Graphite 9, 2018 by GRAPHITE Journal

Table of Contents

5 6 9 10 13 17 20 22 37 40 44 50 86 92 94 96 102 105 110 124 131 134 145 149 155

Introduction Sam Karl Jacob Stutz Andrea Garcia Vasquez Stephen Michaels Jacob Stutz Katja Farin Valerie Franco Joel Wood Ambera Wellmann Sterling Hedges Abra Cohn Hyangsook Kwak Ava Kling Michael Reyes Gala Prudent Neil Hancock Meital Yaniv Gozie Ojini Julienne Fusello Fran Tirado Akea Brown Dajin Yoon Contributors About Graphite

Introduction

Whether socially, politically, linguistically, or cognitively, categories have the potential to give us order. They provide a framework that allows us to make sense of the world and navigate it faster and more efficiently. Categories are so ingrained in our cultural environment that they are often invisible to the very elements they define. Graphite IX considers how these mechanisms of categorization can influence the way we understand ourselves in relation to the world and one another. It considers how categorization has the power to give visibility and legitimacy to people, objects, and ideas, while also having the power to silence others. Graphite IX calls for hybridity, marginality, and a multiplicity of categories. It calls for political and social analyses of the mechanisms and consequences of categorization. With love, Graphite Staff

Sam Karl Woman with Tray, 2018 Acrylic and oil stick on canvas 88” x 62”

Opportunity is a privilege I have been given to better myself. In opportunity I am told to write down the Gettysburg Address. I write it down start to finish as many times as I can for the duration of opportunity. I think the idea behind opportunity isn’t to think about how I got opportunity but is to think about the Gettysburg Address. Opportunity isn’t something that everybody needs, but a time for me to think about the bigger picture. It makes me think of what I could do, with all this opportunity, how I could maybe move forward with a goal, like the Gettysburg Address. Nowadays when I’m given an opportunity, it’s not even about the situation, I just start thinking about the Gettysburg Address. At this point I don’t even know what the first opportunity was all about or how it even started. I feel like the people giving me these opportunities already know I’m looking for one. They know how I think, what I want and how I’m gonna get it. So they send me right there. To my opportunity.

Jacob Stutz

Andrea Garcia Vasquez Post Box Drop Off, 2017 Linen, various threads 32” x 17”

Andrea Garcia Vasquez Some Sorta Truth, 2018 Fabric, embroidery thread, sewing thread, grommets 21” x 24”

Andrea Garcia Vasquez Feb. 23, 2017 Linen, various threads 24” x 10”

Stephen Michaels The Fool , 2017 Silk, canvas, felt Dimensions variable

Stephen Michaels AUTOSEX, 2017 Acrylic on raw canvas Dimensions variable

When “More Than A Feeling” by a band called Boston plays on the radio in class the substitute teacher says that she was born in 84’ and she remembers the 80’s. Luke does not question this. He knows a classic when he sees one. I want to ask what about the classic makes it a classic but if I knew it probably wouldn’t be classic. Luke doesn’t worry too much or think too hard about me. He wouldn’t sabotage me. Luke hears “You’re So Vain” and never once thinks the song is about him. Luke only pushes the crosswalk button once. He doesn’t let his highs or lows get too far from the center. Luke says he wants to learn more about the buddhists. He doesn’t say oriental because he knows what his response will be if he says it. Luke has a humble collection. Luke has firm arms and his muscles are toned but not obnoxiously so. I usually want to feel them but also wish I had them. He doesn’t know his BMI. I swim up to Luke and try and play defense on him. The coach pulls me out. I think Luke’s muscles were more toned underwater than I expected. I want to go up to him after the game but I know I’ll spoil it. I wish my coach and everyone in the bleachers thought I was Luke. Luke is a magician and if I found out his trick he would not be Luke. I research so much Luke and wonder about Luke in the 90’s. 80’s Luke. 60’s Luke. Future Luke? I wonder if there have been many great Lukes. After years of not seeing Luke, after all this Luke, the Luke is not the same. He’s no longer Luke. I tried for years to get him this way. Luke appreciates an “illicit moment” in moderation. It’s cute when Luke is fucked up. I never thought I’d see him this way. He knows moderation. I always wanted to experiment with Luke and do Luke with Luke without Luke. Lived-work, work-Luke. Live Luke. Maybe that’s how I will achieve Luke. But when I finally did he was not Luke. Luke used to live with me but he was not really Luke when we finally moved in. I live with Luke again and I watch him cook so much. I wonder if he laughs when I come home

