Letter from the Editor

Greetings, Readers!

Welcome to the Spring 2022 edition of Illumination Journal!

I am so excited to be sharing this issue of Illumination with you. I am thrilled to be, for the first time in Illumination history, highlighting and featuring twelve student artists who were chosen by our judging panel as the winners of our first ever art and creative writing prizes. I dearly hope this tradition can continue in the coming semesters and can grow to become a comprehensive compensation model to award every student artist published in Illumination Journal some form of monetary prize.

To the new readers, who may be reading their first edition of Illumination Journal: Welcome! We are the University of Wisconsin - Madison’s home for undergraduate arts and creative writing. It is our distinct honor to showcase the incredible art that is made by students around campus, and we are so glad to have you as one of our readers. If you are a returning reader, welcome back!

I want to extend the sincerest thank you to everyone who submitted and trusted us with their work this semester. Everything we received this year was so moving, and the quality of work we received was higher than ever. It was such an honor to read all the intimate pieces of yourselves that you sent to us. Thank you for your vulnerability. Thank you for making the process of choosing the prize winners incredibly difficult. There were so many talented and deserving submissions this year that we were splitting hairs when judging who would not only win the prizes this year, but also who we had the physical space to feature in the journal. Thank you to all who submitted, you are all so inspiring, and we hope to see more of your work in the future.

I am so proud of this issue, and all our featured artists. I believe this is the strongest and most cohesive body of work we have released in recent memory, and I have loved putting it together, reading everyone’s submissions and seeing the abundance of talent, passion and dedication on this campus. I hope you all enjoy reading it just as much as the Illumination team has enjoyed making it.

Happy reading!

Samuel Wood

he/him/his Editor-in-Chief

*Prize winners in red

The Start of Something 2 Sophia Abrams

4 Candy Darling Brian Albarran Trujillo

8 transition (which rift shall act as the final divide?) Serendipity Stage

9 how are the birds? :) Azura Tyabji

11 Dead Sea Carly Silver

12 The Walk + Pedestrian Paulina Eguino

13 The Walk of Shame Aubade Aidan Aragon

19 Studio Door Sheila Drefahl transition (which rift shall act as the final divide?)

Serendipity Stage