KNACK Magazine #43

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KNACK’S ULTIMATE AIM IS TO CONNECT &

3 we are dedicated to showcasing the work of new artists of all mediums and to discussing trends and ideas within art communities

KNACK’S ULTIMATE AIM IS TO CONNECT &ARTISTS INSPIRE & INSPIRE EMERGING EMERGING ARTISTS we strive to create a place for artists writers designers thinkers + innovators to collaborate and produce a unique, informative, and unprecedented web-based magazine each month

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PDF TIFF JPG

writers You may submit up to 5,000 words and as little as one.

We accept simultaneous submissions. No cover letter necessary. All submissions must be 12pt, Times New Roman, single or double-spaced with page numbers and include your name, e-mail, phone number, and genre.

KNACK seeks writing of all kinds. We will even consider recipes, reviews, and essays. We seek writers whose work has a distinct voice, is character driven, and is subversive but tasteful. all submissions

.doc .docx RTF

SUBMISSION

10-12 high resolution images of your work.

All should include pertinent caption information (name, date, medium, year).

acceptable formats

G U I D E L I N E S

photographers, graphic designers & studio artists

KNACK encourages all submitters to include a portrait, brief biography including name, age, current location, awards, contact info (no more than 200 words), as well as an artist statement, with their submission (no more than 500 words).

We believe that your perspective of your work and process is as lucrative as the work itself. This may range from your upbringing and/or education as an artist, what type of work you produce, inspirations, etc.

If there are specifications or preferences concerning the way in which your work is to be displayed please include them.

Please title files for submission with the name of the piece. This applies for both writing and visual submissions.

KNACKMAGAZINE1 @ GMAIL.COM subject: Submission Photography / Studio Art Creative Writing / Graphic Design

5 KNACK is requesting material to be

@ = at

reviewed. Reviews extend to any culture-related event that may be happening in the community in which you live.

Do you know of an exciting show or exhibition opening? Is there an art collective in your city that deserves some press? Are you a musician, have a band, or are a filmmaker? Send us your CD, movie, or titles of upcoming releases which you’d like to see reviewed in KNACK. We believe that reviews are essential to creating a dialogue about the arts. If something thrills you, we want to know about it and share it with the KNACK community—no matter if you live in the New York or Los Angeles, Montreal or Mexico.

All review material can be sent to knackmagazine1@ gmail.com. Please send a copy of CDs and films to 4319 North Greenview Ave, Chicago, IL 60613. If you would like review material returned to you include return postage and packaging. Entries should contain pertinent details such as name, year, release date, websites and links (if applicable). For community events we ask that information be sent up to two months in advance to allow proper time for assignment and review.

We look forward to seeing and hearing your work.

6 andrea catalina vaca co-founder, director, photo editor, marketing, digital operations jonathon duarte co-founder, design director ariana lombardi co-founder, executive editor, writer fernando gaverd designer, digital operations, marketing chelsey alden editor, writer jake goodman designer bFrank designer juraj gagne proofreader subscribe theknackmagazine.com

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submission guidelines

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ta l e n t anthony amato

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greta berlin

zienna stewart

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women of the world

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knack salon

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cover jonathon duarte

f e at u r e s

qu ick l o ok 62

rufino medrano

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spreads a.c. vaca | j. duarte

w. jack savage

8 anthony amato Anthony N. Amato divides his time between running his bar on the Southwestern coast of Michigan and skiing the Sangre de Cristo mountains of Northern New Mexico. He also writes poetry.

KNACK FORTY THREE

9 greta berlin Greta Berlin is a 28-year-old interior and graphic designer, artist and art director currently living in Moscow. greta1613@gmail.com gretaberlin.design instagram.com/gretaberlin1613 behance.net/Greta_Berlin

zienna stewart Zienna Brunsted Stewart is a 21-year-old Danish-American painter living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Zienna began painting in 2011 with the guidance of her mentor, Marika Popovits, and graduated from Idyllwild Arts Academy in 2013. Zienna also studied at the Ryder School and with Odd Nerdrum in Norway. ziennastewart@gmail.com cargocollective.com/ziennabstewart theartistandthemodel.wordpress.com

OF

DRAFT

WA R

DEATH

OF

COLLEGE

AND

F A M I LY

OF

FRIENDS

OF

GETTING

LAID

NOW

W H A T I S H E R N A M E A N Y WAY

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KNACK an acquired or natural skill at performing a task an adroit way of doing something a clever trick or stratagem

12 ANTHONY A M AT O _

I am drawn to the cyclical nature of life.

The cycle as a journey, birth-growth-declinedeath, is vegetative in design, always rewarding with rebirth. My poems explore this cycle as a journey that offers a window into the process of self-realization associated with matriculating through life’s cycle as a journey. I strive to evoke an emotional response from the reader.

