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121 PoetsArtists | Issue 1, 2021

John Korn

I understand I understand why you are acting the way you are acting You’re confused.

You understand You understand why I’m acting The way I’m acting I’m confused.

I understand.

We both understand.

Do you know what we are?

We are a painting Acrylic Or oil Maybe even water color Carefully guided by two painter’s hands Trying to collaborate on one painting Holding a brush Fighting over the brush Bristles moving over the white landscape Like the blades of skaters Trying to pull off a synchronized dance on ice.

Painting Contrasting shapes A face perhaps Of an old person The face of a young person Or maybe a city landscape Buildings reaching towards the sky a beach a forest Or something more abstract Just shapes.

That’s us.

Just two ideas from two painters But the painters Gave up half way through.

They want notoriety.

They want us to be what they want us to be.

The two painters disagree on what that is.

Something about the colors.

The painters say “we’re not happy with how you are turning out.”

We asked, “wait don’t give up We are just beginning Give us time to come into being.”

But the painters told us coldly “We have many more canvases And you were practice.”

The painters said “The new canvas will be the one We don’t have time to fix you We are artists We know everything

You go to the dull world You don’t belong here.”

So they took us out to the curb. They spoke “It’s garbage night and we don’t deal with garbage.

Tomorrow morning The garbage men will come.

The lowest of the low.

And they will take your unfinished being Of Undried paint on canvas and stuff you Next to black plastic bags filled with trash And throw it in the back of a truck Where the mechanical jaws will hiss and hum And crunch you and compact you Into the rest of the discarded. you will blend in with the empty tuna cans And the kitty litter Coffee grinds and soiled diapers.”

And so, it happened.

The painters threw us out.

We find ourselves stacked next to each other Canvases with wet paint out on the curb.

Hundreds of them Thousands Canvases with paint bright and dull Discarded It’s cold outside by the curb The rain Falls And mixes colors together.

In the morning The trash men throw the bags of trash and shit into the back of their truck They go Crunch Crunch Crunch We wait our turn.

But one garbage man picks us up He likes the way Our colors mixed together He decides we don’t go into the trash We go into his car To be taken home Into his house Maybe he’ll hang us up Or sell us Or finish our painting As the painters inside still brush and stroke And argue “no this stroke! No that stroke! No Blue, No orange, no Red, No brown, no long strokes No short Strokes, no no no no no no and no no no!”

They cannot agree They don’t see us But the trash men do

Publisher

Didi Menendez

Art and Artifacts Didi Menendez

Cover

Grant Gilsdorf BEE-lieve In The Mission, 2021 Oil on ACM | 24 x 30 in

Poetry

John Korn Bob Hicok Grace Cavalieri Pris Campbell Sam Rasnake Amanda Miller Nicole Alger Jack Keough

Interview

Heather Brunetti Homeira Mortazavi Narelle Zeller JuliAnne Jonker Ivan Pazlamatchev Sara Gallagher Hilary Swingle Patricia Schappler

Contributing Artists Alessandro Tomassetti John Hyland

Cameron Jon Knutson Viktoria Savenkova Vicki Siegel

Submissions

www.poetsandartists.com/exhibits

Viktoria Savenkova | 4AM, 2021 | Oil on Canvas | 120 x 100 cm

This portfolio is protected under copyright laws governing web and print publications. Reproduction in whole or partial of any images, poetry, or written copy is prohibited without a written consent from the artist, writer, or publisher.

121 PoetsArtists | Issue 1, 2021

Art and Artifacts DIDI MENENDEZ

In the morning after a cup of black coffee, she decided she was hungry and opted for the leftover egg roll and dumplings from the previous night. She looks for the chopsticks sticking out with the rest of the utensils and picks up the last of the dumplings and places it whole in her mouth. She lets the sauce squish around a little before swallowing. It quickly reminds her of other slippery things held against her tongue. She dismisses the memory and drinks a gulp of orange juice washing the memory and the taste from her mouth.

She leaves the kitchen for the living room and sits down by a window which is next to a table with several asian motifs including a lamp. The lamp is of a female figure hand carved from some type of fine wood, maybe it is mahogany and on top of the figure sits a lampshade. The lamp is about 3 feet tall and it was handed down to her from her sister which was handed down to her by her mother-in-law. The mother-in-law never liked the lamp which made her think it may have been a gift from someone she did not care for. Otherwise she would not have let it go so quickly after her husband died.

The lamp stands around other artifacts including a Korean teapot and cups. The original owner left to live in the USA after the Korean war and brought the set with them.

It too was handed down to her by her sister.

She sits down and picks up a book leaving her cell phone as far away as possible The book is a novel by Nathanael West titled The Day of The Locust. It is copyrighted 1939. The book was purchased 30 years ago during her first marriage when she used to collect books.

She now collects art and artifacts.

One of the characters in the book is Homer Simpson.

