Issue 23

YAREAH Magazine

Hell

Issue 23. April 2012

The inducement of Saint Mary via LSD, by Martin Askem

Venus the Future, by Paul White

Hell & Rodin Art: Martin Askem, Paul White, Phil Mooney, Ivan de Monbrison, and Emric [Kabal].

Writing: Bobby Fox, Alex Pruteanu, Charles Kinney Jr. and Ann Timmermans.

Articles: Isabel del Rio, IZara, Sartosa, Michael J Metcalf.

Interview with Martin Cid Special collaboration: Elena Malec

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Roots & future = good contemporary art

Interview with Martin Cid

Q

.- Why is this issue dedicated to Hell?

Do not give a little scary?

A.- Well, (laughs) not to me. You know, hell, demons, nightmares… are subjects that have always interested me. Perfect subjects to write. They have two sides: tragic and comic.

Sin always brings disgrace, personal and social, but it’s amusing to analyze its motivations, the irrational complexes behind a bad behavior. For example, avarice: why does a person need to accumulate so many things? Why is this person so insecure to need them? What is really looking for? Maybe love and not money, but he or she is so clumsy as to confuse the objective, mankind is usually funny.

Years ago, I went to Paris, to D’Orsay museum, and I saw ‘The Gates of Hell’ by Rodin. Dante has been a source of inspiration to me and those Gates… wooo... They have tragedy and comedy, Rodin is sublime.

by John Glass

Emric (Kabal), Paul White, the sculptor Phil Mooney or the suggestive work by Ivan de Monbrison.

We never forget our motto: ‘roots & future = good contemporary art’.

Q.- And how about literature?

A.- Elena Malec is a restless person. She paints but also writes, we will have poems by her, and same happens with Martin Askem.

Also, we will have short stories by Bobby Fox and Alex M. Pruteanu, articles by IZara, Sartosa and Ann Timmermans, and a funny opinion about Hell by Charles Kinney jr. This issue has been really interesting and I, of course, want to thank Portrait of Martin Cid and Jack hell, he had a life my collaborators, the Labrador, by Elena Malec full of obstacles, specially Isabel del but he is an example of personal over- Rio, our art editor: good job! coming. The important thing is not to have problems but to overcome them: Download pdf for free and, above all you know, ‘who resists ends.’

Enjoy it!

Q.- Is Auguste Rodin the main subject Furthermore, Yareah will have current of this issue of Yareah magazine?

A.- Yes, and his works, and his personal artists too. Martin Askem, Elena Malec,

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Crouchin by Auguste Rodin

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What is Hell?

IZara: Hell = nothing.

When I listen to somebody pronoun cing this dreadful word, I always thought in the author Miguel de Unamuno. He was looking for God (and its opposite) during his life. He was scared of his atheism because he wanted to have eternal life. Then, he wrote ‘I’m not scared of the pains of hell, I’m scared of losing my indi vidual conscience and to be nothing.’

However, some people are already nothing. When we lose our illusions, when we start to vegetate only wai ting to consume another day, wor king and obeying rules we don’t understand. Then, we are nothing and we feel like dying.

Ketamine Through The Eyes Of Mona Lisas Bastard Child, by Martin Askem

The Mind of Askem, by Martin Askem

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Literature ISartosa: Hell is loneliness. An adult idea of Heavens says it is an eternal fee ling of being in God pre sence. Therefore, we would be eternally in company, in a new way we wouldn’t do alone.

If we don’t deserve this company, we would be in Hell.

I ask: How many people are walking alone now in our streets? And what is worst: How many deserve their hell?

The Eyes have It, by Paul White

John Glass: To me, hell is a collective situation. I don’t believe in individual salvations. Society save or condemn together because we built our world together.

I wouldn’t be happy knowing my neighbors are condemned for eternity.

Michael J Metcalf: Well, I think hell is here (and it’s a sentence of the New Testament). Full of pains and sad ness, the incomplete world is ours. It’s necessary to work hardly to build a beer society, to improve our behavior and to be beer partners, helping to each other.

From Enlightenment, we are improved our technique but how about our Ethic? This is our bigger problem.

We are busy making money and buying things, we are busy discussing silly opinions and im proving our status, but what we need (urgently) is to improve our Ethic to go out of this hell of wars and fighting.

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I won’t speak about

By IZara Ibn Arabi

There was obscure periods in History (and there will be more, be care ful) when people tough that the Earth was plane and the men couldn’t plane. Even now, I promise because I tried, the man cannot plane, they need to use an airplane to do it (and please, don’t try it again, I pro mise it hurts).

W

hen Dante wrote Divine Comedy there was one of these periods… you know, Black Plagues and devils planning over every town… superstitious and witches… magic cauldrons and black magic and… well, a book that tried to unite all the wisdom of a time called Divine Comedy.

I know, divine reader, you have studied in a great University and all wisdoms together cannot level your (our) knowledge about Hebrew and Latin, about Mythology or the Roman Empire… well, if you know all of these things, please stop reading and send me an email telling me the secret of the Eternal Youth… if not, I will remember you that Dante Alighieri used one particular cosmology taken from a Sufi mystic philosopher called (copy-paste, I love you)… Abū 'Abdillāh Muḥammad ibn 'Alī ibn Muḥammad ibn `Arabī ('‫نبا دمحم هللا دبع وبأ‬ ‫) يبرع نبا دمحم نبا يلع‬. This fact is known by everybody who has

“Kiss” by Auguste Rodin

YAREAH Magazine read Divine Comedy… or it must be. If you want to know more about this philosopher, please stop reading because I will try to make a different question about our two writers.

There are many interesting books about it and even you can look for one online Encyclopedia that begins with a W. I ask myself next question: was not a time when different religions were in a permanent and stupid war? Wasn’t a time without any contact between Catholic and Mussulmen world? When we are trying to imagine the XII century we could do it something like this: people hitting each other with a great stone or (the cleverest ones) with some woods or lances… or… (omG) we can imagine a society with politics and an social organization, literature… a society with people who read (omG again and again) and people who share each other (even between cultures, omG) their respective discoveries. That was how Dante Alighieri, a well-travelled man, could read Ibn Arabi and how he could try to compose a verse about the land, the heaven and the philosophy and the religion and the Humankind. Dante didn’t try to do a unique sight of the world, a

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unique philosophical vision of the creation or the History… he tried to compare and to sign to a greater world and vision, to a greater point of view… that is maybe the beginning of this Divine Comedy.

Then I asked to myself: and that world of witches and superstition? I can read now a different point of view and they weren’t mixing into a cauldron the parts of the spell, they were reading and writing too and, I suspect, there were many few witches flying with their broomsticks than we think.

I recommend to take a look to Ibn Arabi cosmology, it will be very interesting to a better understanding of Dante’s book.. but if you don’t like philosophy or you got bored with it…

Dante had a very interesting correspondence too with a friend… satiric-

Ibn Arabi sentence

erotic-stupidpseudo-non_philosophical letters. In this world, there’s not all knowledge and wisdom.

And after the reading, please consider this: (Before reading, please consider this, from http://dictionary.reference.com): i•ro•ny 1.the use of words to convey a meaning that is the oppositeof its literal meaning: the irony of her reply, “How nice!” when Isaid I had to work all weekend.

2.Literature . a. technique of indicating, as through character or plotdevelopment, an intention or attitude opposite to thatwhich is actually or ostensibly stated.

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Chunks of Wall

I

still cannot watch Planet of the Apes. The original one with Charlton Heston. In the evenings I would be left alone in the apartment and often times I could not put myself to sleep. I was eight. Some nights I’d panic when it got late and I’d kneel before the large icon of Jesus being held

by Mary (it was illegal for us to own religious property, but we did anyway) and pray someone would come home.

