The Gallery Fall 2023

THE GALLERY T HE GALLERY TH E GALLERY THE GALLERY THE G ALLERY THE GA LLERY THE GAL LERY THE GALL ERY THE GALLE RY THE GALLER Y THE GALLERY THE GALLERY T HE GALLERY TH f al lt wo t housand t went yt hree

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Volume 38, Issue 1 Fall 2023

Editors Editors-in-Chief Jenna Massey Malvika Shrimali Art Editor Miranda Yañez Poetry Editors Shawna Alston Paige Foltz Prose Editor Jack Gillespie Publicity Editor Lulu Griffin Digitization Editor Juliana Santry Thank you so much to everyone who made this a fantastic semester, including the following, who helped assemble the magazine!

Elsa Hendrix Sydney Shoulders Logan Mischke

Anna Longley Grant Yoon Lauren Mullaney

Special thanks to Miranda Yañez for designing this issue’s back cover

Cover Art

The Fool After Hours André Adams see the full work on page 35

2 The Gallery

Contents Fencing Horses House of Gourmet, Toronto A Winter’s Day Confession Frozen in Time sonic06 piss christ 1987 mama Haunted Trip In My Childhood Bedroom Blistering Hell I Cry Over Spilled Milk, when bad pens bleed Usually Blue tidal grays Tributary Fever Dream Lullaby The Pianist Kilroy June September Blue July Boat House Paradise Jungle Model Session: Head Empty Is This Loss?

Nostalgia The Fool After Hours Ready for My Close-Up Sunlight Lover Summer Feeling Set It All Free Fungi Network of Love Camping After Hours TWAM-Shweep Following the Arno Ông’s Hammock Tributary Ketone Spring-searching (reprise) Building Blocks of Chinese America Recreation of a De Lamiis Print Dark House from 902 December Contributor’s Notes Editors’ Note

4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18-19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30-33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52-53 54

Kelley Wang Will Florentino Lucy Loudon Lauren Mullaney Soph Asenso Soph Asenso Elizabeth Walker Sage Futrell Lucy Loudon Matira Schwab Grant Yoon Sydney Shoulders Paige Foltz Charlotte Daum Srija Upadhyay Trung Phi Anna Longley André Adams Soph Asenso Will Florentino Will Florentino Miranda Yañez Bayleigh Albert Agavni Mehrabi Kelley Wang Malvika Shrimali Madeline Burdge André Adams Charlotte Daum Elizabeth Walker Alisa Yang Alisa Yang Beth Anne Dell Anna Longley Kelley Wang Sydney Tamsett Trung Phi Charlotte Daum Ash Pyle Will Florentino Crystal Wang André Adams Kelley Wang Elsa Hendrix

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Kelley Wang

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Fencing Horses

Intaglio

House of Gourmet, Toronto Beckoned to like family – my face red from the november air – silken threads of fragrant duck fat and pork belly braising inside the great wombs churning without end.

Meanwhile, white caps float furiously between shouted orders. Knives cleave punctuation into the cacophony.

She speaks to me in chinese, I reply bashfully in english, a quiet apology for everything unearned.

I have been weary for a hard object in this place of harsh liquidity. I cannot, much longer, hold on to these faces shuffling down salmon ladders.

The broth in the little white bowl tastes like my mother’s tinola. The congee slides, garlic-laden, down my throat like arroz caldo.

It is warm inside, and so am I.

— Will Florentino

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A Winter’s Day Confession Cradled in the couch at your house, the one that’s so old I practically melt into the tan wine-stained cushions.

I breathe in the stale living room air with the mixture of the wood-burning brick fireplace and the corpse of a cinnamon candle.

There is a prickling sensation in my stomach and I wonder if it was the ice cream sundaes you wanted us to eat together in the dead of winter.

Yet you told me you stopped drinking.

And the words cling to my throat more than the smoky haze.

Yet I thought you remembered I was lactose-intolerant.

Then the door creaks, and I hear your soft socks on the floor the ones that I got you that you only wear at home because fuzzy socks are too feminine even if your feet freeze.

But you said that they made you happy.

