt.

Father had a chauffeur and we dared not use the backseat.” “Oh, oh, ah.” My body contracts, three times. I curl up in the final shudder, and she hesitates, then strokes me a few times more. She catches all of it in her other hand – it pools up and looks like lemon curd. Nothing. I feel nothing, though my body performed the oldest dance. I have ejaculated without an orgasm. She kisses my forehead again, fishes a tissue out of the box and wipes her palm. “You scandalous old man. Promise me you won’t do this with anyone but me.” “I promise.” My voice gags in my throat. I promise to let it go, cast it away from me, not to think about it. “I can’t wait to tell Mara. Or perhaps it should be our secret.” She reaches up, strokes my face with the hand that brought me to my sticky end. I want, I need a moment by myself. “Noha love. Can you fetch me a cup of ice. My mouth is so dry these days. The nurses station on the hall will tell you where.” She is so pleased, her face soft and adoring. Some domestic

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task, after having done the dirty. Taking a styrofoam cup, she unlocks the door, slips out like a courtesan leaving the chambers of the king. I stare about the room. Institutional, florescent light eradicating all shadow. A giant TV hung from the ceiling, a black vacant slab. The side table and the overbed table filled with bedsore ointments, tissues, a box of alcohol swabs, bedpan and urinal, moisturizing wicks for cracked lips, abandoned Styrofoam cups. A litany of objects, my final possessions. It’s been a perfect day for me, so far. My contentment stretches out before me. Unlike Mara, I am not dragged down by paternal constraint. Unlike Carl, no gluttony gnaws at me. Unlike Noha, the need for sexual congress has disappeared. The air conditioning blows down upon me. I feel a cold wind. End

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S L AV K O D J U R I C IN PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

A R T I S T S S TAT E M E N T VOLU ME FOUR , ISSUE FOUR

In the last several years of a tireless art practice and exploration, printmaking has been heavily present, but more as a vehicle or the starting point, than as the focus. My main focus has always orbited around drawing and painting, art-books and on-site installations. I work intuitively. I see a fundament of printmaking medium, the passage from the sketch to a print, as a shuttered beauty, enslaved by its own terminology. Intrigued by repetition and the physicality of printed matter I discovered the vitality of working at the press. Most of my series end up being an edition variable, collections of monoprints. I think of printing itself as a creative process and action â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a horizontally structured analysis. In addition to key plates, I use a large variety of matrixes and flattened objects as color blocks, blanket inserts, and intermediate ink transfer surfaces. Each new insertion to the original key plate inevitably introduces a direction of its own. After months of labor intensive work and a variety of edits, I call it done, and step out of the game of printing, letting the prints settle down like dust. Together they form an intricacy of rhythm and a mood change within the harmony of an idea. I distance myself from my work, but I am never really too far away. I never stop considering its many possible outcomes. When the time comes and the prints are ready, their new form is born and they get their final shape. They become a book, freestanding print, or an installation. By liberating my prints from the printing medium, while embracing both errors and successes, I open myself to their new perspectives. I guide my work through and away from technical awes into the synthesis that communicates its broader self.

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W H I S T L I N G M O O N T R AV E L E R

ARIADNE’S THREAD

THE MEADOW III

(2013)

(2014)

LITHOGR A PH Y 18’’ X 24”

R ELIEF PR INT, CUTOUT, DR AW ING WA LL INSTA LL ATION VA R I A BLE DIMENSIONS

SEF DRUSTVENOG

SHADOW MASTER I

SHADOW MASTER II, III,

S TA N DA R D ( 2 0 1 3 )

(2015)

I V, V (2 01 5)

FOLDING R ELIEF A NDLITHOGR A-

E TCHING, INTERCH A NGE A BLE

PH Y PR INT 10” X 12”

R ELIEF 8” X 10”

R E L AY S O F YO U T H I , I I , I I I

NOTHINGERS I, II, III, IV

UPPER SCULPTURES (2015)

LOWER SCULPTURES (2015)

OBJECT, DR AW ING, CUTOUTS A ND

OBJECT, DR AW ING, CUTOUTS

VA R IE T Y OF FOUND OBJECTS 15”

A ND VA R IE T Y OF FOUND OBJECTS

ARTEAST (2014)

H A NDM A DE ACCOR DI A N BOOK , 72 LINOCUT PR INTS

VA R I A BLE DIMENSIONS

11” X 8” X 6”

MUY DIVERTIDO

THE BOOK OF RIOTS

(2013)

(2014)

R ELIEF, MONOPR INT 15” X 18”

GOUACHE ON PA PER 56.5” X 63”

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