When he was introduced in an earlier chapter, she chuckled. She is in the part of the book where Homer is sitting in the back porch trying to contain his hands while watching a lizard.

She pauses and bookmarks the page and stares at the art on the wall to her right.

The wall has several oil paintings watching over a mantle which holds a wooden jewelry chest. To the right of the chest is a small sculpture of a native woman wearing a gold earing and necklace. To the left of the chest are two men dressed in traditional Chinese garb playing a game.

The figurines were super glued together after one of the moves from house to house. They are happily settled now each figure waiting for it to be their turn. The table used to contain a tiny board game but that was lost several decades earlier.

Further out of reach from the jewelry chest are a vase and a large glass plate standing erect. The plate is multicolored stained glass and was really meant as a bird feeder but never used for that purpose. It now serves as a backdrop for the little statued bust of the native woman who is patiently guarding the jewelry chest.

Above the jewelry chest are a diptych of two females

who have their backs turned to the viewer and all we see are braids and a sliver of a profile. One is facing right and the other is facing left. Next to the diptych is a smaller painting of a beautiful jesus blue eyed modern male holding up flowers. To the left is a painting of an ominous hallway with a female dressed elegantly at the edge of the canvas. She waits by the stairway like so many heroines in an Edward Hopper painting.

The adjacent wall has a painting of a female whose face is contoured as if the f stop in the camera lens was too slow and the face is smeared with multiple eyes, noses, and mouths. The figure is holding up a hand as if she was whisking away hair that blew into her face unexpectedly.

This is me.

I am her.

She is I. These specific pieces are part of a collection and meticulously placed to serve a purpose. Even though the paintings are not really of me or anyone I know of, they were purchased to guard and keep my mother company.

My mother’s ashes are inside the chest which sits on the mantle.

The chest itself was made by my grandfather who was a carpenter and it was given to my mother as a gift. My mother kept her jewelry in the chest for decades. She had some nice pieces since my father’s side of the family were all jewelers.

The chest was also handed down to me by my sister before my mother’s death. When my mother died, my sister handed me the ashes as well and we decided to place her inside the chest which served our mother so many years of safe keeping of the jewelry my father would bring home.

Sometimes he’d bring home artifacts from the pawn shop where he worked such as the figurine of the two gentlemen dressed in Chinese garb, or the little painting of Jesus on the cross which hangs next to the door and the entry of the house I currently reside in the Midwest.

The little painting of the crucifix is next to a painting or it could be a photograph of el morro de cuba and next to that is a little wooden saint of Joseph holding up a baby Jesus.

To the right of the entry door there is an oil painting of a raggedy American flag. The flag is waving and it looks like its swept in sorrow. The painting itself is not varnished like the other paintings. It has rich brushstrokes and thick oil paint.

Next to the flag is the window I mentioned earlier. Above the table in the corner of the living room with the asian motifs and lamp is another painting by the same artist who painted the flag. This time it is a painting of a gas mask and next to the painting of the gas mask is a smaller

painting of three little birds chirping. Next to that is a print of a modern day Mona Lisa in suburbia.

Now that you know that the she is I an I is the she mentioned earlier, here is list of the artists in the collection.

The painting of the distorted face is by Megan Elizabeth Read. The painting is a self portrait. I bought it as soon as I saw it was listed. The connection to the painting reminds me of who I was when everything fell apart. It is there to remind me that I am still here.

The painting of the beautiful blond male holding up the flowers is by Alessandro Tomassetti. The connection to this painting is spiritual and the male figure holding up the flower serves as a guardian angel to my mother.

The painting of the woman in a dress standing by the edge of the canvas is by Dianne Gall. The subject in the painting reminds me of me again. This time I am waiting by a stairwell for my life to being. The past was ominous and the future is even more scary but little did I know then. It captures a moment in time when we decide to live our life or fall out of it.

The sculpture of the native female is by Thomas Blackshear. When I was about 13 my father brought home a large figuring made of clay of a native American male from the pawn shop.

My mother loved it and she proudly displayed it on a coffee table in our living room. One day I decided to surprise my mother and clean the house. When I moved the statue to dust the table, it broke. When my mother came home from working all day in the factory and saw that I had broken her prized possession she became very upset and started to cry. I didn’t understand at the time how much the gift from my father had meant to her. I had never seen her cry like that before.

There were a lot of things tied up in that statue which I will never really know. Whenever I see the little Blackshear bust of the female figure elegantly displaying her necklace and earrings I think of my mother. It helps me heal from the anguish and torment my father brought upon us all those years ago. What broke that day was not my mother’s most valued possession. It represented my father’s broken promises and the beginning of the end.

The painting of the crucifix is by an unknown artist although it could be a renaissance missing artifact for all I know and the rest of the paintings and artworks are by Stephen Wright, Viktoria Savenkova, Gregory Ferrand, Jeff Bess, and I have an abstract artwork which I did not mention earlier by Grace Cavalieri also hanging in the living room.