Grabbing a plaid blanket from a basket you wrap it around our shoulders and whisper “I love you” and I am warm, so suffocatingly warm, as our picture sits on the mantle.

Yet the wind howls a chill runs up my spine and the cold numbs my heart in the same way your windows are covered with the crawling evening frost.

— Lucy Loudon

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Lauren Mullaney

Frozen in Time

Photography

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sonic06 god i’m like fucking Pinocchio-! i wanna be human--more than anything. to get down -! with no strings. robotnik. czech. was i supposed to be my own person? right. || at all costs. right. prim. proper. for being prickly. won’t happen. i promise. i try to be a turtle. won’t retract her quills. by line i retreat. see the ogham you leave. beg for more. beg for warmth. crush myself in pillows. bits. so many bits it means zero. jaguars//teeth go so well and 1 time i’ll see myself in a mirror. whatever that means. i try. it’s all i know. the Jedi were wrong anyways.

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— Soph Asenso

piss christ 1987 grandma. golden girls. time zones. she will never meet me. she feeds me glass coke and pudding. my cross to bear. i will be her good little boy. because it’s all i can. brick walls and honda civics. doritos and compound visits. the wet turns to dry and i dance in its embrace. my movies. my nmp. smile. smile again. i remember these ghosts. i’m sure they meant something. i’m sure.

— Soph Asenso

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mama no good dirtbag teenager ungrateful girl with half- moons carved in her back, hands shaking, i cant articulate what i want when i mama, hair dark against her pale face childhood splayed out in every wrinkle first of my rebellion first of making tears prick at the corner of her eyes i want to cradle the child she once was i don’t know how to without retracting my own adulthood into my mouth and ears licking back sex and desire into something more manageable, more orange and mandarin more angel something to make you proud, mama — Elizabeth Walker

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Sage Futrell

Haunted

Ink Print and Acrylic

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Trip in My Childhood Bedroom As I lie back to see my mother’s face the walls tremble in an iridescent violet haze clinging to my bloodied foot, a red pump hangs over the side of the bed my mother’s silhouette melts back onto the peeling plaster wall The walls tremble in an iridescent violet haze sunken within the pink princess sheets my mother’s silhouette melts back onto the peeling plaster wall her tears running wax from a pack of Crayola crayons Sunken within the pink princess sheets mellow yellow wrappers half-hidden beneath my head her tears running wax from a pack of Crayola crayons wasted words flowing freely from my lips Mellow yellow wrappers half-hidden beneath my head a fuzzy jazz record plays in the opposite room wasted words flowing freely from my lips As I lie to my mother’s face.

— Lucy Loudon

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Matira Schwab

Blistering

Acrylic

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Hell It is A sun like the eye of death Illumining the twilight gape Of the trees’ silhouettes and The dark ridges of the felt coffin-lid sky.

It is The end, proclaimed in Each sensation’s weight; Half-open eyes that slept, unseeing, Awake, alive with truth’s new cry; Pain, not with Gratitude grief, nor with Tenderness longing; Pain, One pure chord of arrested goodbye it is, it is, it is.

— Grant Yoon

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I Cry Over Spilled Milk, broken pencil tips, littered streets, and the cold, working at the store when it’s about to close, flickering street lights, cracked cobblestone, forgotten moments, and the things that I’ve chose, the lone moon that stands without light of its own, begging the Sun to have something to show, bees circling my face, my congested nose, seeds left in the cracks and forced to grow, leaves clung to feet, thrown-away, brought indoors, keys lost and found, and the stress of it all.

Bottle caps on the floor, the glass still half full.

It never seems to last for long.

— Sydney Shoulders

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when bad pens bleed haven’t found my good pen, i am too impatient to let ink dry. words smudged with angst and longing, i thought i swear i had better handwriting before. ink stains on my ceiling my shoelaces my lighter my lips, bleeding black and blue through pages i haven’t even reached. i am shredding notebooks searching for one blank sheet but my hands are stained and wet and i am too impatient to leave the pages where they lie. i can remember making stamps with gel pens and fingerprints in grade school, when ink could be scrubbed away with dawn and elbow grease. you know, i’ve never been a steady hand but i swear, i used to write one hell of a love letter.