I am embarrassed to think about that now, but I was a boy and I was just simply scared. I read Jules Verne mostly, and Renart the Fox. I played cowboys and Indians in the park, with sticks, during the day after school. With

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Alex M. Pruteanu

friends. Boys who grew up to Alex Pruteanu be I don’t know. Informers maybe. Traitors. Laborers. Since emigrating to the United Stafrom Romania in 1980 Alex has Torturers. Prisoners, most li- tes worked as a day laborer, a film prokely. Or engineers. Someti- jectionist, a music store clerk, a mes I’d be locked out of the journalist/news writer for the U.S. Information Agency (Voice of Alex Pruteanu apartment until my father America English Broadcasts), a TV would get home hours after Director for MSNBC and CNBC, http://www.facebook.com/ampruteI’d get off school, and I’d and a freelance writer. Currently he anu on staff at NC State University. have to piss badly. Often is Alex has published fiction in Pank times I pissed on the stairs of Magazine, Camroc Press Review, Specter Literary Magaour building, waiting. Wai- zine, Connotation Press, and others. He is author of no“Short Lean Cuts,” (Amazon Publishing) available as ting. I took some of the nas- vella an e-book at Amazon and Barnes & Noble, and in papertiest beatings from my father back at Amazon. for pissing on the stairs. But I kept doing it. I don’t know why. Not mistake. He said he wouldn’t be able to even now. I took some of the nastiest correct me if he didn’t see the mistake beatings also originally. But I kept scratching off the for having te- ink. I don’t know why I didn’t stop. I rrible handwri- don’t know why I didn’t leave the misting and shitty take there. I didn’t trust him maybe. I calligraphy. I didn’t trust that he wouldn’t beat me wrote in ink anyway. And so I took my chance. and invariably I’d make a mis- The night of the earthquake I was take and try to alone in the apartment and they shocover it up. wed Planet of the Apes on television.

Scratch out the The original one. With Charlton Hesink with the ton. It was on. It was off. And somecorner of a how I got myself to sleep before the razor blade. It building started swaying. I got up. It was awful. It was pitch black. They were there, the was always a two of them. They must have come in. botched up job. I don’t know. It was late. My mother, And my father not realizing I was out of bed, rushed would wail on and picked up an armful of blankets. me for trying Or my father. They are the same, my to cover up the parents. One entity sliced into two halves. Neither one better than the other.

“Short Lean Cuts” by Alex Pruteanu

YAREAH Magazine Neither one more significant or insignificant than the other. It smelled like chunks of wall. Of paint. Of gas. Of something burning. Like pig’s singed hair. Or. Skin. Outside, the building next to ours had half-collapsed. There was moaning from the people trapped under concrete and steel. It was foggy.

Thick with rubble. A man came out of the dusty cloud and offered to put his hat down so my mother could step into it. We were all barefoot. We slept in the park in which I played cowboys and Indians. No policemen came to tell us to get off the grass. There were no pensioners sitting on benches. There was no sun after that. I lost a friend in the collapse. A boy. And his mother and father. In the building next to ours.Later, when you looked at it, as it stood untouched and somehow wounded, it seemed a giant sword had sliced down the building vertically. The only thing exposed were the toilets on each floor.

I thought it indecent. There were rusty pipes. Toilets and rusty pipes with shit still flowing inside of them. It was an indecent way to be remembered if you lived in one of those units. People were still moaning from underneath the rubble. There were looters. Blankets. Whiskey from the forbidden shops. Kent cigarettes. And days later, German Shepherd rescue dogs with the Red Cross insignia on a white sheet tied around their torsos. People passed judgment on other people. Looters shrugged it all off and found customers who bought the stolen booty. My mother never took the man’s hat. Never stood inside of it.

I was sent to the country. To a school there. It was some weeks. Or months.

Time flows strangely for an eight year old. I had English class and I said

Literature things like: “yellow.” Or: “this is the house that Jack built.” Or: “an egg in an egg cup.” I bathed in a large bucket with water that had been heated by my grandma on the stove. I took the first shift, the cleanest water, before my grandpa got in and had his wash. My father sent a letter that said structural engineers were reinforcing our apartment building and that I’d be able to return shortly. Meanwhile there was: “advertisement” and “good night” and “I a m well, a n d how are you?” in English class.

I learned how to build a raft from sawgrass or corn stalks or reed from the other boys in the village.

Once, by accident, I struck one of them in the head with a large tree branch I had found in the fields, and was swinging above my head like a lasso. I was sent back I don’t know when.

Time flows in weird patterns for an eight year old.

It hardly rains in the summer in this city. Later, I am to find Crouchin by Auguste Rodin

out it’s on the same latitude as Montreal and that explains the brutal winters. It doesn’t look anything like Montreal, though. Later I find that out, as well.

The boulevard, ten stories below, is soaked with whipping gusts of water. It’s deserted. The boulevard is most always deserted. The half-standing apartment building next to ours is getting a new half. Walls are being raised around the exposed toilets, up on each floor. It’s like someone is slowly covering the flesh of a bashful, discreet, abused child standing in the middle of a cold, interro-

YAREAH Magazine

gation room. There are laborers hammering steel into concrete. Raising parapets looks violent and wrong and not at all elegant. Our apartment buildings are all institutional and remind me of dormitories or hospitals. I watch the workers out of our kitchen window, which has thin chicken wire attached and rigged by my father just outside the glass–puffed out in a weird way–in order to prevent me from falling out if the window is opened. One man is on a higher floor peering down below in the torrential rain. He yells: “Costa!”

No one answers except the persistent

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The Gates of Hell (detail) by Auguste Rodin

rain hitting the glass of our kitchen window.

“Costa!”

The floor of the kitchen moans and I know my father has entered the room.

“Costa!”

The laborer is peering down seven stories. He stands on a wide open sheet of concrete, close to the edge, and I know if he leans out much further he’ll come down fleshy and soft and spongy.

“Costa!”

The kitchen floor moans again and my father asks something about eating take-away schnitzels from the pub near Lido’s, for dinner.

“Costa!”

Rain.

Chunks of wet concrete. “Yellow.” My father: “…and potatoes?” This is the house that Jack is building. “It’s not AD-ver-tisements, it’s ad-VUHR-tisments. You are learning the Queen’s English.”

“Costa!”

“What?”

The first laborer leans over further and yells: “Fuck your mother up the ass!”

And then he laughs and flicks his cigarette butt over the open platform, down to the wet ground.

The Kiss (detail) by Rodin

YAREAH Magazine

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Miracle on 2nd

by Bobby Fox Chance St.

Despite everything that happened over the past several months, the boom line was this: they were geing a grandchild. And although the circumstances surrounding this fact were suspect, they were finally geing what they always wanted.

Bobby Fox They already told her parents. was a natural klutz.

T

That was the easy part. It was now time to turn their attention to the hard part: his parents.

He first received the news while driving on the 401 in Ontario, Canada, en route to an impromptu ski trip with co-workers who dared him to be spontaneous and join them. It wasn’t so much that they were desperate for his company, as it was that they were in desperate need for a third party to help offset the cost of the room. It was three days before Christmas.

“Why would you go skiing so close to Christmas?” his mother demanded to know the night before he left in her usual concerned, paranoid fashion.

“Why not?,” he said, echoing the same refrain used by his co-workers. “I’ll be home for Christmas. I don’t see what the problem is.”

“What if you get hurt for Christmas?”, his mother continued to press.

“If both my arms are broken, I’m sure somebody would help me open my presents,” he said, realizing that her concerns were legitimate, considering he had never skied before and

“Don’t forget, you’re Bobby Fox is the award-winning of several short stories, plays, supposed to dress up as writer poems, a novel and 15 feature Santa this year,” she said, in length screenplays. Two of his screreference to the dozen or so enplays have been optioned to Bobby Fox He is also the nieces and nephews under Hollywood. writer/director/editor of several http://foxplots.com the age of 10 that he was ex- award-winning short films. His repected to hand gifts to at the cent stage directing debut led to an Audience Choice at the Canton One-Acts Festival in Canton, MI. Fox family Christmas gathering. Award graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in “If I get hurt, Tony English and a minor in Communications and received a Masters of Arts in Teaching from Wayne State University. can do it.”