Alessandro Tomassetti Policy of Truth, 2021 Oil on aluminum 18 × 14 in

Bob Hicok

Wee (her name, and a measure of degree or extent) My long-haired cat

is important, it’s more accurate to say

stinks on the blanket on my lap,

that every life is important to someone,

shat herself last night

or that many lives are important to some people

and I don’t have it in me to send her away.

but not others, or that we’re here and should make the most of our hands and feet

Things often go wrong in her litterbox now:

and our shit while we can: I am grateful,

she misses it, shits down its side,

lord I don’t believe in, to have to decide

or leaves her shit uncovered.

whether or not to kill this cat, to miss Niagara, of all places I’ve only been to once, to worry

She’s old, we can’t tell if she’s suffering,

that the air is trying to kill me, my wife, and your smile

if we’re being kind or cruel to let her live.

if it exists, and that there’s the chance,

The situation is complicated by the coronavirus:

before all the falling aparts and erasures, the every-day and one-in-a-lifetime catastrophes,

a year has passed

to care about any and everything as much as I do

since we’ve visited family, eaten in a restaurant,

this stinky cat.

traveled to a river or mountain we don’t know on a first name basis, sat in a movie theater

I think of myself as a failure

while the ghost-flesh of flickering light

because I don’t cast the shade of a juniper,

takes sovereignty of the air,

or listen to crows like a field of wheat,

pressed against strangers on a subway

or save the lives of moths or ladybugs or cats

as it rickets and rackets

or your wife or mother or aunt, I just stare at the sun

through he netherworld, and even talking

and hope it falls for me eventually, just write poems

about killing our cat

that whittle the idea of frailty out of a stick

is one more shattering of the idea

with one hand while trying to build a mansion

that “normal life” exists.

of the shavings with the other, and after all of this,

Though many of us like to believe that every life

I still don’t know what to do about our cat.

121 PoetsArtists | Issue 1, 2021

Bob Hicok is thinking of you in the past reading this sentence in the future.

Vicki Siegel | Fly, 2018 | Acrylic and archival pigment ink | 60x48 in

Vicki Siegel | Strength, 2018 | Acrylic and archival pigment ink | 60x48 in

Grace Cavalieri A Green Ghazal green grass rises and rises season after season my husband's heart there season after season green is the color of my true love’s hair I hear a ticking under the earth season after season I closed the green hospital curtains and said “Rest” then “NO! WAIT!” I think of this season after season when young I lost my gold Bulova watch in the ocean ticking in green foam season after season legends are based on these small parts of the voice how the range of oceans is big and fearless season after season bushes stay green after Azalea blossoms float away this is graceful of Spring before leaving season after season

A Haiku from A Ghazal Grass rises and rises Season after season My husband

Grace Cavalieri is the founder and producer of "The Poet and the Poem" for podcasts, iTunes, and public radio, now from the Library of Congress, celebrating 44 years on air -without interruption- (Her husband would say "who could interrupt her?"). She has written books of poetry, plays for stage, and texts for opera.

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Hilary Swingle “Man is imperfect.” This was a sentiment commonly expressed in Hilary Swingle’s childhood home. Therefore, if perfection is unattainable, contentment necessitates finding the beauty within our imperfections. Her paintings highlight the unease created when our expectations and our reality bifurcate but she also invites the viewer to find serenity within this disunion.

Her portraits are autobiographical and her current work explores one of her own imperfections, her struggle with social anxiety. She is an American figurative realist painter working in the indirect painting method. She currently works and resides in Salt Lake City, Utah.

What was your breakthrough artwork? I would describe my “breakthrough artwork” as the piece that made me want to be a professional artist and to first believe it might be possible. That piece was a self-portrait called At Your Own Peril. I attended a joint selfportrait workshop held by Dorielle Caimi and Shana Levenson. Aside from their tremendous instruction, it was spending time in their studio, hearing their stories of struggles, successes, and their own breakthroughs, I knew I had found my tribe. The self portrait I began in their workshop was my breakthrough work because I knew it was possible to realize my childhood dream of creating art for a living.

What was the best advice you ever received? Don’t chase the market. In other words, don’t create something because you think it will sell. In a way, I am lucky in

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that painting is not my sole source of income. I don’t create something unless I feel a deep intrinsic desire to do so and hopefully that passion and vulnerability resonates with a collector. It’s also okay if it doesn’t.

The second best piece of advice I ever received was to put everything in your studio on wheels!

What are you currently working on? Currently, I am finishing up my first solo show through 33 Contemporary Gallery which is an exploration of my personal struggle with social anxiety. The paintings examine the threads between my social anxiety and the forbiddance of certain celebrations during my youth, specifically holidays and birthdays. These portraits depict the subjects with shiny, colorful gift bows, but the portraits are not jubilant. The bows inflict an irrational weight on the subjects. I hope it makes for an interesting juxtaposition.