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— Paige Foltz

Charlotte Daum

Usually Blue

Gouache and Colored Pencil

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tidal grays at four teen i held four tongues neatly in these hands weathered & worn— wielding each as easily as i would my thumb if i were a mason day dreaming with damp clay & supple sand. twenty-&-three & now i speak confined in 2-D; two tongues withered & gray

bloom— twin tombstones in this cerebral lichyard of spectral

memories. <> *** it is between these stones that i stand each night through the hours where even the

nightingale sleeps

& i lead by hand

a new love

from my imagination to the sheets by lamplight alone. we laugh at the way our shades curve on peeling wall

paper &

as our two tongues meet i try to push

out

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the image of two

other tongues, white with rot,

dusted in gravel & curling like discarded magnolia

petals

& vanishing more swiftly than

the fawn’s snow spots

in the face of maturity. i try to push out the image knowing

full well that the shore cannot keep

the tide at bay through sheer will;

the waves will break,

chilly & unpleasant. & gray. before dawn trickles through cloud cover & curtained windows

i ask each face: will we clear the fire next year? i tell them not of how i already make rounds of the lichyard with only half my tongues as guilt bitters my mouth. the nightingale sings; my companions dissolve in sunlight. <>

— Srija Upadhyay

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Tributary How dare the night roar back at me. The constellations iridescent, its indifference insistent. The waves crashing softly, gasping into foam, a final breath grasped as the sand finally cold and soaked enough between my toes to remind me of the loud that is the conscious and the conscience that is the quiet.

If thinking is just a fancy word for changing your mind, then let me reminisce as if one may recollect the debris and not the crash. The dark, sitting there, hurting gently. The breeze, warm. Oh, how exquisite, how quite.

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— Trung Phi

Anna Longley

Fever Dream Lullaby

Ink Pen

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André Adams

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The Pianist

Oil Pastel

[Kilroy my god. im simply too much. forget your keys as you head out; coup de grace. a fitting tune for us. golly. the number 6 looks great next to your tears, sweat. the rest of my temerity. beg for absolution. stare at a wall. throw chairs. anything to change. my days. the depth of a puddle. disrespectful to puddles honestly. he walks in on me as i shed. t-1000 in magma. scraps of molt trying to be human. why does he stay. oh heavens. the rain’s returned. drizzling the barren. leaving no trace. emotion isn’t a suit. you hate brands anyway. oh bother. are there ways to be without all this dead air. fcc guideline violation. chaplin’s disease. (not like that. or that.) my goodness. never in question. always in doubt. paper mache. to be destroyed. for fucks sake. paste someone else. sorry. too much.

— Soph Asenso

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June We have been all day, shoulder-deep in thistle, wrecked: Blackberrying without the sweetness.

He tries to tell me about a book he read once, but the words have fallen out of him.

Stares at his hands like he might find them there.

In another hour the rest of hillside will be disappeared. Red scar in the land where we turned the iron out.

Later the catfish on the old stolen pan peers at me through glassy eyes, remembering not the gutting, but the knife. The weight of it.

His calloused hands proffered to the clouds and I. Distantly I see rain oxbowing across his heart line until the tributaries finally run dry.

All the thistle in bags, rows and rows, green thorns prickling through the black as if they know what they’re fighting for: The sun, the steady machinations of rain.

The next spring, and the next, and the following gruesome day: this day.

How vanished it already is.

— Will Florentino

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September On Sundays I learn how to leave without leaving. To stay as a handprint, a toothbrush, a nectarine in the cupboard.

Other days I inhabit a pillow, your mug, the pot we scraped burnt garlic from three nights ago.

These proxies behind me, I wean onto the world a little less whole, yet still unshattered.

I return home to the pot in the sink, bits of garlic floating mirthfully in their own vast construction of joy.

— Will Florentino

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Blue July When July came, I found myself swimming in a deep, hedonistic yearning, a rich blue love-lust, a hatred, a jealousy.

Midsummer heat is broken with lake water at night and wet hands on my back and skin on skin on skin.

Open your eyes.

I’m begging you to look at me.

Longing is a violent violet creature, she holds her breath until her lips are purple, veins bulging, she is sickening.