In addition to moonlighting as a writer, independent film“He doesn’t fit in the maker and saxophonist, Fox teaches English and video suit anymore.” production in the Ann Arbor Public Schools, where he “Then he should re- uses his own dream of making movies to inspire his stuto follow their own dreams. He has also worked in alize that if you’re too fat to dents public relations at Ford Motor Company and as a newsplay Santa, then you should paper reporter. He resides in Ypsilanti, MI. probably go on a diet.” knew that his family would never forHis promised his mother that give him if he ditched them on Chrishe was going to be fine, even though tmas. he knew this could very turn out to be He wasn’t exactly thrilled that he had a lie. to drive alone, but it turned out to be a “Just be careful,” she said, hoblessing in disguise. Three hours into ping the concern in her voice would be his trip, his girlfriend was calling. He enough to get him to change his mind. grew immediately concerned. Due to “And don’t forget to bring an appetizer roaming charges, they both agreed to to Aunt Rosemary’s.” only call in the case of an emergency “I won’t,” he said, zipping up and to rely on e-mail for communicahis suitcase. And with that, he was off. tion. The subsequent phone bill proved He was driving alone, since the other that this was a wise decision. But in members of his party planned on an hindsight, the monster bill was well extended stay through Christmas. He worth it.

YAREAH Magazine “Hello?” he said, trying to mask the concern in his voice.

“Hi.” “Is everything okay?”

“Congratulations. You’re going to be a daddy!”

“Wait. What?,” he said, still trying to process the information “I’m pregnant. At least, according to two pregnancy tests.” He was filled with a confusing cocktail of emotions, both totally aware and unaware that in that exact moment, his life changed forever – even more so than it had since his divorce finalized just three months prior.

Prior to the call, he had just been thinking something that she said the night before when she announced that she was late – something that startled every fiber of his being.

“I suppose if I was pregnant, you’re probably thinking that I would automatically want to go the whole family route.” In his mind, that’s exactly the way he saw it. There was only one natural choice in this matter. But it was obvious she felt otherwise.

“What are you saying,” he eked out.

“I’m just saying that if I am pregnant, that doesn’t automatically mean I’m going to jump into a marriage now or anytime soon. It doesn’t mean we aren’t going to be together. It just means I don’t think we should automatically get married, especially considering how are last marriages worked out.

Although this was meant to comfort him, it did very little to do so. Nor did this: “The only thing I’m clear on right now is that I will be the mother. And you’ll be the father. And we’ll see where we go from there.”

Little did she know that he had actually been praying for this exact thing to

Literature happen. Deep down, he knew that his prayers were likely to fall on deaf ears.

Prayer doesn’t automatically transform one’s internal biology. But he figured it couldn’t hurt. And quite likely, this would probably turn out to be a false alarm, anyway.

As much as her words hurt, he couldn’t completely dismiss h e r point. It was true.

T h e y w e r e both recovering from failed marriages. In fact, her divorce wasn’t even finalized yet (some would argue her marriage was over before it even began). And even though he was confident they could be different, they had already gone through enough drastic changes over the past several months to last a lifetime.

If they both learned one thing over the course

of the past year, nobody can predict anything no matter how much they try.

In their minds, the previous clichéd notion that life changes in heartbeat became reality. In every conceivable way. Life truly can change in an instant, even though it rarely ever feels that way.

And this sudden change validated everything they had done to get to this point, making everything they sacrificed and risked to get here worth it.

It was hard to believe that just one year ago at this time, they were still in their previous, joyless/abusive marriages. His was a matter of emotional and physical abuse. Hers was simply a matter of joyless neglect.

But abuse all the same, especially when alcohol was involved, which was increasing in frequency. Although they had worked together for five years, they didn’t get to know each other u n t i l

The Waltz, by Camille Claudel and Auguste Rodin

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The Centaur, by Auguste Rodin

about a year ago, when the floodgate of fate opened, turning their lives upside down with no end in sight. Their connection was immediate. Then came the first kiss. Then it was all downhill.

Or uphill, depending on one’s point of view. Both of them knew they wanted to be together more than anything. But neither one of them knew if they had the courage to get out of their souldestructive marriages – marriages that many would have argued should have ended a long time ago. For him, it was the taboo of divorce, compounded by the lingering perception of a fairy tale romance, which had everything to do

with how they met and little to do with the marriage itself. For her, it was being resigned to a marriage of mediocrity, in its infinite forms. For years, it seemed as though no amount of abuse or neglect could rescue them from the trap that had become their lives. Both knew where they wanted to be, but it was getting there that presented the greatest challenge. But over time, the clarity prevailed and they did what was necessary to be together, never fully realizing just how much pain and regret lied ahead, despite the overall happiness they had never felt to this degree before. It was this very pain and misery that was fo-

reshadowed by his ex: “You can’t build love on other people’s misery,” she said through bitter tears. Those words will haunt him for the remainder of his life, no matter how happy he is now and will ever be. It is the most visible scar form a past that will never truly fade.

But no matter how much the past – at times – cast its shadow over their relationship, perhaps no greater sign existed that they were meant to be than the situation they now found themselves in. Their decision to rip themselves from their former lives in order to be together was certainly made easier by the fact that neither one of

YAREAH Magazine them had children. She had always his dream – which she had once supwanted children, but nature had other ported with equal passion – was the plans for her. Four-and-a-half years of final straw. fertility issues never suppressed her The good news is, he is writing again. desire. But it certainly deepened her de- But he no longer suffers the minor pression. She tried just every possible panic attacks he would experience fertility treatment available. She tried when all he could think about was that acupuncture. Prayer. But all she got in he wasn’t writing, rather than living in return was grief. Along with resigna- the moment. And as a result, it wasn’t tion and growing acceptance that she long before he began to picture was never going to have children. himself having a family with her. That’s As for him, it wasn’t that he didn’t want when he realized it wasn’t a matter of kids. He just didn’t know when he wan- not wanting kids. It was a matter of not ted them. He always figured he would wanting kids with his wife. And that’s be ready as soon as he sold one of his when he knew that he had to end it. scripts to Hollywood. This way, he This was the clarity he was seeking. Of could quit teaching and focus on his course, he was knowingly entering into writing. That was his plan, anyway. a relationship with someone who was Otherwise, he knew his writing would unable to bear a child and leaving betake a backseat to child rearing and hind somebody who begged him for everything that comes with it. But after one constantly. But life (Fate? God?) several close calls, he never lived up to likes to throw curve balls of irony the hyped-up potential of his youth every chance it gets. The past year was and realized that he was simply chasing one giant curve ball. But they were still rainbows. in the batter’s box, hanging by the Rationally, he knew he should probably thread of a full count, fouling away give up. But he couldn’t quite shake the pitch after pitch until they decided they feeling that the time he invested into were going to do something about it. his dream would all be for nothing if And three months later, she was preghe gave up now. He imagined this is nant with his child. The day after they how somebody with a gambling condi- found out, she left to visit her family tion probably felt every time they tried up north for Christmas. Even though to quit. she would have preferred to tell them The final nail in the coffin was when a little bit later in the pregnancy when his ex-wife demanded that he give up they were out of the danger zone, tehis writing and focus on becoming lling them was really a matter of necesmore of a handyman around the sity. Turning down wine was never house. It wasn’t that he didn’t contri- going to fly in her family. Although it’s bute around the house. He cooked. He difficult to predict how one might react cleaned. He did yard work. He just was- to shocking news, her only genuine n’t very good with tools. If there was concern was the fact that her dad just any one factor that was the catalyst to suffered a minor heart attack just a few the end of his marriage, this was it. He weeks prior. Beyond that, she was concould deal with the insults. The slaps. fident they would be more excited And the fists. But being told to give up above anything else. And they were.

Literature Up until this point, her parents were struggling to accept her daughter’s seemingly sudden decision to leave her husband behind to be with her “lover,” of whom her mother bluntly described as “not a relevant person.” However, they were about to find out just how relevant this person suddenly now was.

They would have no choice to accept him into their lives.

The greater challenge was going to be delivering the news to his family, who are more traditional in their ways and moderately Catholic. It wasn’t so much his parents he was concerned about. It was his grandmother. In his grandmother’s world, there is a right way and a wrong way. There was no in-between.

It was why – at least up until this point – regarded his girlfriend as “the other woman.” It wasn’t so much the fear of upsetting his grandmother he was worried about, as it was the fear of letting her down. Although he didn’t always agree with her, his grandmother was the greatest influence in his life. He was always the grandchild who listened to her the most – and in her mind, could do no wrong. And as a result, she expected more out of him. There was a reason his own parents used to tease him about being “the righteous brother,” always telling his two younger sisters what they should or shouldn’t be doing. In fact, his only fault growing up was being too good at times – a fact he often regrets looking back. But look at him now!