Calm Like A Bomb, 2020 Oil on Dibond 24 × 18 in

Amanda Miller Meat

We’re having an Indian summer in November the kind that used to be from late September until Halloween this year, September killed my garden Halloween was frigid and yesterday, the 14th of November I was in a t-shirt and shorts pulling out my dead tomatoes raking up watermelon vines And tearing out beanstalks while still active yellow jackets buzzed me in their quest to remain alive November has me tracking college students tracing contacts and watching trends as we careen from crisis triage to quarantining entire majors sitting at my desk, phone against my ear slouching further down until my chin rests on my forearm where I’ve been stuck 10 hours depressed and missing my job in the woods it’s dark when I drive home In the inky blackness of the new moon my tolerance for blinding headlights waning I envision

121 PoetsArtists | Issue 1, 2021

being tapped in the rear by psycho truck drivers With don’t tread on me flags and spinning out across five lanes on rt 80 coming to rest upside-down against the cement divider my last thought is that I’m just meat in a tin can meat like the road kill meat like the deer that try to cross all ten lanes meat like the hundreds of squirrels that tried to find new homes on the other side of the highway meat like the bodies of the covid dead in refrigerated trucks like the buck my neighbor shot last weekend that I helped track on our property following a trail of pulsing heart blood painting dead corn stalks and tall rye grass a red so bright a color I’d not seen before as the hunter cut out the organs and turned the buck into meat

Amanda MIller-Cotter lives on a farm in the far northwest corner of New Jersey with her abstract-expressionist husband. Under her care are 17 chickens, five ducks, three cats, two dogs, two teens and her mother-in-law. Her current day job is university health center nurse. Previously her poems were published in MiPOesias and other poetry journals.

Sara Gallagher utilizes graphite drawings to provoke dialogue around the inner landscape of the human experience. In a society that has never fully embraced the importance of mental health, Sara is actively working to break the taboos that surround it. Creating a collaborative experience, she engages with her models personally allowing a vulnerable, authentic discussion to set the direction of each piece.

Sara Gallagher Explain your process. It all starts with a vulnerable, honest dialogue. I have an open call for people to participate in my body of work, inviting them to share about an emotional or mental state of being they are currently working through. Often prompting them with “how do you engage with (or, what is limiting your engagement with) intimacy within your own life? Intimacy with yourself, with others, with your culture or society?” This begins a deep and personal conversation, unique to them yet often related to others.

many parts of ourselves that we feel we need to keep hidden from others, even those closest to us. My artwork serves as a tool to give voice to the emotions that many of us feel, but rarely talk about. The relatability in these intimate, private places connects us in new ways and breaks away some of the taboo surrounding the importance of emotional and mental health in our society. When a piece of mine helps someone to find empathy and compassion for themselves or another, that’s when I’ve succeeded.

From there, I build the visual concept through the use of thumbnail sketches and photoshoots. Piecing these images together in Photoshop I create my photo reference, and finally begin to draw. Lines, layers, and then details.

The piece is truly finished when it is released into the world sparking new vulnerable dialogues to begin again. An act of intimacy within itself - to find emotional connection within a piece of art.

What current trends are you following and why? Hyperrealism and the effect it has on modern day surrealism. The incredible attention to detail that contemporary realists are focusing on is beginning to take surrealism, and magical realism for that matter, to whole new depths. Art has the ability to portray that which isn’t physical; Dali conveyed the subconscious, Turner encapsulated emotions, etc… The hyperreal movement is creating a new opportunity to visually manifest that which otherwise isn’t seen. We live in a world with crispness at our fingertips - details are no longer lost in reproduction of everyday print, photo, or video. Contemporary artists are following suit and personifying concepts in just as crisp of way. It is both demystifying and mystifying at the exact same time.

What role does your artwork have in society? Everyone needs to be heard, to be seen. That being said, there are often

Ripple, 2021 Graphite on paper 14 × 14 in

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Patricia Schappler Patricia Schappler is known for her large, complex figurative drawings and paintings. She explores universal themes of love, loss, and intimacy.

Explain your process. I am inspired by what I think of as ‘grace’…hand and body gestures, facial expressions that carry meaning beyond the momentary, a quality of light, stories and lyrics and visual moments that linger. I work from a mix of life, memory, and photos taken by the hundreds, some with concern to gesture, others to pattern, some that focus on light whether natural or artificial, and others which capture mood. Many of these images are of those I love, others are of favored artist work, film stills, and patterns from tiles, fabrics, and wallpapers, anything that takes me on a journey. I keep words in lists as they come to me, titles that may trigger a path between possible solutions down the line, not because I’m invested in the specificity of a narrative but because I’m after the universality of it, the emotional conviction.

Because I see some figure’s expressions in my mind more clearly, I go back to them as a starting place for loosely sketched drawings (friends, family and community members are my frequent models.) These drawings are nothing more than rhythmical, gestural lines hinting at an underlying composition, a series of thoughts really, that head me to a start, a bit like setting a stage or placing the beginning pieces of a puzzle. I listen to music or podcasts or have movies on in the background when beginning something. It is common for me to move the figure in subtle ways once I begin in earnest, to revisit rhythms, move objects within the field, and repaint passages as the beginning idea settles into a living thing.