I am repulsed by her, she hurts me, I want her gone.

I sink into the cool red clay silt and it stains me, a brilliant rusty christening over my body.

Forgive me, forgive me.

— Miranda Yañez

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Bayleigh Albert

Boat House

35mm Film on Silver Gelatin Print

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Paradise Jungle This world got too Deep for you baby, Thrust you in a hole Below forty feet.

Sat you with a weight Of an elephant old, Sucked your air and Drained your heat.

This world like a Paradise jungle, Juicy mangoes Pulling down palace-sized vines.

But a ditch in the Undergrowth swallowed Your ankles, working Like a passive parasite mine.

Then dark, dark, black Went the world, see, Pitch against the rushing Fall of your body.

Deep, deep, dank Went the Earth’s feet Farther from heaven With the further you sank.

This world got too deep, Now, believe me, Took you with a sense of Beautiful, free.

Then it grew to an elephantine heap Crushed you straight Mercilessly.

— Agavni Mehrabi

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The Gallery

Kelley Wang

Model Session: Head Empty

Acrylic

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Is This Loss?

by Malvika Shrimali Mid-day. I call my mom. “Malvika, kaisa chal raha hai?”

“Mom, I—” My sentence is punctuated by the shaking of my voice. She doesn’t need me to finish it.

I’ve lost my sweatshirt, the faded pink one with the Girl Scout logo. My troop got matching sweatshirts prior to a Disney World trip in 2013 that we funded with our cookie money.

Or: I’ve lost my mountain ring. Bronzed and overpriced, this is the ultimate symbol of friendship from my best friend, who was at times painfully American. We got two tattoos together and haven’t spoken in a year.

Or: I’ve lost my eraser. How did I manage to lose it since the last time I picked up my pencil? I now obligatorily brand myself Irresponsible Again despite my efforts to be a Good Kid, and I berate myself for contributing to consumerism again despite my frugality.

November creeps closer daily and drags grief with it.

A few minutes into the phone call, my desperation becomes more about the constant losing than the lost thing itself. It might be the fourth phone call she’s gotten this week.

The abysmal panic starts about two minutes after I realize I’ve lost something and (usually) never makes it to the 30-minute mark, at which point my mom adds it to the growing tower of things that were never that serious. My parents call it naivety and it’s generally a good thing, except when I express it. *** “You just need to be more responsible next time.”

In South Asian cultures, crying is a loss of blood. Scientifically, the argument lies in wasteful energy expenditure. I could be using that energy to retrace my steps, for example. No wonder I’m anaemic.

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A brisk reminder of imminent November collides with the hairs on my arm. In a perfect world, I would draw my pink sweatshirt tighter around me. Instead, I fight the urge to drop to my knees, though I definitely feel nauseous enough. Over the phone, I beg my mom for empathy instead of exasperation.

ADHD in people assigned female at birth often looks like emotional dysregulation and rejection sensitivity dysphoria. According to science, my therapist explained, emotions may squeeze at the ribcage until it’s hard to breathe. The body may wish it would crumple like paper when the mind recognizes anything less than utmost devotion to me. Tears may become a mechanism for sinking into nonexistence and change becomes a threat.

My disorder(?) is a scapegoat for most things—putting off cleaning my room until the hour before the guests arrive, not doing my dishes, and interrupting my friends. But I can survive with a messy floor. Without my sweatshirt, though, people will not know I was the top cookie seller in my troop three years in a row. My friend will look at my naked finger and assume I don’t value her enough. Scribbled papers foretell a future of incompetence.

Then who to blame? Surely, I am too well intentioned to accept culpability. Too agnostic to curse at Bhagwan Ji. *** “You need to pay closer attention to these things.”

I consider lost information with the same weight as my possessions. My I’ll get back to you’s never do. I can hear my roommate’s friends laughing in the other room, and I assume they have nothing better to talk about than how I don’t respond to texts for weeks.

My mother likes to keep eye contact with me while she lists off my chores. Otherwise, there’s no telling what might stick. What she doesn’t see across the kitchen table are my squinted eyes, visualizing her words like I forgot to put on my glasses. In this analogy, of course, the ink is smudged, and the distance between us is filled with chattering cicadas.