because I’m funny or because he knows that I think he’s Luke. Luke is an INTP and he said that’s the problem. Luke knows what he believes in. Luke writes and talks about Luke but in a mature, controlled and professional way. Luke was upset to find out I was reliant on Luke. My friend and I did Luke everyday and talked shit about Luke. Luke is more important to me than being in love. I do not know any love but I know Luke. I think I love my mom but when she offered to take me to Seaworld I told her I would rather see Luke. I like my mom but I love to cuck with Luke. Luke tends to send me home when the time is right. I would never openly argue or fight Luke. Luke taught me to fight with my thumb on the outside of my knuckles so I don’t break any fingers. He is a black belt. Luke doesn’t eat too much but is worried about me not eating enough. Luke feeds me but never feeds me what I want. I’m always wanting more from Luke. I would never ask for more though. I don’t know what I would even do if I were to finally get Luke the way I think I want. Part of Luke being Luke is that I can’t have him this way.

Jacob Stutz

Katja Farin Molding Faces; a Warm Sunset, 2018 Oil on canvas 48” x 60”

Valerie Franco Medication, 2018 Performance stills

Valerie Franco Medical Reconciliation, 2018 Paper, Xylene, DMSO, acetone, chloroform 8.5” x 11”

Valerie Franco Referral 2, 2018 Paper, Xylene, DMSO, acetone, chloroform 8.5” x 11”

Valerie Franco Privacy Practice, 2018 Paper, Xylene, DMSO, acetone, chloroform 8.5” x 11”

Valerie Franco normalduodenum, 2018 Paper, Xylene, DMSO, acetone, chloroform 8.5” x 11”

Pet Sounds

The other poem you could be reading has a raven or something. Something ineffable is happening in a field as the thing lands on its claws or talons or its fingers sink into the hay shoulder of a scarecrow, whom we are supposed to understand is so much like the falconer only he sewn from flannel doens’t call. Pager lime green and rain damaged, holstered in pleather and bungie, the triple a’s look like coral. That current was maybe too hard to write in anyways were it new, and certainly it doesn’t suit the palette here––the dead wheat between seasons, it’s almost purple if you squint. The moon a hardly suitor has flags and inscrutable trackmarks from the Rovers tonight. Still, such soft light should feed like a prism through that bird or thing, somehow its dark eyes perceived to say something also between speaking breaths and revelry. Almost like Another poem you could be reading, wherein a man logs and thinks about logging amid the blue Chevrolet glow of the dashboard radio and clock, enclosed and churning through the mists of Oregon. Car dealerships call this space a cabin and remark on the way that the truck can “know” when it’s flipped over in a ditch, it can call paid strangers with exact coordinates but missing the way the Skoal can huddles on the windshield and pools nearest to the thickening leaves. Sometimes, this poem brings in an animal to kill. Births it at the bottom of the second u on an canyon road’s s-curve usually a dear. Sometimes an exquisite bird meeting a bumper for only a counterpoint beat. The driver stops

which serves the narrative are quite well (parabolic as the road). Mountains turn gold in the afterwork sun––we get the approximation of three ellipses as the driver walks away that have some fleeting correspondence to the sound of trees falling fast. And still In another poem, someone is sleeping it all off. In another poem, someone is watching light rise on the walls. In another poem, someone talks about the way water sprinklers sound at night on the lawn. In another poem, someone never lights a candle as to spend it. In another poem, someone feeds Wonder Bread to geese. In another poem, someone calls their mother. In another poem, someone feigns baptism. In another poem, someone hold a lantern over the backyard lake. In another poem, pearls are turning to clay and back and pigeons beak blank scrolls around a clocktower while the moss sprouts like a junior high moustache and the wind whips something soft into strong quibbling herbs curl around a finger for light, of course all else being equal.