My studio is rarely immaculate until closing in on the end of an image – at this point I clean and turn everything off so I may look in silence. I fall in and out of love with

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trying to see what I could not, passing by frustration to get to something more, willing what I cannot form words for, into being.

What artwork in history has inspired you the most? I gravitate towards images and objects where I recognize the human spirit as palpable. Some loves you won’t see in my work, but they inspire nonetheless –Louise Bourgeois ‘Seven in Bed’, Christo ‘The Gates’, Magdalena Abakanowicz’s ‘Backs’, Anselm Kiefer’s ‘Numberg’…

I’ve spent more time with European Baroque art - the churches, paintings, and sculptures, along with Asian paintings, weavings, and low relief sculpture. My artist ‘likes’ are broad and I look frequently, sometimes for technical advice, for the way a peer turns a plane, or plays with a medium, but some works I repeatedly return to …the humanity of Rembrandt portraits, Picasso’s Guernica, Velazquez and Caravaggio’s form, the paced balance of Vermeer and Balthus, a moment in a Lennart Anderson portrait, Vincent Desiderio’s studies. Within these various images, I find beauty of form and balance, without loss of life or compassion.

What are you currently working on? A smallish painting, several small drawn studies, a way to think about pieces in homes because my work is about home. I seem to argue with smaller spaces more than larger arenas but am trying to understand this scale. There’s a tug to let my hand move more broadly, but there is an intimacy here in this scale that needs exploring and discoveries to be made, so here I am.

Bird of Paradise, 2021 Oil on board 32 × 24 in

Heather Brunetti Brunetti’s most recent series explores the natural light and vast spaces of a Victorian mansion as a setting for subjects.

Specter, 2021 Oil on panel 30 Ă— 24 in

Monarch, 2020 | Oil on Canvas | 30 x 24 in

Pearl, 2020 | Oil on Canvas | 40 × 30 in

What is the ultimate goal for your artwork? I would say I have two ultimate goals with my artwork. I hope my painting practice continues to enrich my own personal life and the lives of those around me. Painting scratches so many mental and emotional itches for me, it soothes and challenges me at the same time. I hope to be able to at minimum enjoy the day to day pleasure that it brings me for the rest of my life. Secondly, I can only dream that my artwork would also fulfill needs in others on a larger scale. I am continually humbled every time someone chooses to make my artwork part of their everyday life.

Do you ever venture out of your creative process to try new things? I strive to periodically try new things, actually. Committing to periods of growth through trial and error of new techniques or different mediums is not only exciting, but also seems to either add to my practice or confirm that I am on the right course.

I’ve dabbled in just about every creative medium and some I still enjoy like clothing design, sculpting and music. New things feed my creativity and inform my process even if it’s something small. For instance my work with textiles helps me to understand painting fabrics from a more informed point of view. My work on costumes and painting prosthetics has helped me understand skin tones and translucency. I hope to get more adventurous in subject and technique this year in my paintings. I hope to continue to explore, whether it’s ultimately successful or not. The joy is in the doing.

Explain your process. Executing a painting happens for me in distinct stages. The first stage being the preparation of the reference material, be it one or a group of photos. I use my own photos and compose through sketches of those. I don’t have a set substrate I use. I’ll paint on whatever lends best to the final painting. For more detail, something smoother. For larger, typically canvas. It just depends. The second stage is the under painting. I start on toned gray or black primed material and sketch the image on loosely with oils. I refine the under painting in gray value to whatever level I feel will suit. Sometimes I keep it blocky and sketchy; sometimes I bring it to a high detail level. The third stage is the final color layers. After letting the under painting completely dry I begin layering with colors. All areas get about 3-4 passes of color, refining and building with each layer. I have recently begun experimenting with thicker mediums to add texture and dimension to my final pass.

Jack Keough

I write to purge and paint to process.

I am a painter.

I am a sculptor.

I am a writer.

I am poet, designer, photographer, and sometimes more.

I document things.

I put my heart in my work.

I scavenge equally for materials and honesty.

I recognize and have a relationship with my inspirations.

I live by creativity over oxygen or blood.

I have grown and learned to trust my intuition.

I pull, stir, frame, and create space for emotions.

I mine truth and hold mirrors to yours.

I provoke a range of thoughts.

I shrink worlds, open others, remove barriers, space and time.

I use humor as a knife.

I poke conceptions and misconceptions.

I travel into memory to make new memories.

I work with lines, color, light, and values.

I work with clay, pigment, and steel.

I work with letters, fonts, language and nuance.

I create the tangible and intangible.

I talk to people and create new things that didn’t exist and a scared society sees me as odd.

I approach people, strangers, and ask them to share themselves.

I am determined and self-motivated and can never quit.