Should she keep every instruction in writing for me? She means it as a slight, but yes, I say, it might have some permanence then. We both know her efforts at accommodating me are futile; I must not care enough, be it for her or my sweatshirt.

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“Stop crying! You need to be mature.”

That’s an order. In India, a mother’s word goes. As a daughter of 50 years, she’s grown accustomed to the taste of matriarchal medicine. I once tried to counter that I in fact exemplified maturity because maturity is understanding the value in everything, just like she taught me. She just laughed at my amateurishness: only the weak crumble the way I do. In India, a mother’s criticism is her belief in you.

November is at my heels. I can’t help but let my face contort, my breath hitch, my fingernails mark their punishment in my palms. A headache lingers behind the floodgates. I hear my mom say I am weak, by which of course she means to say that I am above crying over poorly dyed, ratty fabric. Sunglasses, chargers, my pink GameBoy. At some point in her speech, I’m sure she tries to offer comfort the way I recognize it, but my brain is too clogged with self-pity.

The drizzle begins. I am crying, and trying to heed my mother’s words feels traitorous; like I’m helping her drive the stake down. *** This is pathetic. She’s right, isn’t she? I must be acting childish. Adults don’t have ADHD. And they’re not scared of medication. They get over it. What if I never get over it? Some think it’s about the wasted money. Sometimes I wish it was; then it wouldn’t be so hard.

Why was I, of all people, chosen to be bad luck? Bad luck doesn’t exist, it’s just ADHD. Take some goddamn accountability. It’s not ADHD, I’m just an asshole. I swear I don’t hate myself, I am just painfully aware of my faults. My mom will never admit it, but she’s growing older and tired of pacifying me.

I wonder how much of my uncurable disease is genetic. My dad immigrated from New Delhi in 2000 and landed in a one-bedroom Reston apartment. The library was only a few stops down the bus line. As the sun set on his cooked spinach because “what matters is the nutrients, it all goes to the stomach anyways,” the dictionary fell open to be pored over for another night. By the time I was seven, I could quote The Big Book of Questions and Answers on demand.

Around the dinner table, I butt into conversations with the men at the table about chemistry and ethics. My cited sources date back to the non-fiction spinoffs of Magic Tree House, or an anecdote told off-hand by an expert at a virtual conference. All around me, chuckles of awe: You are your father’s daughter.

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But my father has held onto books from before The Partition. The adults are mistaken; I don’t deserve to be the subject of their lauding. I lose everything I love.

I used to go for walks at this time of year, back when I had adequate layers. Cold air is denser than warm, but it feels cleaner in the lungs. Now, the air stings against my chapped lips that I have carved with the memory of every tragedy of the day. On the phone with my mom, twenty-one years’ worth are revived.

All I can devise out of these shorter days is loss. Branches furl as if struck with a raging hand. Sickness seeps in under the cracks in the tile.

Capsized moths litter the windowsill, and I attract misery like flies to a carcass.

November never stops coming around, and I am growing tired.

Is this the fate I face? Life is a losing battle and I deserve it.

G

The Gallery 33

Madeline Burdge

34 The Gallery

Nostalgia

Acrylic

André Adams

The Fool After Hours

Oil Pastel

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Sunlight Lover the sunlight dapples, yellow on his chest sat above me, tanned and browned in rings around the neck, that neck that dips into a collarbone, a collar a shirt that is painted purple, a royal color, his color. i see him everywhere: the fragmented glare of stained glass, silent in my wooden church, a flower growing through the pavement, cracked or the bite of a pear, dripping down my tongue, sweet pooling in my throat-tender, that’s the word, i’m whirling, love, through the universe and the wholeness of it i can clasp between my hands, a peach, oh what gentle luxury to taste to let my fingers trail over to break the skin.

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— Elizabeth Walker

Charlotte Daum

Ready for my Close-Up

Gauche, Colored Pencil, Pen

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Alisa Yang

38 The Gallery

Summer Feeling

Photography

Alisa Yang

Set It All Free

Photography

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Fungi Network of Love If there’s a God in the autumnal death He rots in breaking bread and baby’s breath The crow caw sucks my courage now. Do the Helicopters know the clouds will over Take the ground? The cold will settle soon but it’d be so much faster if we drowned If I reach my hands into the ground and Say I love you, will your favorite soft rain fall just beyond your windowpanes?