Another factor he knew could become the elephant in the room was the fact that he was also conceived out of wedlock. On one hand, this gave his parents no room for judgment. On the other hand, they could make a case that he should have known better. Again, it

YAREAH Magazine came down to his grandma once again and that he would be putting through a deja vu she was hoping to never have to relive.

Despite the one glaring similarity to his parents situation, there were huge differences. For one thing, they were literally half his age at the time. His father was still in high school at conception and holding a baby in his arms days just days after his graduation. Certainly, no way to begin adulthood. Yet thirty-four years later, they are still married with three children. They made it work. And he has never taken this for granted.

At the time, however, things didn’t look so hopeful. In fact, his grandmother didn’t even attend her son’s as a matter of principal, despite the fact that his parents were trying to do the “right” thing. His parents have never fully recovered from this slight. And his grandmother been trying to make up for it ever since. Little did they know, that God – in his infinite wisdom – was about to give them all a second chance.

Rarely does something that started out so seemingly wrong get the opportunity to turn out so right.

They actually tried to tell them several weeks ago. But a comedy of errors created a blockade, forcing them to retreat with their tails between their legs. The timing seemed perfect: the “danger zone” of the first trimester was coming to an end. And his sister, who lived out of state, would be in town. This way, he could tell his entire family. But if there’s anything they learned over the course of the past year, life never goes as planned. Cliché, yes. Truth, definitely.

The day started out optimistically enough. The sun was out – a rarity in

Literature February in Michigan. Birds were even chirping. He took a relaxing bath and got some reading in – a rarity unto itself. It was after he was dressed and came downstairs that things took the first turn for the worse. A heavy snow was falling. He didn’t realize snow was even in the forecast.

Having no choice, he ventured out into the storm to find a gift for his sister’s fiancé, whose birthday we were celebrating that night.

He was at Target when he got the phone call.

“I just got into an accident.”

“Are you okay?,” he asked, thinking first and foremost about the baby.

“I am,” she said. “But my car isn’t.”

She was driving home from the gym when out of nowhere, a car pulled past a stop sign at an intersection – presumably sliding on ice. In normal weather conditions, the driver probably would have stopped in time. And she would have been able to swerve out of the way. But Mother Nature had other plans. Other than losing a giant chunk of the passenger side bumper, she was able to escape this relatively unscathed, despite feeling slightly shaken up.

Already off to a delayed start, they set off to his parents’ house – the ultrasound picture safely tucked away in her planner. They looked at the weather forecast, which looked promising. But what should have been an hour drive turned into a 3 ½ hour one. By the time they reached their destination, they already missed dinner, which was when they planned to tell them.

Making matters worse, his Grandma was there. Due to the inclement weather, she ended up canceling her other plans. They had agreed they would tell

her separately at a later date, since her reaction was quite likely to be unfavorable. To compound matters, the birthday boy was trashed on his future father-in-law’s homebrew, as was his other sister’s husband. They were certainly in no condition to receive news as important as the news they were about to deliver.

Since they were already planning on spending night to avoid driving back home in the freshly fallen snow, they figured they could tell them at breakfast.

For a variety of reasons, this plan did not work, either and they headed back home with their tails between their legs.

But like many things in their relationship, their failed mission turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Because just days before their next scheduled attempt, another miracle crossed their path: he sold his house, creating one less things for his parents to worry about when they broke the news.

Per his divorce decree – which included giving away their entire savings as both compensation for the pain he caused and to ensure that she had money for grad school – he agreed to assume full responsibility for the house. When he agreed to these terms, he assumed removing her name from the mortgage would be as simple as filling out paperwork. But as it turned out, it required that he re-apply for a new mortgage, which required a down payment, which he would not be able to afford, now that his money was no longer in his pocket. And per the divorce decree, he was required to put the house up for sale if he was unable to obtain a new mortgage within 120 days. So he put his house up for sale – the dream of home ownership now over. A house

YAREAH Magazine they made into a home together. A Although he house filled – until the very end –with was not offimostly good memories. A house where cially “living” emotional abuse and neglect led di- with her yet, he rectly to the new life he was living now couldn’t reand into his future. member the last He put it up a few days before Chris- time he spent the tmas. And just after Christmas, a steady night at the house steam of showings brought strangers he used to call into a home that once welcomed so home. In his many friends and family. With each mind, home was passing day, the house became more with her. Not in and more of a stranger to him, just as the abandoned it was the day they first spotted it. Two set where the months later, it was sold. Of course, he drama of his had to pay out of pocket to meet the marriage played closing costs, but it could have been out. And now much worse. What saddened him – that his home among many things – was the vast was finally about amount of improvements the made to to be behind him the house amounted to nothing as far for good, he could as the return he got back on it. But des- finally pull his pite the short-term loss, it was a huge other foot out of relief both financially … and perhaps the murky swamp even more so, emotionally – a stepping of his past. stone out of the past where one foot Since the offer on was still firmly rooted, no matter how his house, his mom many steps he already took forward. urged him (on more The final battle against his past would than one occasion) to be the packing up/tossing out of the not “rush into anylast eight years of his life. Sorting thing” and move in through every memory of his former with her. Of course, he life, piece by piece. No bad memories knew she would change would be stored there. Only the good her tune once she knew ones. Naturally, his mind began playing the news, but until then, tricks on him, forcing himself to won- he had to conder if things really were so bad after all. vince her And setting aside artifacts from their that he marriage with the subconscious thought that they might be relevant again someday, even though he knew it was about as Eva, by Auguste Rodin impossible as it would be if she were dead.

Literature wouldn’t rush into anything, while simultaneously trying to avoid flat-out lying.

Take two. They finally arrived at his parents, following a relaxing trip up north to visit her parents.

While driving back, they analyzed (as they had already done numerous times before) how they would go about telling them. For example, would they first announce the pregnancy, and then explain her fertility issues? Or would they preface things with the fertility issues?

They then analyzed every possible reaction they were likely to face and the resulting responses. Each scenario had its own unique set of pros and cons. They ultimately decided to just let things play out in the moment, doing what felt right when the time came.

“One of the first things my family is going to ask is if we plan to get married.”

“What are you gong to tell them?” she wondered.

“That we’ve gone through too many life changes in recent months to rush into any other changes. But that we intended to raise our child together.

“And if they continue to bug us about it, I’m going to make it very clear to them that they are to stop.”

“It’s so funny,” she

YAREAH Magazine

said. “If I told my parents that we were going to get married, they would probably urge us not to rush into anything.”

“I guess that’s the difference between a conservative family and a liberal family.”

“True,” she said in agreement. Agreement was something they had on most issues, despite their opposing political, views. Somehow, they found ways to avoid the polarizing traps that would lead many into an argument. They knew where each other stood and figured there was no use trying to get one of the other to budge. As long as they could remember this, they could peacefully co-exist. At this point, they had to.

And now, after several agonizing

Literature baby. With the point of no return already reached, he managed to simultaneously push through the tension and increase it.

“As you all know, we’ve been dating one another for awhile now. It didn’t us long to envision a future together. We realize it’s never a good idea to rush into something …”

They hung on his every word, trying to decipher meaning where there seemed to be none.

“The thing is, for 4 ½ years, she tired to get pregnant. To be clear, it wasn’t her, it was him.

She tried everything, but nothing worked. She had already accepted that she Rodin last sculpture would never get pregnant. weeks, the time had finally come to tell He removed a small photo from his them. They waited until everyone was shirt pocket and slid it toward his paseated at the dining room table. The rents. only question that remained was whe“Mom. Dad. Meet your new grandther they would tell them while they child.” were eating and risk ruining everyone’s They stared at the photo in stunned meal, or telling them after the plates disbelief, which – after the longest time were cleared. They elected to tell them – quickly turned to some semblance of near the completion of their meal, bestunned joy. But nobody knew what to fore his mother got distracted with the say. Or who should speak next. So he business of doing dishes. did: He took a deep breath, grabbed her “No matter how you perceive this, rehand for good luck, support, desperaalize that we don’t see this as an accition and devotion, then fired the first dent. We see this as a miracle. And just shot: know that we are committed to raising “We have something we need to tell this baby together.” you.” Uneasy anticipation filled the He was confident he was saying all the room. There were only two likely foright thigns. But until they got a verbal llow up statements: either their son was response from his family, nothing else getting married again. Or was having a

YAREAH Magazine mattered. Finally, his mother broke the silence: “I have never been one to cast stones.