Joel Wood

Ambera Wellmann April, 2018 iPhone 6 image

Ambera Wellmann February, 2018 iPhone 6 image

Ambera Wellmann March, 2018 iPhone 6 image

Sterling Hedges Off, 2017 Oil and acrylic on porcelain Dimensions variable

Sterling Hedges Acedĭa (SI:PIII), 2015 Still of digital video of performance, color, sound 3:53 min. (loop)

MEDUSA’S HEAD / LUCRETIA’S HAND

Abra Cohn

Hyangsook Kwak Bomb Shelter, 2018 Stills of digital video, color, sound 2:21 min.

Ava Kling Lala, 2017 A portrait of a recent miscarriage depicted as a sterile caricature.

SUBTYPE: CHECKING

Michael Reyes

Gala Prudent from fact to rumor and rumor to fact (#2), 2017 Collage on board 4” x 6”

Gala Prudent from fact to rumor and rumor to fact (#5), 2017 Oil on paper 4” x 6”

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Gala Prudent the water is rising, 2017 Oil and acrylic on stretched paper 16” x 20”

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Neil Hancock Dilemma, 2017 Ink on paper 24” x 18”

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this darkness is so clearly bright

this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright. let me tell you a story about how i came into this world, let me tell you a story about how i feel it in my bones, let me tell you a story about how i recently crashed and how i need to constantly catch myself, comfort myself, confront myself, cuddle myself, desist myself, bear myself. let me tell you about the guilt i feel when i read this piece about my personal being and not about the state of affairs in the world or the palestinian fight or how israel is doing everything wrong or specifically how the united states of america is fucking up everything i call home. let me tell you a story about my selfish struggle that is only mine and sharing it feels like a betrayal to my practice to my purpose to the person i wished to become. let me tell you a story about my depression. how i can’t shake it off, how it lives in my back ribs expands every time i breathe in, moving through my spine like a fist, and inhabits my neck my shoulder my collarbone. let me tell you about my demons that rise every morning and tell me to stay in bed, to shower less, to not behave, how they tell me to keep my head down to cut off the wings to get buried alive to swallow the dirt and smile as i suffocate slow. let me tell you how i drown them in whiskey, even now, right now, and yesterday and tomorrow and every night. the fist moving expanding dominating controlling hurting, fisting fisting fisting fisting fisting fisting fisting fisting fisting fisting this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright. space space space give me space but i’m holding yours and i don’t have room for yours more more more more heavy on my spine and when i look up my ankles shiver under the weight of your needs, carry-

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ing this responsibility of care as if licking your wounds will eventually heal mine but all of them have melted into one giant gorge of blood and my tongue is not strong enough and my skin dried up and you made your own space and now i have to make mine and i’m tired of building sand castles for the life that got washed. and the moon still comes up every night and we all see it while recognizing the space we divide to hide, how much of me will you eat, devour possess enjoy before you cut me alive. beme beme beme beme beme beme beme beme beme beme beme beme more whiskey more whiskey more whiskey and goodbye and goodbye and goodbye. there’s no more hair to hold on my head find another way to be a person a friend an intimate partner, anxious, insecure i remember every single place we’ve been introduced and you still act like this is the first time, shame on us shame on this intoxicated way we are meant to be, community, be, worthy of lovers, be, collaborators, be, needing something, not this something but something something something something bigger brighter something that matters. money jobs inside cities that are run by capitalism and patriarchy and we want another free day to have a studio day but the pain in the spine and the millions of emails and the sheets that have period blood from last week and the need to zone out in front of a screen and the grocery shopping and the bags of baggage you’re not ready to face and the therapy session you can’t afford and the ayahuasca ceremony you stayed away from thinking you deserve more and the people you left behind and the way you used to smile and and and and and and and and how i just want to start howling right now cause the sound will make you understand something real about my insides haaaooooooooo haaaoooooo haaaoooooooooo haohaohaohaohao haoooooooooooooooo haaaooooooo haaaoooooo haaaoooooooooo haohaohaohaohaohaohaohao haoooooooooo haohaohaohaohao haoooooooooo haoooooooooooooo haohaohaohaohaohaohao haooooooooooooooooooo shshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshs hshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshs hshshshshshshshshshshshshshshshhshshshshshshshshshshsh let’s talk about how i organize reading events to be vulnerable with strangers let’s talk about how i shy away from your mirroring eyes let’s talk about how i want you to know me but also want you to recognize me as someone who tried to make a change in the world, let’s talk about how you don’t believe me, let’s talk about how this piece is failing, let’s talk about how you’re nice to me only when people you consider

