MARIE V. RECALDE

Forget It, Jake, It’s Chinatown

Marie V. Recalde is a writer, artist, translator, and Southern California native living abroad. Join her adventuring on Instagram at @imaginarymarie

JENNIFER WEIGEL

The Hunt

The Hunt and Crossing Over

Jennifer Weigel is a multidisciplinary mixed-media conceptual artist. Weigel utilizes a wide range of media to convey her ideas, including assemblage, drawing, fibers, installation, jewelry, painting, performance, photography, sculpture, video, and writing.

MONIKA GALLAND

What Happens Next

Monika Galland is an artist based in Basel, Switzerland. She has been making collages, drawings, and watercolor paintings over 30 years.

JANINA AZA KARPINSKA

Almost Smothered

"A chance discovery of Tom Phillips's 'A Humument', which piggy-backs the pages of a published novel, not only inspired my own experimentation, but gave me the words I lacked at a time when I was painfully shy and socially mute, and became a favoured way of journal-keeping, and the subject of my dissertation.

Many years later I was invited to join a 'Twisted Fairy Tale' exhibition, which led to creating The Goldilocks Files – a collection of variously published Goldilocks books, which I treated or altered in many different ways (and have kept up the practice ever after). I love how one very familiar story can yield so many interpretations. I also like how I can explore Jung's concept of the home as symbolic of one's body/psyche. The whole premise of the story is one displaced little girl in search of a home, and her place within it, which can only come by appropriation and testing things out for size. The ultimate aim is the search for a safe place to be unconscious (sleep), something that was missing previously. There's a sense of unease and oppression in these examples. it's an effective way of exploring such feelings in a contained and creative way.

There have been so many spin-offs and off-shoots from the technique, which I have used in creative writing workshops for people who insist they can't write – there's no need when the words are all provided upfront! The method also suits those in need of expression, but with little time to spare introspection – those in a caring role; new parents; those working several jobs, or struggling with the effects of long-term unemployment. I feel very fortunate to have discovered a lifelong resource, and do all I can to share it with others."

Janina Aza Karpinska is a multidisciplinary artist and creative storyteller.

JACK BORDNICK

Facing it Together

“My sculptural imagery is a reflection of my past and present forces and included in the imagination of life’s stories. They represent an evolutionary process of how all of life’s forces are interconnected.”

website: www.jackbordnickstudio.com

NERS NEONLUMBERJACK

Whose Bones are These?

"We have made great attempts to separate ourselves from the natural world. Only venturing into more wild areas when we choose. Of course, nature is still all-encompassing all the while. Dead things often frighten or disturb us. Removing our language in ways to limit our insecurities with what dead animals we eat, what dead trees we live under, and what animals we displaced or eradicated to call places home. Working on bone is one mere layer of paint away from the source. Taking our guard down to enjoy the beauty of the forms, and hopefully to start a reconnection of thought about what and why the work came to be.… Whose bones ARE these?"

Ners Neonlumberjack was born in a tiny town in central Indiana in 1986, graduating from Herron School of Art and Design with degrees in Painting, Sculpture, and Art History in 2009. socials: @neonlumberjack

KATHY BRUCE

Were They Painted and Veiled?

"Meaning to me is intrinsic, complex, multi-layered. I don’t expect everyone to interpret the meaning in the same way as I do and that is ok. I am happy for people to interpret what they bring to the images. I don’t have any conclusions to draw regarding my work…I would agree with Francis Bacon who once said, 'The job of the artist is always to deepen the mystery."

Kathy Bruce is a visual artist based in Argyll & Bute Scotland whose collages explore archetypal female and mythological forms within the context of poetry, literature and the natural environment.

ELIZABETH ROSE WILSON

Waiting for Her

"Created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, from the boredom of sitting on the couch during quarantine, to the realization that waves of loss were sweeping the globe. My paintings, drawings, and photographs illustrate the ephemeral nature of life and all of the “stuff, guts, joy, and grief” that it’s made up of. Natural settings connect us back to that from which we come, therefore, all artworks in the series ‘In the Garden of One,’ are a reminder that we are all part of one big energy mass. All connected. Layers of symbolism and representation. Layers of paint upon paint, paint upon drawing, drawing upon gesso, gesso upon canvas, the canvas upon the frame. Until one day the layers get peeled back, pulled apart, and put back into the earth to nurture that from which they have taken."