Especially in a situation like this. I have always wanted what’s best for my children. And I know you guys are happy together. And I am very happy for you guys. How could I not be?”

“So, do you guys plan on getting married?” his mother asked.

He gave the exact response he practiced over and over again in his head: “Although we can’t promise when, we can assure you that it will happen eventually. With all the life changes we’ve had this past year, I can’t say if it will happen before or after the baby is born. But once again, we will be functioning as though we were married.

And no matter what, the baby is our priority.

“And mom,” he continued. “I’m sure you can figure out where I’m moving to. And why.”

His mother nodded in understanding.

His then his girlfriend spoke: “I just want to say that I recognize that this news isn’t easy. I just want to be clear that I was the one who had the fertility issue. I honestly didn’t think I would ever get pregnant.

“This is definitely not the way I saw my life playing out. When I got married, I thought it was for life. Both of us did.

We both have parents who have been married for a long time and we were both hoping it would be the same for us. But it didn’t work out that way.

“But one thing that is clear, we both love and respect each other very much.”

Comforted by these words, his mother added: “I’m not one to cast stones. Especially when it comes to a situation like this.”

“To be honest with you, I was begin-

Literature ning to think you were never going to have children. Now I don’t have to worry anymore. I can’t wait to start planning the shower.”

Just as he predicted, his mother had already gotten over the initial shock and was already in planning mode – just had she done eight years ago when he announced his sudden engagement to a pen pal from Europe.

One down, two to go. His father remained both speechless and expressionless, which was incidentally the same reaction he had when he announced his engagement, later breaking his silence with divine eloquence: “You’re fucking nuts.” It was possible he would have the same response to this situation, but highly unlikely.

The greater challenge, of course, remained his Grandmother. He wondered if his parents were flashing back 30 years ago, thinking as though the wait had never ended.

She finally broke her silence: “The thing I have always wanted for my kids and grandkids more than anything, was their happiness. And if there’s anything that I have come to realize after a lifetime of experience, it’s that even though I don’t change, the world changes. As do people. And because people change, so does life.

“I might not always like everything, but I’ve learned from my mistakes. And I’m very happy for you two. And for my future great-grandchild. Just realize that raising a child is a tremendous responsibility. You are not just looking out for yourselves. But you must always love each other. No matter what, you must always love each other.”

He responded with echoes of a wedding vow. “We do.” Ellen nodded in agreement, and then let the room fill with reflective silence. He looked at his

father. The blank face earlier began to take shape into something more concrete, yet indescribable. It was an expression that he had never quite seen on him before – something between shame, shock and anger and somewhere buried deep – happiness. Slowly, he raised his hands to his reddened face. He remained that way for what felt like an eternity. It seemed as though everything hinged upon the outcome of this one moment. Suddenly, he got up, his face filled with tears, and headed out of the room. Of all the possible reactions they envisioned, this was not one of them.

“You should probably go to him,” he said to his mother, who got up in agreement.

“I’m happy for you,” his grandmother told them. “I know you will do the right thing.”

“We already are,” he said in response.

Moments later, his parents entered. He father was no longer crying, but his face was red and puffy.

“I wasn’t crying because I was upset,” his father said.

“I know,” his son responded, realizing that in a heartbeat, thirty years of unresolved pain and regret was washed away by an unlikely, rocky miracle. And although nobody alluded to what was actually taking place, everyone knew that all was finally forgiven.

The father then walked over to his son and hugged him. The last time he had been hugged by his father was on his wedding day, when this particular moment wouldn’t have made any sense to anyone in that room. When everything was so different. He then walked over to the woman carrying his future grandson and hugged her. He then sat back down to finish his meal, before they had dessert.

YAREAH Magazine

Literature

Poems by Elena Malec

Postmodern Patchwork Monday morning with artist catching up on his sleep among limbs & naked busts of mannequins.

Outdoors decapitated seedlings of Zinnia Thumbelina pose with needlelike green torsosleftovers from last night orgy of amoral cutworms.

You can smell a bio-engineered rose -now under a new namein a nearby foam cup, somewhere in the studio, the artist is lying perplexed with a dream of rendering the latest trends in human anatomy.

Paint brushes, oils, easel, canvas, and other items of weekend garage sale made room for cutting edge mixed media of body, blood, blade, sick, sweat, semen on polyester sheets.

Hommage to Picasso, by Elena Malec

Growing up in America by Elena Malec

YAREAH Magazine Mirage

Following a dream it's like trying to catch a butterfly with bare hands, smiling, in a hypnotic spell, reaching farther and farther until earth, grass, winged colors melt and sink in the sky... where am I?

Among hills and slopes of a wishful hell, shifting shades and hues light is cutting deep wounds; there I find myself, between incandescent hopes and brief thunderstorms of heavenly clues to the Petrified Forest of millions and millions soul fossils - gemstones burried in the Painted Desert of this monumental, wild, new land.

Literature Elena Malec

Elena Malec was born in Bucharest Romania in 1954. She holds a MA in modern languages and literatures from the University of Bucharest.Translated from George Elena Malec Bacovia’s poetry, published in Barhttp://elenacelona in Cuaderns Crema in 1984. malec.blogspot.com.

Published literary criticism in Roes/ mania, verse in the United States.

Other posts: http://yareah.com/?p=924

I Spy

These days our village sounds to me like a giant ocean shell uncorked between ventricles of hippocampi, and foaming with chilled Korbel.

Is this a fin de siècle or what?

An ex-princess ovulated a kumquat the royal palms in Beverly Hills felt no longer at ease, and dropped their crown on sidewalks; prime news blamed a mysterious disease.

Not only that I spy

cute pompom chips from Intel in a Kalalau Valley bonsai.

The African Dream, by Elena Malec

YAREAH Magazine

Martin Askem

Literature

Church of the White Devil

Tears of cocaine on the bathroom floor soak into the reflections of madness from the past rolled on the dice three sixes before. The gates of hell open playing a silent chorus inviting the broken man in, lucifer ackowledges his guest with a knowing grin.

The white line tells me to park, to take a seat on the throne and blast my past away and chase the turkey through the snow, a thanksgiving feast of heavenly blow.

The trickle down the throat numbs and tingles as the serotoin mingles with madness in my brain. My cranium pulses with delight as my eyes open to see the true light, dillated peoples in the midnight sky shine as I bow to the white devil once again.

The illict truth of life a devils tempation or a white line on the road to redempution The day Rorschach met Askem, by Martin Askem

The affliction

From the age of five I fought to stay in the game, I endured hurt anger and sorrow.

I have spent one score, ten and five walking uphill. I have eaten clam chowder, sniffed white powder and had a dispensation of pills to dispense my ills. However, for me life still seems a never ending climb There are ones who loved, ones who cared, a few who shared. All in all a collective that is relatively small. Within my mind I wish to leave them all.

You see have an affliction, similar to an addiction, however with a far greater cost.

My wrap or my dirty needle is the history and gift of a partnership of the unkind, an upbringing that brought forty-five minutes of love and a second half that was less sublime.

My season ticket nears its expiration; my weak hands walk away from a The Cat with nine Lies, by Martin Askem final masturbation. The ejaculation, the spurt, the seed of life, the marriage and the wonder of creating life.

A life that has been filled with madness and a little charm nears its completion. I bid farewell all as I have finally beat my affliction

YAREAH Magazine

Literature Martin Askem

"The Savoir of Modern Art" "A unique depiction of the Human condition"

Martin Askem

https://twitter.com/# !/ArtistAskem ttp://www.martinaskem.com

As the crow lies

The cunt's drip with juice as I cut loose the text, my vocabulary makes others vexed. The Scholars will try to reflect; they won’t understand the script’s effect.

The Tet offensive, by Martin Askem the third columnist will defect This is apt, my mind adapts to ease the pain and sorrow, and my pupils digest as I read the book of law I piss on the floor to wash away the shit from tomorrow; I stand on the hill watching the climbers sorrow The law, the foul, the meek and the weak. My text the answer so to speak The metal sticks like candles wick, burning in the night, where the demons alight.