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important are next to me, let’s talk about queer artists without needing a sit at the dinner table, let’s talk about the way you look away when i enter a room, your room, my room any room. let’s talk about how you don’t want to hold my naked body, let’s talk about how suicide makes sense let’s talk about how making more babies doesn’t let’s talk about the need to produce more words more art more life more life more life more, let’s talk about the need to burn it all with melting glue, let’s talk about the smell of torched flesh let’s talk about lighting matches and cutting our fingernails, let’s talk about shame. this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright let’s name the demons let’s peel the scabs of guilt let’s confront eye to eye let’s be real about the way we tremble about the way we break each other into tiny pieces let’s be honest about how we choose to stay away from conflict and how we get enraged by misunderstandings let’s reveal our most dark and fragile moments let’s embrace our failure let’s talk about how i still think about you when i masturbate let me tell you let me tell you let me tell you let me tell you let me tell let me tell you how i hate. the complexity of humanity the need to be better than we were meant to be and i still cry out for help and i still need you next to me in bed and i still want to stop judging and i still need to find a way to come up for air and i still love the way you shut the door when you say hello and i still want to capture all of this into a single word a single language a single thing removed from everything we ever made or inherited or transferred or learned or seen or felt burn burn burn burn burn burn burn burn and i am and i am and i am and i am and i am and i am and i am and just here. i’m a killer you’re a killer we are all killers oh you’ve never held a gun, smashed a head to a wall, fisted someone’s stomach to death, charged a bomb, held a throat think about our species killing each other raping each other occupying each other think about how the lion will tell the story of us to the lion cubs a species of killers killers killers killers we are all killers and i love the way you smell tonight, this unbrushed unwashed scent of a life that made it through the day, crawling sweating rehearsing arriving leaving always leaving following the leaving leaving leaving leaving. what do you do when you get hungry, tell me, what do you do when you are starving when there is no more air in your lungs when your heart drops when everything you held dear disappears

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what do you do when you’re left alone, do you think you matter, matter enough to decide who lives and who dies to decide who will survive, mutation of something that went horribly wrong you are nothing i am nothing the fact that we met means nothing nothing nothing nothing this piece means nothing me standing here means nothing but it could have meant everything we could have meant everything but we failed we failed we failed we failed we are all still here. this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright this darkness is so clearly bright i want to feed you this text with a spoon i want your drool to mash the words into a blob of ink that has no meaning aside from the fact that i fed it to you piece by piece, and you swallowed it with bitterness and disappointment and now your stomach is working extra time to digest these unwashed letters, don’t flush it out in a toilet find a tree you want to kill and shit it on the remains of your dream. This piece was performed over twenty four hours at the Los Angeles Contemporary Archive.

Meital Yaniv

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Gozie Ojini A Film by Gozie Ojini, 2018 Stills of digital video, color, sound 53 min.

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When the war got to our village it ended

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This project is a result of an ongoing exploration of self-identity in which I intend to bridge the gap between my identity as a black American and my identity as a first-generation Nigerian. This film was shot in my father’s home country of Nigeria, in Lagos, as well as in a village of potters and farmers called Imope-Ijebu. The work highlights not only the techniques and traditions surrounding pottery in this region but also the socioeconomic and ecological environment of the village.