Elizabeth Rose Wilson: Fine-Artist. Designer. Photographer. Instructor. A New Zealander based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. "Waiting for Her" is an artwork from the current body of work 'In the Garden of One,' 2023. socials: @elizabethrosewilson

RACHEL DZIGA

Year of the Rabbit

Rachel Dziga: Blue tints the past in waves of nostalgia, beckoning one to look deeper in this cyanotype collage work. To find more on her art and classes just Google @racheldziga

JAKE QUICK

Lake Retreat

“Lake Retreat combines 480 individually cut 2x2 blocks of wood into a mosaic, recreating an aerial view of our cove. By using larger mosaic pieces, it is much more abstract, which, in my mind, makes it more special that my family and I can identify the uniqueness of what we see out the window every day.

I cut the blocks with a miter saw, sanded five sides, and then burned them on a metal sheet with a handheld butane torch. After counting blocks for each color, I sprayed them with acrylic, keeping the grain visible. The bevels add visual depth and complexity by randomly arranging their direction. All the blocks are the same, except the one representing our house which was cut to match the roof profile. This project was a present for my wife's birthday.”

Jake is a surgeon from Missouri who operates mainly on humans and occasionally on art and home improvement projects.

GARY GILLESPIE

Howl

web: gjgillespieartistic.com IG: @garygillespie7

RYO KAJITANI

You Can Continue on Even if I Am Not Around

RYO Kajitani (REI Mizuno) is a queer artist/ art model based in Tokyo. She is known for her eerie and solemn art style. Twitter: @MizunoRei_ IG: @mizunorei.model

DONALD PATTEN

Master Paintings in Covid Times

“Almost overnight, COVID-19 has changed the way people interact with each other and with our own bodies. In the past, significant painters, the old masters, would depict historically significant disasters that happened to them as a way to cope.”

Olympia on a Zoom Call (2022) references Olympia by Édouard Manet from 1863.

Café Terrace at COVID Capacity (2022) references Café Terrace at Night by Vincent van Gogh from 1888.

The COVID Card Players (2022) references The Card Players by Paul Cézanne from around 1894 or 1895.

The COVID Nightmare (2022) references The Nightmare by Henry Fuseli from 1781.

Mask Gleaners (2022) references Gleaners by Jean-François Millet from 1857.

Donald Patten is an oil painter, illustrator, and graphic novelist from Belfast, Maine. He is currently a senior in the BFA program at the University of Maine. web: donaldlpatten.newgrounds.com/art

GABY BEDETTI

Survivors

“I see my art as a way to connect with and be inspired by the beauty in the world. Taking photographs makes me pay attention to the resilient tree thriving on a rooftop, the graceful neck of a swan, the brilliant colors of a bluebird, the strength of a windswept sunflower, and the toughness of snow-capped daisies.”

Gaby Bedetti is a photographer, writer, teacher, and translator working in Lexington, Kentucky. Like a ukiyo-e painting, my photographs invite the viewer to be part of “the floating world." web: gabriellabedetti.wordpress.com

MOLLY MCNEELY

Branches and Blindfolds

Polaroid photography

Molly McNeely is a photographer, poet and visual artist who likes sad songs and happy movies and is terminally online at mollylauramcneely.com

J’ATELIER9

Flourish

Artisan Crafted Creator J'Atelier9/@jatelier9 translates worldwide interconnectedness by highlighting society’s sensationalism of media, global discourse, complex facets of duplicity. She dissects aspects of societal conditioning and programming within the matrix, creating wondrous reflection. IG: @jatelier9 Website: altamira.art/users/jatelier9

RACHEL COYNE

Untitled

Rachel Coyne is a writer and painter from Lindstrom, MN.