It’s all right; it’s ok, ok The script written on a day to remember, a day in September. Written in my mind Words that sound unkind and perverse, in a lifetime once begun, paper script in a pulpit or a dog taking a shit.

An expelation of an explanation for the nation of dead souls. Deadheads lying in a bed filled with piss and mist.

You see this is the true revelation, the true words. do you have to study to understand Study or shudder or be like the others The answer lies within the palm of your hand, look beyond the glass and see the sand The origin, the beginning of time all created with my mind.

The window is the wall of the fool

Fear

The deafening sound of the silence and the overwhelming blindness of light from the emptiness created from the emotion we call fear is hard to digest.

Our experiences teach us to be afraid, to expect the worse. Our thoughts dictate the creation of the worst.

Thinking is like taking crack, once you start you cannot stop. Stop thinking and start living.

Fear will then have no beginning

Ship, by Martin Askem

YAREAH Magazine

ARTS

Auguste Rodin, the tragic life of an artist

Auguste Rodin was born in Paris, in 1840, as the second child of Jean-Baptiste Rodin, a policeman.

S

hy and not a good student, at the age of 14 he entered in the École Impériale Spéciale de Dessin et de Mathématiques with no good results, falling also his exam for the Academy of Fine Arts. But he became a member of L’Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs where he knew the famous sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux and he will work with him during the next 6 years.

He had a child with Rose, injured in an accident and he didn’t develop normally.

At the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War, Rodin was enrolled in a pioneer unit in the national guards, but being shortsighted, he is declared as unfit for military duty. Then he travels to Brussels, together with Carrier-Belleuse, to perform decorative work at the Palais de la Bourse.

It was not a good relationship, and Carrier-Belleuse dismissed him.

Rose followed Rodin to Brussels and there, he was good paid for several works in bronze: 'Suzon' and 'Dosia'To make himself a name as an artist, he starts working on an uncommission standing figure, 'The Age of Bronze' after studies of a Belgian soldier named Auguste Neyt but in the first exhibi-

Auguste Rodin photo

tions, it is suggested he had used plaster casts from life, the first 'Affaire Rodin'. The sculpture receives a positive response from other artists, though.

With Rose, Rodin returns to Paris for good. They live in a cheap apartment in the Rue Fossé St. Jaques. Later they will move to Nr. 268 in the same street.

Over the next three years, Rodin had to work for Carrier-Belleuse again, as an anonymous modeler for a minimal pay.

Studies of 'St. John the Baptist Prea-

ching' were in monumental size to avoid the accusation of 'The Age of Bronze'.

He works part-time as a modeler in the Manufacture de Sèvres and he obtained a place in the Museum.

In 1880,Turquet, state undersecretary for Fine Arts saw him working in his atelier and declared Rodin was a great sculptor and the accusations in Belgium were false. Now the way was free for Rodin's career as an artist sculptor.

Supported by Turquet, Rodin receives

YAREAH Magazine a further state commission to design a decorative portal of the proposed Musée des Arts Décoratifs based on the theme of Dante's 'Divine Comedy': 'The Gates of Hell' shows a great number of figures. The most important is the 'Thinker', representing the poet Dante.

Anyway, during his lifetime the plaster models never will be cast in bronze.

Then, orders started and when his life seemed to be easy, he fell in love with his pupil Camille Claudel, here it began a difficult relationship for 15 years.

However, during this period, Rodin created a series of love couples, torn apart between despair and desire, reflecting his "impossible" relationship with Camille: 'Fugitive Love' (1884), 'Avarice and Lust' (1885), 'Faun and Nymph' (1886), 'Paolo & Francesca' (1887), 'Death of Adonis' (1888) and 'Eternal Idol' (1889).

The single figures express the same mixture of pain and passion: 'Fall of Icarus' (1885), 'Danae' (1885), 'Prodigal Son' (1886), or 'Centaurs'.

In 1884, the commissioned of ‘The Burghers of Calais’ will be other problem

ARTS

Age of Bronze, by Auguste Rodin

(http://yareah.com/?p=1793), with financial and artistic discussion. In the end, in 1887, Rodin received the Cross of the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.

Rodin was a member of the Jury for the Exposition Universelle and also the state commissioned him for a monu-

ment to Claude Lorrain and for another to Victor Hugo.

From then on, his work will be recognized but other kind of problems will start: Camille will finish in a mental hospital after destroying great part of his plaster, Rodin will suffer two hemiplegia attacks, and in the Worl War he

will suffer cold and starvation.

He died in 1917. Together with his wife Rose, Rodin is buried in the garden of the Villa des Brillants in Meudon, on 24 November. A monumental cast of his 'Thinker' is placed close to their tomb.

YAREAH Magazine

ARTS

The Burghers of Calais by

By Isabel del Rio Rodin

Poor Rodin! One of the best sculptors of the history and, no doubt, the best sculptor of the transitional period between 19th and 20th century, and always surrounded by pro blems (maybe every great man must be at war against human stupidity).

O

nce, they said his sculptures were a fake, only the copy of real bodies made in bronze; afterwards, long after, the powerful state will starve the sculptor who had donated all of his works to his country: France.

In the meantime, more problems. In 1880, Oscar Dewavrin, Calais major, decided to build a large sculpture in the town to commemorate the sacrifice that six Middle Aged men had made centuries ago to solve their citizens. Specially, he wanted to commemorate the figure of Eustache de Saint-Pierre, the most famous of them.

Calais is the most important harbor in the English Channel. Placed in current France, it has belonged to England for centuries. In 1346, the king Eduard III of England had besieged the town but citizens resisted bravely, even after the king of France had retired.

Starvation and more starvation, tears and dead children… Before surrendering, they asked Eduard to take pity of their lives: ‘How do you dare to ask me for pity?

You are now defeated and you cannot ask for nothing,’ the king answered.

Then, six rich citizens offered their lives and humiliation if the king forgave the others. The leader of them was Eustache de Saint-Pierre.

The Burghers of Calais, by Rodin

When Calais major ask Rodin to make the sculpture, the artist saw this image, the six penitents going to give the key of the city to the bloody king Eduard with a rope around their necks (just to be hanged).

‘How can you to hang these brave men, Eduard’ the queen of England, Felipa de Henao, claimed.

People didn’t want a sculpture of six men at the same level, people didn’t want a sculpture of six men overwhelmed by their enormous hands and feet, people didn’t want to see their heroes in nightgown.

Rodin didn’t want to make a classic

sculpture of a handsome Eustache de Saint-Pierre forgetting the group, Rodin didn’t want to make a pyramidal structure since the feeling involved everybody, Rodin didn’t want to make marketing of the project.

Discussions and more discussions.

Finally, Rodin made his project, in bronze and with postimpressionist ideas, but he had to discuss… 14 years!!!

Finally, Eduard forgave the burghers of Calais but Calais was English until 1558.

Problems and time.

The Burghers of Calais (detail)

YAREAH Magazine

Ivan de Monbrison

ARTS

What is art for me?

Art is action i said to myself recently while working on a drawing. But a form of action dif ferent from the one people usually go through. It is an action of the mind which only goal is an action on the mind. It is action and reaction, reflecting itself like in a mirror, it is the projection of oneself on a surface which becomes the self itself. It is like being someone else and oneself at the same time.

A

rt is nothing but the mind becoming action in a gesture.

Through this the artist becomes the sole witness of the act of creation, and this at the very same time as he is creating the image represented by his work.

Usually when one acts the action was prepared for a precise end. While a true artist will always be surprised by the result of his own work, if not he be would only be repeating himself, copying himself, or others.

So what is art for the viewer would be the following question to come?

Probably the same thing as for the artist, action with no purpose, just the act of seeing. An action which only goal is not to exist but to reveal by being; or maybe i should say it this way: an action which aim is just to be, and by being reveals.

When i see an image, this image is myself, and seeing myself in this image i see me but in a distance.

I see me watching and appearing, i see the action of my looking on this surface an the very sensitivity of my mind coming alive from the contact with the image.