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Julienne Fusello One City Sing, 2018 Oil on canvas 48” x 60”

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Julienne Fusello Untitled, 2018 Oil on canvas 24” x 36”

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Julienne Fusello Untitled, 2017 Oil on canvas 60” x 72”

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POEM FOR GAYS WHO HAVE FLED THE MIDWEST

Every gay in this room is complicit in the great implosion of America like a hollow blown through an Easter egg so unyolks the heartland so you homos can chase your dreams of stars and neon signs and gucci slippers because in the Midwest, sad music makes you sad & you wanted to be away from dad & to be unlonely. thats fine. The big city quaffs your horizons, makes your oceans greater than your lakes. You are now The Genghis Khan of Gays, you are going to velvet parties with foyers & dull-lit chandeliers, you are salt-lips & sweatiness & the clinking of glasses & the slurping of oysters & you are turning twenty-three & there are twenty-two other yous in tailored suits in the thickness of this New York room & you are drinking champagne & touching your thumb to your pointer finger over & over hoping no one will notice your socks don’t match, that you

have concealer on a lip zit. You schmooze & laugh like Julia Roberts standing on your own grave because you are dead now, the carcass is odorless under your loafers & you are faking it & making it & your friends back home hate it but at least now you are safe, at least now you’re not hiding from the cops in a cornfield outside a busted Indiana warehouse party completely sober with your boyfriend calling you right then to tell you how much he hates you & you say nothing & it is your birthday.

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POEM FOR YOUR GOOD YEARS

We are at this girly bar & you start slightly crying & I feel slightly bad cuz some hot jag took two of your years, good ones too. Years you coulda spent, you know, sleeping around, staying out late with your galpals, sticking your hand in someone’s pants in the back of your Uber while new Rihanna blasts on your phone, that sorta thing. Girls like us got a name for guys like this, call em Gringo Plain Bagels, coming to a gourmet ass deli & ordering a plain bagel with plain cream cheese. Men like this are a national problem, sucking our good years like a goddamn Dyson, like goddamn dementor ass motherfuckers. Men like this are a pandemic & I get it, I’ve been sick. I used to date a Seth like that. Seth was the guy who got the mild salsa at Chipotle, straightened his hair for no reason. Seth was the guy who can’t remember if you’re Mexican, Spanish, or Puerto Rican even. Spoiler! I’m all three. One time, in my couldabeen good years at a taco place in Boystown I said to Seth, You know, my mom calls the juices from ceviche Leche

de Tigre & I smile, all cute, & Seth’s all What does that mean? & I’m thinking, Tiger Milk, dummy. It’s pretty goddamn cognitive. At home Seth says he feels left out when I speak Spanish cuz he can’t speak Spanish & I say, Baby, I can’t either, remember? He shrugs, casts a white boy spell, purses his lips & acts confused & later in bed he spits on my ass without asking first, tells me I have beautiful skin. Nevermind girl, I get it. A Seth gets to forget your skin when it’s convenient. You stay with a Seth cuz he’s easy, like an egg, because sometimes you want to forget your skin too.

Fran Tirado

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Akea Brown Black Picket Fences, 2017-18 Color photograph 17” x 20”

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CON ARTISTRY

She learned English from school, not here, all the lessons start with reciting ‘hi’, ‘how are you?’, ‘I’m fine, thank you. And you?’ Ever since A was a kid, she wanted to be a con artist. Maybe she even admired some of them. The most charming kid in the block who causes the indescribable happenings among others, from the personal that translates to the universal. She likes the sound of ‘con’, it sounds like ‘cone’, similar enough to ‘clone’ to be ‘cologne’. She likes ‘artist’, it has ‘art’ in it, ‘ist’ is prescribed to seemingly interesting professions. Lots of jargon involved here. Does the jargon create the narrative or syntax? What is more important, content or subject? What is the most efficient way to narrate what she is saying? Ever since B was a kid, she wanted to be someone named Madeleine. Maybe she even admired some of them. Deceptively simple but confusing enough to the people who are new to this language to think of, one, a nice girl, and two, a dessert cake. She generally likes the sound of “baked goods,” especially the one that sounds like a girl. Girls have had privileges to confuse others, by confusing themselves, which is not anyone’s fault. Ah, the lightness of words, and the unbearable consequences. She likes the sound of ‘ma,’ and ‘del’ as in ‘dell,’ ‘ine’ as in ‘line’. “mama. dell. line”, sounds like so many different things. Ah, the infinite possibilities, within the limit. Lots of chance involved here. Does the plot create the meaning or contingency? What is the most efficient way to narrate what she is saying? Ever since C was a kid, she wanted to be three cans of empty beers to be trashed, after an event at a church. Maybe she even admired some of them. Probably the ones sitting in people’s houses witnessing toxic dynamics, until she