T H E B E AC H A N D N I N E T E E N S E V E N T Y O N E

13 vietnams napalm fumes are wafting through the nations t v sets in time for meatloaf mashed potatoes the new culture of free spirits claim love is the answer wave signs give peace a chance shout hell no we wont go a decade commits to change i am in the crosshairs of uncle sams patriotic hunting party i am eighteen and lifeguarding sam leone beaches of chicago dreaded decisions i chose college over military soon life will change i settle into hot sand a humid july day keep watch over the lake a rogue wave tosses a hobie sixteen catamaran i swim two hundred yards right the boat secure the sailor a bronze bikini beauty she invites me for a bite to eat a thank you for my act of goodwill she leads me to her apartment building neatly hidden at the street end i follow her up the back stairs feel my face redden with salacious expectations glad she is ahead of me entering the space it pops with tapestries beads baubles buddha beatles an oasis from the city sizzle and cement we sit on grand pillows beside the coveted lakefront view her sun drenched body ripe with the smell of coppertone and sweet sweat a welcome distraction to settle my whirling thoughts of draft war death of college and family of friends of getting laid now what is her name anyway we share a joint and quart of beer comfortable enough for details high schools siblings parents jobs neighborhoods growing up the idea of an afternoon of carnal pleasure fades like the aspect of sun a brilliant sliver passing beneath the picture window she offers her name and a tuna on rye we lament the carnage overseas a war we agree makes no sense a horror for both sides we pledge to be steadfast in protest against these futile destructions of lives and lands i return to the beach and its azure offer a short prayer of thanks that in september i will be among books not bombs unless the selective service lottery makes me a winner

NEW TIRES ROAD TRIP

time stoned and compromised in a haze smoke lingers in my head the car along the central time zone switch to autopilot iced mocha coffee hurls me through indiana interstate 94 threading the needle through the skyways girders chicago shapes dominate the horizon a balance evoked i want to cry i almost cry i didnt cry thoughts caterwaul out the sunroof my past a silent movie

EAST

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east through cleveland a biblical downpour mixes city grime and rain blurred tail lights a cairn marking an escape from this urban clusterfuck segue into rural lake erie clearing skies that expose its grapevines past harvest in red yellow gold orange stripped of its concords destined for welches jelly and jam east continues through the seneca nation a sovereign state strong along the banks of the alleghany river settled in the forest defiant to all that challenge their ways east ends on a cold and gray autumn day pushing summer from memory the primary color a jackson pollock splatter drip blood red stretch of asphalt the supine deer a sacrifice to appease nature before first snow

T O O C L O S E F O R C O M F O R T; A S M O O T H E S C A P E F R O M H A L S T E D S T R E E T

15 On Halsted Street I solicit an old friend to comfort my lonliness, vodka to compensate for her deficiencies. I was high, the sort based in fear, like I would never be whole again. Stillness, we both retreat to limbo.

My friend, I tried to give her away. She didn’t leave, that didn’t matter, I still drove north alone. It is late in the night, probably early morn. The road is a captive audience, bumps and curves listen, hills and dark intensify.

My mind focuses; Hidden fears, statements of truth and secret obsessions are discussed at 65 mph. Marijuana adds confidence, mouth doesn’t move, mind races, the road understands and sometimes responds: cogito.

the r oad

understands

and sometimes

responds

BIRCHBROOK, VERMONT

16 I remember gazing at Orion, deep among the birch trees, the clear winter sky, uses the moon as a spotlight.

Ian the dog follows the maze of familiar scents, to his favorite destination: the beaver ponds, littered with the flotsam of fallen branches and gnawed tree trunks.

Oblivious to Orion’s bright stars, Ian works his way close to the hidden stashes of ginseng, sought every fall for cash money.

I am intimate with nature. Washed by its rain. Scolded by its wind. Warmed by its sun.

Settled by its seasons. I imagine ancient footsteps, also intimate with nature, under the same winter sky and moon, calling Orion something different in a language rich with hand movements. How did they give credence to their existence? An embrace?

A word? A look? A cry? All under the auspice of Orion’s bright stars.

RECONSIDER: HALSTED STREET

Here in the forest, Orion’s Betelgeuse and Rigel above, my thoughts of “self ” remain as clear as the winter sky. I think about the city, although it is unfair to blame it.

On Halsted Street, I wish I didn’t try to give my old friend away.

Years tempered that high night, wrought up with fear.

Libido opportunely surfaces, dormant feelings awaken like the cicada, that kiss interrupted my breathing, my soul gently reveals a smile not to forget it, ever.

I F U M B L E A N E M B R AC E W I T H A N O L D F R I E N D

17 He is painted into a wheelchair.

His eyes, transparent with hope and fear hold me to his center.

His voice gulps words like cold beer, finds a breath to tell me “It’s O.K., my dreams make me smile”.

A life time stamped, with Lou Gehrig’s body make every moment now.

He mentions a dream about long ago, holding his love with arms so strong and legs that dance a jig.

He is eager for sunset, the repose of sleep to begin and dreams run free.

my dreams

make me

smile

18 G R E TA BERLIN _

I think that creating works using collage techniques comes from the innate need that artists have to transform the world around them.