Days do not end, instead they fold into inconspicuous wrinkles— the pages I fan between singed and faded thumb pads I pulled the singing rot from the Earth and I fell silent. Fungi network of love.

— Beth Anne Dell

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Anna Longley

Camping After Hours

Ink Pen

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Kelley Wang

42 The Gallery

TWAM-Shweep

Oil on Wood Panel

Sydney Tamsett

Following the Arno

Photography

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Ông’s Hammock

sway, sway under the sun, asleep beloved, aglow

humidity etched on our skin

like trunk veins, the hammock riddled with bullet holes

what happens to dreams when they become real? my dear, my Ông whispering:

when I was stationed, I had this hammock in my knapsack. midday, when we slumber to escape the heat, I would hang it under the grove by the river. instead of sleeping, I would write your Bà a poem, a short one, and send it down the stream, towards nowhere.

what happens to nightmares when we wake? Ông ơi, in your knapsack, you also had a deck of cards

with your comrades, you played Tiên which means forward

I want to ask,

is this how you learned to live?

making things move so we can forget

death is stillness?

pushing that origami boat down the river,

that hammock from side to side?

sway, sway forward, forward nowhere, everywhere don’t wake yet I am folding you a lullaby

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— Trung Phi

Charlotte Daum

Tributary

Gouache and Colored Pencil

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Ketone There’s a bitterness in the air; a sting, hot and cold, not enough to burn.

Lay back on the pillows and gouge out your eyes with salt spoons– believe me when I say it is sweet.

Fall came and went downwards a spiral of iced water and mint.

The tang stays and stays, so coat your lungs and hold your breath– mouthwash won’t erase cavities.

Grandma pulled my teeth because the doors were off their hinges.

So pray to soured deities and a fuji apple with only one bruise but– ants will smell the sugar on your breath.

The budding of goldenrod and aster tether singed taste buds, blossomed tongue sucking on an ice cube.

Instead choke on bile, regret the rot but– there is death, so it is sweet.

— Ash Pyle

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The Gallery

Spring-searching (reprise) Newt, beetle. Warm things wild again after all this time: a healing reed.

I dream with my head tucked under the canopy of common myrtles.

Eating peach again to euthanize the frostbite– this hearth for the snow.

How patient I’ll be, fingers dormant like a branch of bud-burdened elm.

How early I wake to catch the susurrations of sleeping rivers.

— Will Florentino

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Building Blocks of Chinese America I am from the underbelly of a pair of stairs that creaked with each step taken, like the sky had been shaken every morning with thundering gods and storming clouds I am from the criers on the street, hucking deals and fresh fruit, and the smell of dried fish permeating the air like hot breath from sea beasts who hovered languid o’erhead I am from the unclean concrete — cracked by cars, buses, footsteps — and pelting rain that ne’er stopped, as if to wash away the grime, the dinge, the life, the familiarity I am from the pamphlets thrust into my hand by elder strangers trying to make a living; they are my grandmothers and grandfathers, elderly aunts and uncles I am from the unwhite, wash of bustling Flushings and Chinatown, and the 7 line subway, and the comfort of “I have family up there” and a base to call safety

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— Crystal Wang

André Adams

Recreation of a De Lamiis Print

Crayon

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Kelley Wang

50 The Gallery

Dark House from 902

Gouache

december Dipped in winter night flagstones wet with the city’s breath shattered starlight weeps.

And I, rigid in my bones wade in the dregs of a dream.

— Elsa Hendrix

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Contributors’ Agavni Mehrabi is a sophomore with a love for rhymes.

Alisa Yang is a junior at W&M who loves nature, traveling, and many different types of Art. Andre Adams is a Hawaiian-Black artist whose art typically depicts isolation and loneliness in familiar yet estranged spaces. His style originates from his Hawaiian background mixed with his love for Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, and Expressionism.

Anna Longley is a sophomore at William & Mary studying art and psychology as an aspiring art therapist for children. She loves spending her free time filling a sketchbook with mindless drawings.