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learns to love the toxicity then she would not call it toxic anymore. She likes the sound of ‘beer,’ it sounds like a ‘bee’ making a hexagon and ‘err’ for someone who is involved, like, ‘participator,’ or ‘writer.’ She also likes how ‘b’ is used as an acronym for many other words. Ah, all the possibilities, within the limit. Lots of codes involved here. Does the code create sequence or motive? What is more important, intent or delivery? What is the most efficient way to narrate what she is saying? Ever since D was a kid, she wanted to be a weirdo. Maybe she even admired some of them. The ambiguous nature of meaning makes disillusion for things that cannot be described with words. No one would ever understand what it means to you. She misspelled ‘weirdo’ as ‘wierdo’ until she realized that autocorrect was fixing every single ‘wierdo’ she was typing. Is surveillance and auto correction synonymous? or at least, complementary? She likes the sound of ‘wi’ that sounds like ‘we’ and ‘wii,’ both involve more than one person in their operation. She likes how ‘errd’ sounds like a growl. Lots of murmurs involved here. What is more important, history or interpretation? What is the most efficient way to narrate what she is saying? The police were called to the site of the accident. They asked a man gushing blood, ‘how are you?’. He said ‘I’m fine, thank you. And you?’

Dajin Yoon

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Contributors

Abra Conn received her BFA in Art with a minor in Creative Writing from the California Institute of the Arts in May 2015. She will be attending the MFA Poetry program at Brown University this fall. Abra published poetry with Bluestockings Magazine in 2012 and self-published her first poetry collection, MEDUSA’S HEAD / LUCRETIA’S HAND, in 2015. She is currently working on her second collection of poetry, JOAN OF ARC’S SIGIL. Akea Brown (b. 1996, New Orleans) is a photographer currently living in Baltimore. Her work primarily explores the relationship between the historical developments of race, class, and identity. Akea’s work hovers between new media and digital photography while simultaneously exploring traditional photographic processes, primarily the cyanotype. Ambera Wellmann is a Canadian artist based in Berlin, where she works in painting, assemblage, photography, and video. Andrea Garcia Vasquez (b. 1992) received her BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City in 2014. She currently lives and works in Leipzig, Germany, where she is studying for a diploma degree in New Media at the Art Academy: Installation and Space with Professor Joachim Black. In 2017, AGV won fifth place in the student category in the Olympia International Artist Competition and had her first solo exhibition in Beirut. Since 2014, she has participated in group shows in New York City, Oakland, Leipzig, Tokyo, Soeul, and Malaga, Spain. She has an upcoming group exhibition in Leipzig and her second solo exhibition, in Berlin.

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Ava Kling is an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University in pursuit of a BFA. Her work in film and portraiture stems from her experiences of being a woman in a capitalist and industrialist society with themes of queer narcissism, girlhood, and absurdity. Dajin Yoon is an artist from South Korea. She is interested in phenomenology, narrative circularity, and multiplicity of meaning. She graduated with a BA in Art from UCLA. Gala Prudent uses art-making as a vehicle to explore present manifestations of history with the interest of prompting conversations about deeply rooted current issues. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and currently studies at Brown University and The Cooper Union School of Art. Gozie Ojini is an undergraduate junior at UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture. There is an interdisciplinary approach to his practice, which involves ceramics, sculpture, collage, and video. He plans on graduating in the spring of 2019. Hyangsook (Sookie) Kwak is a Korean-American artist born and raised in (mainly) New York City and Seoul, and is based in Seattle and Los Angeles. She is interested in making works through video, photography, sculpture, and drawing/ painting. Jake Stutz was born and raised in the South Bay of San Diego, specifically Imperial Beach and Nestor. He is currently pursuing a BA in art at UCLA and works mostly in painting and writing. Joel Wood is a writer and interdisciplinary artist from Arkansas. He lives and studies in Irvine, California. Julienne Fusello (b.1994, San Francisco) received her BA from UCLA. Julienne currently lives and works in Los Angeles. She mostly paints, but also writes a lot and dabbles in ceramics.