My job never stops.

I get occasional pay.

I lavish praise and never ending career advice from those who think what’s best for me.

I am very lonely.

I am part of a tribe bonded by creativity, fear, doubt, and too often depression.

We are social contrarians, strange and eccentric compared by those who “aren’t”?

We are educated, skilled, daring, spontaneous and welcoming We are fragile and worn from the effort of our efforts.

I am tired.

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Homeira Mortazavi Homeira Mortazavi’s visual narratives give voice to a holistic view of the aesthetics of the female nude. Her art deals with issues of self-identity, women’s experience and the relation between human and nature, focusing on women and flowers in particular.

Torrent, 2020 | Oil on Wood Panel | 12 x 12 in

What role does your artwork have in society? For me as an artist, painting is a vehicle of self-discovery and growth. When the image is completed, it becomes an artifact through which I communicate with others my aspirations, hopes and visions. It is personal and universal at the same time!

On some levels, my artwork has the potential to impact the viewer. The first role my art has is to empower women by showing that their bodies are whole, holy, beautiful and powerful.

The second role is to show that we are an extension of nature and interconnected. Thus hurting nature will hurt humans. And, the third role is to touch and evoke the innate feeling of beauty that is in all of us through my art.

What is your ultimate goal for your artwork? With my brush strokes and color composition I paint the beauty of the human form and nature, both truthful as they are in their nakedness. These are the purest forms of my personal expression that I share through my art.

My ultimate goal for my artwork, even though it may sound unrealistic, is to see my nudes and flowers being projected or painted on buildings around the

Challenge, Défi, 2020 | Oil on Wood Panel | 12 x 12 in

city. They have the power to heal and to uplift. That is what I felt as I was painting them and I hope they carry that vibration to others!

I also wish for society to celebrate the body as our natural heritage that should be cherished and looked upon with respect, demystifying the nude by displaying nude art in public.

What current trends are you following and why? I use technology to create digital art. The technology saves me a lot of time to work faster and with more freedom. Technology has also created a platform to collaborate with other artists or projects around the world. This is also a trend that I am interested in, to collaborate on a collective project or for a cause.

Many of the contemporary artworks today are also focusing on environmental issues. In my works I tackle this issue by showing the interconnectedness and fragility of both the human body and the natural world. In my paintings, by juxtaposing elements of nature such as flowers, leaf, water and the landscape with or within the human figure, mostly the female body, I aim to find answer to two questions; “What is being a human?” and “Where do we stand in relation to nature?”

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JuliAnne Jonker’s art serves as a conduit, a visual language for the human ability to see and be seen. With spiritual themes and complex textural surfaces, we are drawn in to Jonker’s world of introspective narratives.

She works alongside living masters of classical realism while creating her own techniques blending her love of oil paint and wax sculpture. Most recently she is creating portraits and figurative work using encaustic wax, cold wax and oils.

Vision at Ghost Ranch, 2020 Oil and wax on wood panel 24 × 13 in

JuliAnne Jonker What is your ultimate goal for your artwork? My goal in creating artwork is to create something that people can connect with on a spiritual level. One of my favorite quotes is ‘Art exists so that we know we are not alone”. I find this very true. It may just be a simple moment of life captured in a beautiful way, light falling on someone or something or there may be a profound meaning and connection portrayed. No matter the subject or message, I think art

is always about some type of emotional connection with the viewer. With my titles I don’t try to tell the whole story, but rather leave room for a personal narrative.

My painting style is considered realism however, I also like to leave room for some mystery by combining abstract elements. I want to leave the interpretation open for the viewer to connect with the work in their own way.

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Sam Rasnake This Leaf Has No Tree 1.

From the waters of sleep and dread, wasting no time in finding bottom, what we live for is never what was said but is what we know is coming, with no mind for change, no heart for truth, no wish for missing, and no place for the after 2.

Press both thumbs against your skull’s inner walls as if you could push your way toward the great uncertainty – roll back your eyes and watch everything even though your tongue tells another story – and more – listen for the world in a whisper in a wild breath in a drift of warbled nothings 3.

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None of my dreams have taken root and the winds the rains are too much too many The ground is soft no place for footing None of my dreams – I’ve wanted fruit but none to pick have wanted leaves to burn red but no winter to turn them

A Nothing we were, are now, and ever shall be, blooming.

– Paul Celan

Threads

Now I become myself. – May Sarton

For some the thread runs straight through – there to here without ever saying its name, without knowing the bodies die, or the bridge washes out, the path dissolves to forest floor, then pasture becomes skyline to street to suburb to fence to door but for others the thread was never so with turns & turns & turns again until all faces blur to one – & then is now – there is a smile / there is no smile – no will to start / no way to stop the who or what the selves might be, could crave, must surely claim – everything is change

“Are You in the Mood?”