Bayleigh Albert is a senior double majoring in Conservation and Creative Media and Environment & Sustainability. She is interested in using photography to communicate and educate a variety of audiences about conservation and the environment, using art to connect the public with science.

Charlotte Daum is a junior studying English and Marketing. Her work is an exploration of the color of the world and the spirit of the human.

Elsa Hendrix (‘25) is a new student at W&M. The piece of poetry is written in the style of a 短歌 (tanka), which is a slightly longer form of the Japanese haiku. Her interests lie in modern languages, prose fiction and literature of all kinds.

Kelley Wang is a senior double majoring in computer science and studio art who’s gradua­­­ting in winter of 2023. They view their work as a reflection and record of their thinking process.

Lauren Mullaney is a junior studying Chemistry and English. Her photo in this issue honors her late dog, Tillie.

Lucy Loudon is a sophomore Biology major and (future) Creative Writing minor on the pre-veterinary track from Columbus, OH. Her interest in writing originally stems from her parents who have always encouraged her vast, though sometimes odd, imagination. She likes to write about vulnerable moments of the human experience while often using imagery from both nostalgia and the natural world.

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Notes Madeline Burdge (they/them) is a junior here at W&M pursuing a major in Linguistics and their passion for all mediums of art on the side.

Malvika Shrimali can put together a magazine, but almost forgot to write their contributor’s note.

Matira Schwab is a junior majoring in CAMS Applied Statistics. This piece is dedicated to her poor fingers, acknowledging their perseverance in her attempts at learning the guitar.

Sage Futrell (they/she) is a sophomore studying anthropology. Their favorite artistic mediums are collages and block prints, but they also enjoy making jewelry.

Soph Asenso (‘24) is an enigma wrapped inside a riddle covered in mystery.

Predominantly publishing musical/satirical works (Botetourt Squat), these poems are written from her various stances as a black queer woman.

Srija Upadhyay can be found scribbling poetry or staring at birds whenever she is not inundated with homework. Her piece “tidal grays” was inspired by the phenomenon of losing lifelong languages or hobbies, replacing them with cycles of short-lived passions, then dealing with the questioning of self that ensues from such actions.

Sydney Tamsett (‘27) takes photos for fun, communicates mainly through Seinfeld references, and can get you all the printer ink you want.

Trung Phi is a junior majoring in biology. He wishes he could photosynthesize for energy. You can probably find him in the Slice (for sunlight, obviously), often wearing earth tones with his ponytail under a Laufey cap.

Will Florentino is a senior. The views expressed in this work reflect those of the voices in his head, not his own.

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Editors’ Note Dear Reader, This semester, we have witnessed the Palestinian people suffer great atrocities at the hands of the Israeli government. Journalists, writers, and artists are putting their lives on the line to share their truths from across the Gaza Strip.

Communication has been severely restricted since October 7, 2023. Censorship is violence.

We are glad that the voices of Palestinian artists have been amplified in recent months, but it’s disheartening that it has taken atrocity to bring many of them to light. Though especially poignant at this moment in time, the themes of liberation and diasporic identity that comprise contemporary Palestinian art and writing are not unique to this tragedy. We implore you to keep the voice of resistance alive by seeking out and sharing the work of Palestinian artists and scholars.

As always, we thank our talented submitters for trusting us with their work, and we are eternally grateful to our readers for helping us encourage creativity on this campus. Thank you for supporting this publication. We’ll see you next year.

— Malvika Shrimali and Jenna Massey Co-Editors-in-Chief, The Gallery

Colophon The Gallery Volume 38 Issue 1 was produced by the student staff at the College of William & Mary and published by Carter Printing Co. in Richmond, Virginia.

Submissions are accepted anonymously through a staff vote. The magazine was designed using Adobe Indesign CC and Adobe Photoshop CC. The magazine’s 54, 6x9 pages are set in Garamond. The titles of all the pieces are Derivia. The text on the cover is set in Garamond.

Check out The Gallery online www.issuu.com/gallerywm/ www.instagram.com/thegallerywm/ www.facebook.com/wmgallery/

54 The Gallery

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