So what would it be for instance if a drawing were to be locked up in a safe? Would it still be a drawing ?

A safe so similar to the skull of a human being, right? So that if you were to open it you would find an amazing image, your own...It would be like a visual question you Ivan de Monbrison ming alive, ever changing reflection of would ask and which in the very same time would be thrown oneself, because as human beings, which is the main diffeback at you. A question which has no answer and by being rence that we have with animals, we articulate a language so is even more fascinating. and this language is nothing but what we are in the end.

An image of the mind, that what this drawing would be. It That is why art is what it is... something we don't need to is something nothing else can represent. survive or for any practical purpose but which is at the very At the core of the human mind there is always an ever co- core of us.

YAREAH Magazine

ARTS

Ivan de Monbrison

By Isabel del Rio

Shadows and more shadows turnning into shapes.

White is light and black is the shadow, a shadow which becomes flesh and blood: why no red?

Emerging from the canvas, the human being is calling for life.

Emerging from a dream, we walk through an endless evolution.

Maybe we are not real, maybe the shadows are now conscious while looking at the spectators, the old visitors of the new museums.

The questions are: where is the mirror border? What is the truth? What is more real?

Choose between the canvas and the History books; choose between philosopher’s mind or painter’s brush. Can you?

Ivan de Monbrison’s paintings are a world. An alive world is jumping out of its strict frame.

Are we the shadows?

Two reflecting worlds looking at each other.

A conflict starts the very day that an artist is born.

Ivan de Monbrison

Ivan de Monbrison

YAREAH Magazine

Hands never lie

ARTS

Study them carefully and you will know what people really think

By Ann Timmermans Female master in sculpting Camille Claudel(1864-1943), sister of author and poet Paul Claudel, had been sculpting since the age of thirteen: red clay statues of Bismarck, Na poleon, David and Goliath.

H

er loving father LouisProsper supported her wish to be a sculptor. Alfred Boucher advised her to go to Paris, was fond of the contrasting shadows, her gift of life. Claudel revived in the capital, where she studied under Boucher at the Academy Colarossi, one of the few places where women were allowed.

Auguste Rodin replaced Boucher who went to Italy, leaving Claudel discouraged. Her bust of a child caught his eye.

In 1884 the young daredevil started working in Rodin's studio Dépôt des Marbres with male sculptors Antoine Bourdelle, Antonin Mercié, Falguière and Desbois. Although Rodin introduced her as a great sculptor, she was laughed at, badgered by the female models. Her perseverance and willpower eventually silenced them.

Her father believed she had enough talent to work independently. Although

Musée Camille Claudel

this was a fact, she simply could not at that time.

She lacked money for the models, the materials.

When she went over to her master's studio with a fragment of Dante's Divina Commedia for the Gates of Hell, the 45 year old women lover deflowered her. She finally knew love, its language of the body as strong as love itself. Since that night the two artists hardly ever saw each other. Rodin rented a dilapidated house, Folie Neubourg, where they could work together.

During ten years she helped him create the Gates of Hell, adapted the sketches, sculpted the hands and feet. She assisted him because he needed her help and advice but wished to work more for herself. Less busts, more naked bodies.

He begged her to only be his, the only thing he could still believe in. Life went on, everybody knew she was his mistress. Later on Rodin rented an apartment for the two of them, told her he wanted to marry her. She gave herself entirely. The lonely nightmare nights

YAREAH Magazine were over for a short period of time until Rodin went back to his partner Rose Beuret, leaving Camille dismayed.

Claudel took the hatred, the contempt, the indifference, the lack of orders to heart. Left to her fate and his enormous work, she felt the need to go away, out of Rodin's shadow. Time was running out, she had to create while he constantly forgot to send her his models.

Down to earth Camille detested his ridicule smugness. Where has her place in this world of hypocrite superficial flattering, high society, patriarchy and Rodin's manipulation? Her refined, luxurious sculptures contrast e d with h e r poor looks, t h e cold, hung e r and f i -

ARTS

nancial problems she expe-Ann Timmermans rienced throughout her life. 1979 Ghent Ann Timmermans is an She would never dress up in emerging young Belgian artist who has been painting from an early order to sell pieces to the rich age. She experimented with seand famous. veral media. Among her pieces Ann Timmermans When they broke up after fif- are oil paintings, murals, photographs on paper and alumiteen years, she developed her nium, prints, acrylic paintings, drawings, street art, video own style. and sound art, landscape art and sculptures. She's also an Waiting for Rodin had cost author of books and articles on art and philosophy. At the age of fourteen Ann started painting in oil paint on wood. her too much crucial time. At that time she created many murals. Her artwork was Free as a bird, the self made colourful and bright.Later on, she concentrated on graartist rediscovered the inspi- phics, oil paintings on canvases and sculptures. She made an entire collection of black and white acrylic and oil painring city, observed life eyes tings on canvas. The artist has always been fascinated by open wide. She black and white in every way. Ann makes photographic c o n s t a n t l y series( Beat streets and graph streets: photographic series on aspects of hip hop culture) and designs CD covers as s k e t c h e d , well. At the moment she's laying the last hand on her new modeled, ex- grayscale series, depicting Asia, in oil paint and sculptures. p e r i m e n t e d She's collaborating with Geert Van Laethem on installations, street art and landscape art projects. Her oeuvre with new ma- consists of over 200 pieces. Recurring subjects or themes terials in her are subcultures and reflections own studio The inseparable couple shared a pasat the Boulevard d'Italie. sion for Turner, Edgar Allen Poe, HoRecognized as an indepen- kusai, ... They went for city walks, dent sculptor by the Société Na- visited expositions. Life suddenly seetionale des Beaux-Arts, her name med so sweet. Unfortunately she was on everybody's tongue. couldn't stand another broken heart.

She was compared to da Vinci, Mi- The only freedom she had left was to chelangelo, called a genius. Orders say no. were made, she worked continuously, exhibited every year. She never had a husband, a child, a All she ever wished for, home. Driven by the energetic will to was appreciation for her create, she sacrificed her soul for that work, apart from his. one love she knew: stone.

Handsome Claude De- In 1905 a retrospective of 13 pieces bussy made her feel young was held at Galerie Eugène Blot, folloand careless again, stimula- wed by an after-party at Claudel's stuted her awareness, put a dio. When all her belongings were smile on her face. confiscated the circus was over. Poverty and seclusion marked her last years.

The virgo admirabilis died lonely in 1943 after a 30 years during internment. A powerful fighter in a male dominated m' as -tu vu art world.

Vertumne et Pomone, By Camille Claudel

YAREAH Magazine

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Emric [Kabal], a PostPunk artist By Michael J Metcalf

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ecently, Yareah magazine has know the photographic work of this French artist: Emric [Kabal] and we have been really impressed.

Emric Kabal is trying to reflect our primitive passions, our deepest fears and most dangerous desires.

Black and White to reflect shadows and the beauty of the horror of a man born from a legend and who run to an unknown destiny‌ Hypno by Emric [Kabal]

alone, always alone, with the only company of inherit sins which are only an intuition.

We hope you enjoy it! http://www.emric-kabal.com

Koma by Emric [Kabal]

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Dune by Emric [Kabal]

Pulse by Emric [Kabal]

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Millenary hands: artist Phil Mooney

By Isabel del Rio

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Millenary shapes, millenary meanings, millenary hands, as it should be.

Art is communication, a dialogue between worlds, material and material, rational and irrational but, also and maybe above all, between our roots and our dreams for an unknown future.

‘3,500 year old bog oak in laid with brass’ representing an abstract female form, by Phil Mooney is speaking with the ancient Venus of Prehistoric times.

Have you ever heard Venus of Lespugue? Have you ever said hello to that stylish woman of smooth contours and infinite hips (the hips of a mother). Now, she is talking with this new abstract female, a much more incisive female, with less hips but with more intricate desires, trying to develop her delicate body in a busy world.

‘How was your ancient world?,’ she is asking.

‘Reproduction is very important, what makes me valuable: a goddess, a Venus. Is yours similar?’

‘I don’t know, I’m still base relief female l o o torso in frame, composite, king

by Phil Mooney

for my status, for my role in soc i e t y, trying to grow. I’d d r e a m with a simple w o r l d where my status were clear from the beginning.’