The Buddha, after his day in the winter fields, puts the disc on the turntable, lowers the arm The needle touches vinyl with a pop, then a sweet hiss – Django Reinhardt, May 1936 – How the dead go on living And me, at my computer screen, fingers tapping keys well after midnight while the heater’s fan hums against the cold

No Endings, No Beginnings

I just decided I wanted to become someone else…

So I became someone else.

– Dusty Springfield The dust of stars follows me into the silence as if what was thought or hoped the moon could do – light dripping its arc to dawn, my words breathed across uncertainties – making my burn of youth, all those years stacked upon each other, lose the road here – and looking back?

– as if wanting were enough – only a reminder, an almost something that can’t quite come to focus – letting go the child maybe or rain in the trees, a hillside graveyard, with its names of promise, smells of roast in the oven, Saturdays in town, or my radio under the pillow “like a circle in a spiral,” that summer of finding but no way to hold on – the mirror with its fever of can do anything, of the need that was my life – I remember scribbled words that dog me now – keeping them in a puzzle box, letting no one see, wanting and not wanting – words I could slip into – afraid to jump, afraid to speak a truth to life – with its dark threads of DNA Sam Rasnake has had work published in Wigleaf, Necessary Fiction, The Southern Poetry Anthology, MiPOesias Companion 2012, Drunk Monkeys, Big Muddy, Poets Artists, Spillway, Bending Genres Anthology 2018 / 2019, and BOXCAR Poetry Review Anthology 2. He has served as a judge for the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of Cinéma Vérité (A-Minor Press, 2013) and World within the World (Cyberwit, 2020).

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Cameron Jon Knutson Cameron Knutson is an oil painter who, while learning how to draw photorealistically at a young age, was always more interested in painting a narrative than achieving an exact likeness. Working from his studio in Chicago, he paints figures which are confronted with loss and immerses them in colorful light. Cameron combines classical painting techniques with contemporary color theory to push the boundaries of color in realism painting.

Iris, 2021 | Oil on Linen | 20 x 15 in

Art Angels, 2018 | Oil on Linen | 18 x 14 in

Nightmare, 2018 | Oil on Linen | 35 x 50 in

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Narelle Zeller

Narelle Zeller is an Australian contemporary realist artist, best known for her highly detailed figurative portraiture paintings. Her refined oil paintings explore the beauty of the human condition and our environment, drawing inspiration from the people around her and her own personal life experiences. Narelle aims to convey an authentic and honest representation of each subject, infusing personal and universal narratives within each piece to stir the viewer to question and connect to the stories behind each painting.

Narelle achieved her art education by way of completing workshops and mentorship programs with world-renowned artists. She has been a finalist in multiple prestigious national and international awards, such as the International Arc Salon, Darling Portrait Prize, Lester Prize for Portraiture and Shirley Hannan National Portrait Award. Her work has been exhibited both nationally and internationally.

STATEMENT FROM THE ARTIST Inspiration for this piece came one winter morning when I saw my husband Sam standing by the window light. Looking upwards with his hair unkempt and grown freely, he stood rugged up and comfortable in his pajamas and dressing gown, but ready for that inevitable Zoom meeting.

Adoring the abundance of company, our dog Boo sat by his side. This is a 2020 portrait of working from home during lockdown. It is about finding and embracing the positives that imposed change can bring amongst difficult circumstances. It is about appreciating the little things, spending more time with family and importantly an ode to day pajama wear.

Brave New Worker, 2020 Oil on aluminum panel 47 Ă— 28 in

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What turns has your art career taken? Over the years portraiture and realism have always been at the heart of my practice. From drawing with charcoal and graphite I went on to explore painting, first in acrylics and now in oils. Not seeing art as a viable career option, I spent many years drawing and painting as a hobby around working various jobs and raising a family.

About five years ago, while working at a local art store, I was inspired to focus more time towards my painting, starting with beginner oil courses and later seeking mentorship and workshops by worldrenowned artists. Whilst continuing to develop my skills, I have embraced every opportunity to exhibit my art nationally and internationally. I am now fortunate enough to be painting full time and I am looking forward to what the future may bring.

What role does your artwork have in society? When I paint it is for me. I try to avoid overthinking how the

artwork will be received on the outside and instead focus on what I want to explore within each piece and what excited me to paint it in the first place.

How the outside viewer will respond to the artwork is really out of my control. I can only hope that the joy I experience when painting is communicated in some way.

What current trends are you following and why? I do not follow trends. I think an artwork is most successful when it comes from a genuine place and you are not trying to mimic what someone else is doing. Of course many artists inspire me, but when I sit at the easel I have my own natural approach and personal motivations within each piece. I follow my intuition and paint what I am inspired to paint, not what I think will sell or what I feel is expected of me. I think that makes the best art. It is not as enjoyable to me when a painting feels forced or insincere. If you speak your truth as an artist, each piece will always be yours.