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Katja Farin is a Los Angeles–based artist working primarily in painting. The work deals with struggles of intimacy, gender identification, and human dystopia. Meital Yaniv (b. 1984, Tel-Aviv, Israel) is a Los Angeles–based interdisciplinary artist whose practice embodies language, performance, and video. Yaniv’s labor weaves and merges the personal and the political to find the common thread in disparate struggles, connecting ideas, bodies, and forms of resistance. Since 2015, Yaniv has been organizing intimate reading events with the aim of conceiving alternative communities where vulnerability holds us all accountable. Her book, Spectrum for an Untouchable, was published in October 2016. She has performed and exhibited at MCASD (Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego), Human Resources, LACA (Los Angeles Contemporary Archive), The Situation Room, Visitor Welcome Center, LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), PØST, Mana Contemporary, and Wendy’s Subway, among others. She has been published by Los Angeles Review of Books’ Voluble Channel, Nonsensical, Ladyscumbag, Entropy, Graphite, and notes on looking, with reviews by Huffington Post, LA Weekly, Bitch Media, KCET Artbound, and Fabrik magazine. Yaniv holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts and a BFA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design. Michael A. Reyes is a poet, memoirist, and picture book writer from Los Angeles. He has received scholarships and recognitions from VONA/Voices, The Home School, Fine Arts Work Center, City of Los Angeles Department of Transportation, UCLA Extension, and Otis College of Art and Design. Neil Hancock (b. 1997, Atlanta) is an artist living and working in Athens, Georgia. He uses abstraction as a means of generalization, reexamining and categorizing experience into painting surface and painting object. Experience becomes truth. Ambiguity is important. The code cannot be broken. Defend the castle. Samuel Karl is from Fresno and goes to school at UCLA. He wanted to be a professional soccer player up until college but was later cut from the Fresno City Men’s Team. He works primarily in painting, drawing, and photography.

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Stephen Michaels is a visual artist working primarily in sculpture, wearables, and two-dimensional media. His work is based on ideas of mythology as both metanarrative and a structure for allegorical symbolism. He is a BFA candidate at Carnegie Mellon University School of Art. Sterling Hedges was born in Pasadena and is based in Los Angeles. He graduated from the University of Arizona with a BA in Art History in 2014 and has been producing art since. Valerie Franco is a performance artist currently studying at The Cooper Union. Her work explores the body’s interdependent relationship with institutions and their apparatuses of power. She engages specifically with her own health experiences as a means to understand the process of our own subjectification/ capture as well as attempt to make an inaccessible system of data tangible.

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About Graphite

Graphite is an L.A. arts organization dedicated to producing critical and creative projects in an integrated physical and digital space. Our undertakings are a reaction to the expansion of communication infrastructures and information technologies that reconfigure the possibilities and paradigms of a traditional publication. We explore new categories and speeds of artistic production and consumption, while insisting on a tangible and material engagement with community. We were formed in 2009 and are supported by the Hammer Museum.

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Issue No. 9 © 2018, Los Angeles, California Printed by Typecraft Inc. Graphite staff would like to thank Zoe Silverman, Specialist for University Audiences at the Hammer Museum. Her devoted support and guidance have helped make this journal possible. @graphitejournal graphitejournal.com graphitejournal@gmail.com Cover image from Joel Wood. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced. Graphite Staff 2017-2018 Karen Achar Ashley Kim Elizabeth Nakamura Francesca Consagra Gabriela Fried Gwen Hollingsworth Haley Penn Kuhelika Gosh Lizzie Rutkevich Lua Kobayashi Michelle Jihyun Kim Sarah Chess Savannah Winans Miguel Guiterez Sonia Hauser

Editor-in-chief Arts Editor Arts Editor Arts Editor Arts Editor Arts Editor / Public Programs Coordinator Arts Editor / Design Manager Arts Editor Arts Editor Arts Editor / Blog Editor Arts Editor Arts Editor Arts Editor Public Programs Coordinator Arts Editor / Public Programs Coordinator