‘However, y o u n g lady, I’d have liked freedom and the ability to decide on my fate…’

Imagine how the Bark with serene dialogue face, composites and resin, continues,

by Phil Mooney imagine their angers and joys.

Look at Phil Mooney sculptures, enter in their hard materials converted in flesh. He doesn’t like lessons or strict rules, his art is intuition and elegance. It’ the point to start a way between those worlds which are always around us, emerging as a ‘Serene Face’ from a bark made with bronze hands.

‘Goodbye, Venus.’

‘Goodbye, expectant woman. See you tomorrow because once I imagined you but now you cannot live without me, as I’m you’.

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bronze hands on wood,highly polished base,Father and son, by Phil Mooney

Phil Mooney

‘Life is to short to be Phil Mooney unhappy,smile, be kind to everyhttp://www.facebody, love life live life. Never stop book.com/profile.ph travelling…’

p?id=1017520535

3,500 year old bog oak in laid with brass, abstract female form, by Phil Mooney

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Artist Paul White got his

By Isabel del Rio goal

I have few clear concepts in my life… above all since I felt Enlightenment cannot explain all of the happenings… above all since I unders tood that reason domina tes only a part of the human behavior. But I can still claim:

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verybody who loves pets is usually a good person.

-Everybody who tries to experiment and not to be stuck to past rules (even its own rules) is usually a good person.

-Everybody who images its life as a trip to the future is usually a good person.

-Every good person is interested in Arts (and sometimes Art is its job).

Artist Paul White has a dog and likes nature, and feels its elements: earth, water, air and fire (later I will talk about the inexplicable ether) as sources of inspiration to work. He is constantly experimenting with styles and techniques, never rejecting one of them and looking for accumulating human experiences: those which are on the border of reality and dreams… a trip? Yes, a trip through countries and thoughts.

If we observe ‘Three People Large’ with primitive colors and contours, we can feel the happy air of our childhood, an air that some people are able of keeping in an adult age…, when

She's in for the kill, by Paul White

they play, beyond the threatening look of a toothy teacher (maybe it’s a boss, priest, governor…). However, this happy air turns into fire in ‘Holding On’ where a pink woman of Greek profile is in the point of flying to the blue sky (very suggestive Paul’s blues) to see another perspective (Expressionist?... maybe Classic). In blues, once again, ‘Watering’, an exotic subject painted as a colored wood relief full (this time and to contrast with other works) of volumes and smooth shadows. At the end, we arrive to ‘The

Land of Hopes’ and to the egg where creation started. It is nearly Abstract, nearly a Flemish icon… It’s Ether (ethereal) and it involves us in a new world, Paul White’s world, the world of a creator.

They say that ‘my’ Greco was angry at the beginning of his career because people confused his works with Tiziano’s paintings, they say that he changed the proportions of his figures to be personal, a creator. I think I could recognize Paul White’s works without looking the signature, therefore he has got his goal.

YAREAH Magazine

Paul White

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Paul Barry White born 1947 in Hertfordshire UK, married, two children.

Studied: St.Albans school of fine arts & Central London. Made Paul White his living from Building and decorating, having his own business for many years, which allowed him considerable time to make art!!

Spent many a late night after a hard days work painting at a canvas late into the early hours.

His work is varied in style and content, always looking for something new to experiment with, rarely stuck for ideas.

Lived in Norfolk UK for nearly thirty years where he has a studio and a private gallery and a house full to the brim with art.

Miscarriage, by Paul White

Land of hopes and dreams, by Paul White

Anxious Head, by Paul White

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How The Young Ladies of Avignon, by Picasso, finessed in New York?

1907: Five nude prostitutes from a brothel on Carrer d'Avinyó (Avinyó Street) in Barcelona (Spain) were painted by Picasso, still not very famous) but ready to start a new artistic movement: Cubism (together with Braque and Gris).

Picasso brakes here with the traditional idea of feminine beauty turning women faces into African masks seen from different point of view at the same time.

The large painting was hardly criticized by everybody that summer in Paris, even by his friend Apollinaire.

Then, Picasso guarded the painting nearly 10 years.

By John Glass

1916: The painting is exhibited in the Galerie d’Antin in Paris but still the public was not prepared to understand it and the prostitutes (now, young ladies) were guarded again.

1920: The 1st world war has finished and Picasso is a famous painter. The piece is exhibited in the Petit Palais with some admirers (Andre Breton or André Salmon) and again, some detractors (Matisse for instance).

1924: The fashion designer Jacques Doucet bought ‘The Young Ladies of Avignon’ by only 25,000 francs.

Doucet was a rich successful man, famous to dress the most posh ladies of that time but also to help rebel young designers. He had promised to will the painting to the Louvre (the reason why Picasso sold so Selfportrait by Picasso Chicago organized an important Picasso cheap) but he lied and sold it to private collectors. exhibition on November 15 that remained on view until January 7, 1940. The exhibition entitled: Picasso:40 Years of 1937: The Jacques Seligman & Co. art gallery in New York His Art, was organized by Alfred Barr, and yes, more than City held an exhibition titled ‘20 Years in the Evolution of 30 years later: ‘Les Demoiselles of Avignon’ were a success.

Picasso, 1903–1923’ that included Les Demoiselles. The Mu- The ways of art are really intricate! seum of Modern Art acquired the painting for $24,000.

Always a Hell!

1939: The Moma in collaboration with the Art Institute of

The Young Ladies of Avignon, by Picasso

Hell Yeah!

By Charles Kinney Junior

Growing up in a Pentecostal Christian household in the United States, I was very familiar with hell. If it wasn’t stressed enough at church, being surrounded by Catholic kids who were also very familiar with hell filled in the gaps. We were all one step away from eternal damnation.

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till, for such a foreboding dhists had a hell where peword, it was used with inople had to reside for tricredible frequency. Hell’s llions of years. You could bells, hell in a hand-basket, mad as be killed, and then reborn in hell, bat out of hell. Bored as hell, the same place. I went raising hell, scared to hell. Hell! home a little shaky after loThere was so much hell it was a oking at so many pictures miracle we got any sleep at night. of eternal damnation and Hell was reserved for non-Chrissuffering. The librarian tians, sinners and, of course, homust have thought I was a mosexuals. My hell was going to mass-murderer in training. church three times a week. All that The next Sunday, I was back time sitting in a pew gave me in the same pew. It’s amaample time to think. I began to dezing what you can dream up duce that if only 1/3 of the world when you’re a young teenawere Christian, hell must be a very, ger trapped at a religious very busy place, nearly filled to service. Like the light that overflowing. It also dawned on me goes on (hopefully) in some that Christianity was only a few people’s heads, it dawned thousand years old, so everyone on me that, maybe, hell was who was born, lived and died a metaphor, not a real place. before that was surely in hell. Dreamers, by Paul White I realized what mattered That was a helluva lot of people. was to be good, and kind, and dig. These were the days before the InSitting in church one Sunday morning, ternet and Smart phones, so I got my human. Many years later, hell yeah, I like only good teenage rebel, I began to information (and later porn) the old- was right. wonder just where the hell did two- fashioned way: books. thirds of the human race go when they died. Certainly it wasn’t to the pearly What I found out was Christia- Charles Kinney Jr gates, but what a waste of all those fo- nity had NOTHING on other Charles Kinney, Jr. is married to a actively involved in the reign people to go straight to hell just religions. Those foreign kids Norwegian, United States, and is currently for being born in the wrong place. One must be scared out of their based in the Republic of Georgia. idea led to another, and soon, teenage minds! Zoroastrians (whoever He has written for publications in Charles Denmark, Norway, the logic dictated that these strange foreig- the hell they were) believed the Greenland, United States and the United Kinney Jr ners might have their own concept of dead were forced to eat corp- Kingdom. He has taught and lechttp://www.charlesheaven and hell. I glanced around de- ses. Tibetans had sixteen hot tured at universities and educatioinstitutions around the world. kinney.blogspot.com vilishly for thinking such blasphemous and cold hells. It went from nal He is currently on a two-year teathoughts. The next day, I secretly shim- bad to worse. Hindus had at cher-training assignment with the US State Department mied off to the library and began to least 25 different hells. Bud- to the Republic of Georgia.