Narelle Zeller | Bury Me With a Mandarin, 2018 | Oil on aluminum panel | 23 3/5 Ă— 31 1/2 in

Pris Campbell That Kind of Day

—dust

It’s been the kind of day that a stitch in time couldn’t help, nor could a penny found or one’s fairy godmother.

The birds fly low to the West forming hieroglyphics against the sinking sun but nothing is to be learned from them or from the waving Oaks and Elms outlined beneath.

your dust my dust will we meet up again someday—

Even the fortune teller's tea has mysteriously disappeared.

I lie on my bed on this day of remembrances, try not to be sad.

The sky darkens, drops through my rooftop bringing old secrets, imprints of lost souls, and a touch of the Milky Way to sit with me until this vigil of mourning has passed.

settle on an empty park bench cause a sneeze travel on together or go our separate ways — will we tell each other stories of kisses we used to share or quarrels made and unmade— perhaps we’ll hitch a ride atop a dawding cloud form words of love only a child can see before they fade into blue

The poems of Pris Campbell have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including PoetsArtists, Nixes Mate, Rusty Truck, Bicycle Review, The Red Fez, Octopus Review, Boxcar Poetry Review, and Outlaw Poetry. Nominated six times for a Pushcart, the Small Press has published eight collections of her poetry. My Southern Childhood, from Nixes Mate Press is her most recent book. She also writes short forms and has received much recognition with those. A former Clinical Psychologist, sailor and bicyclist until sidelined by ME/CFS in 1990, she makes her home with her husband in the Greater West Palm Beach, Florida.

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John Hyland | Amanda Gorman: Ray of Light, 2021 | Oil on Canvas | 10 × 8 in | SOLD

Nicole Alger Straight Shot

After children the force field that grounds you is so heavy and so permanent.

The hunger and thirst for experience is sapped as if from the thickest hose.

You read exalted lines about such hunger from a Romantic poet who writes from the heady heart— a straight shot from his imagination to his pen.

He conjures a wet and whipping wind on that swift current with sturdy limbs as ballast for your body so young so strong and it reads like memory

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like every memory you ever had of being young and free and unattached and not responsible for anyone long before your heart took up residence on the ledge.

Nicole Alger has been writing poetry for over 15 years and painting for 30. Two of her poems have been included in issues 82 and 100 of PoetsArtists. Nicole Alger is a graduate of Duke University and the Florence Academy of Art. During Covid, her work has been in shows through 33 Contemporary Gallery and Abend Gallery.

Currently she is working on several portrait commissions in oil and charcoal.

Pose, 2020 | Oil on paper Board | 8 x 8 in

Right, 2020 | Oil on Paper Board | 8 x 8 in

Ivan Pazlamatchev

Ivan Pazlamatchev is a Bulgarian-American painter rooted in figurative tradition.

His paintings delve into allegorical narratives and compositional tensions, with contemporary interpretation backed by classical training received at the prestigious School for Fine Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. With over 30 years of experience working as a fine artist, Ivan has exhibited in galleries and museums in Europe and throughout the East coast of United States. Notably, in 2008, Pazlamatchev’s paintings were included in the Societe Nationale Des Beaux-Arts Salon at Carrousel du Louvre in Paris. In 2018 he had a comprehensive retrospective exhibit at the Art Gallery Georges Papazov in Bulgaria.

In 1997, his solo exhibition at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia represented the Painting portion in the Salon of the Arts ‘97. His work was selected in the Crocker-Kingsley National Competition 2021. He has received awards, grants, and invitations, including to the Art Fusion Festival in Berlin, Germany, and has work residing in public and private collections, including the S. C. Rockefeller,Jr. collection.

Ren 1, 2020 | Oil on Canvas | 12 x12 in

Do you ever venture out of your creative process to try out new things? I work primarily in oils but very often I would spend time working with watercolors. For me the medium is liberating and very attractive. What I discover in watercolor, often finds its way into the approach and decisions I take in my oil paintings. The finished watercolors are also a very successful part of my creative output.

Explain your process. From concept to realization, every painting, starts with imagining the composition and depending on whether or not there are any questionable elements, I will do preparatory drawings, or start

directly on the canvas. What follows then, is a string of decisions, at different turns, if I should pursue at all cost the original imagined image or adjust and adapt to what the developing, physical presence of the painting demands.

What artwork in history has inspired you the most? “Las Hilanderas” (“The Spinners”) by Velazquez. In this painting he tells three parts of the Fable of Arachne, organized seamlessly in one perfect composition. Even including a copy of “The Rape of Europa” by Titian (the scene of the tapestry in the background) as one of the facets of the story.

REPRESENTED ARTISTS Heather Brunetti Dirk Dzimirsky Patrick Earl Hammie Grant Gilsdorf Sergio Gomez Yunior Hurtado Torres

Brianna Lee Kim Leutwyler Junyi Liu Shawn Michael Warren Michele Murtaugh Omalix

Viktoria Savenkova O'Neil Scott Sara Scribner Hilary Swingle Alessandro Tomassetti Francisco Vazquez

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