At the same time, this is the age of fast consumer goods and closets full of things not used. I started making my works with old magazines. I wanted to create something new. There is a series of works, The Color of Cities, which shows the dynamic and eternal movement of colors in big cities and in nature. I used this as inspiration. There were no details cut for a specific purpose. I just laid out what I cut in a correct way. Everything made was from magazines, catalogs and stuff my friends provided. In this way, it was our tiny contribution to the universal waste, recycling and saving of the Earth’s resources. This series is to be continued. Collage principles are working well in my sketchbooks too. I like mixing traditional watercolor, pencils, ink and markers with pieces of paper. As I often make portraits, this technique is perfect to show their unique, inspiring style.

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norwegian boy | pemcil, paper | 2015

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bill kaulitz of tokio hotel | collage, mixed media | 2016

the nuclear exlposion of dreams | digital collage | 2016

iris apfel | collage, mixed media | 2016

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color of moscow | collage | 100 x 100 cm | 2013

moscow day | collage | 75 x 75 cm | 2012

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23 church of the savior on spilled blood in st. petersburg | collage | 80 x 120 cm | 2016

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disturbia | digital illustration | 2016

25 aurora | digital collage, mixed media | 2016

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moscow night | collage | 75 x 55 cm | 2012

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white birds | collage, mixed media | 100 x 50 cm | 2014

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awards The Government of Moscow Award The Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation Award The Moscow Union of Artists Award People’s Choice Award, ART-PERESTROIKA project The Kazimir Malevich Award Short listed, (Top 30 of 300) Alter Ego ArtBattle (Berlin, Germany) Long listed, Cover design for MARK MAGAZINE №50 (Amsterdam, the Netherlands) Finalist, VII All-Russian Design Competition, Culture and the City (Sochi, Russia) 3rd place, Best Urban Environment Design, International Competition of Architecture and Design, «RODCHENKO» Finalist, Let’s Save, a contest and exhibition devoted to Victory Day in World War II Grand Prix and 1st Place, 90 Years of Electrification, poster competition for the anniversary of the GOELRO plan

phases | collage | 2012

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30 ZIENNA STEWART _

Naturalism and history have always been very important to me in painting. However beautiful and serene it may be, the classical realist portrait has been done so many times that it can seem monotonous. I’d like to update the historical painting in minute ways: in color, in composition, and in application of brushstrokes. These scenes are not quite surreal, but they are not realist either. I’d like the viewer to find a story in these not-quite-right images.

To me, painting is a mediation. Each painting is planned very little, to leave room for spontaneity.

KEY

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12:00 A CUP OF TEA 9:00 A FORAGE

32 7:00 A DAY IN THE LIFE 3:00 A GOOD BOOK 5:00 ANASTASIA

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34 6:00 MY FAVORITE TREE 3:00 SELF PORTRAIT FOR NERDRUM 4:00 SUNIA READING

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WOMEN OF THE WORLD TRAVEL SERIES

featuring ARIANA LOMBARDI maps by JA K E GOODMAN

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Moving across borders and lands is akin to being catapulted. You prep and you pack.

You purge and you plan and when you are ready for take-off, you nestle yourself into that little cradle. All that tension has built itself up. You sit still. You breathe.

You wait, and you brace. Then just like that - flight. You land. Where do you find yourself?

This world is wild and mighty, and for those brave souls who chose to pack a bag, sling it on their back and explore it alone—now that takes ferocity of heart.

One must trust themselves. One must listen to that chord playing, reverberating within. To do it alone, on your own, to dance with it, to create newness and art as a result of it - this is one of life’s treasures.

Traveling is the physical manifestation of self-exploration, and self-transcendence.

It takes courage.

Here at knack , we wanted to know how travel has invited and ignited the creation of art for a handful of female artists. This series aims to highlight the experiences, thoughts, recollections of such women.

— PLACE BECOMES PLACE WHEN WE ENDOW IT WITH EMOTION —

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hat is aloneness? This is the question which, at the root of it all, pushed me to be in the world, to travel and live on my own. I am an identical twin and have always had a blinding awareness of “us-ness�. As a writer, I use language to define my experience of the world, of myself and the people I encounter. But, without a companion and with the barrage of new and foreign sensory input, I found it difficult to allocate language. I was deaf and dumb to the language of singularity. These big, and at times, self-transcendent moments I was experiencing happened in the silence of my own company. I had to learn how to best translate this language of my heart. I had to learn and become familiar with the language of my soul, that expression of self.

I had tied aloneness to loneliness. But, I came to understand that these two words are not mutual exclusive. I craved validation for the metamorphosis which my travels catalyzed. I wanted someone to bear witness to the person I was becoming, the ways in which my personality and body had changed, the woman I had become. Humans crave validation, and validation does not come easy, especially when a person is on their own in the world in such a big way. I began to see that loneliness was an illusion, a misconception of what love is. Life had became my companion, and so, I understood that I could never be alone.

These passages are movements which tell the story of my journey, process and growth into the woman I have become.

39 S E D A N / / TA O S , N M I am sitting in the passenger seat of my car. It is parked. This is a no-wheel drive vehicle, and the Taos valley is quaking in the space where my ribs meet. Freedom squats on gray-black asphalt at my feet. He peers at me through his own concern. I’ve been crying for days, but these tears are something different. This is sorrow. Does he hear it? What is this?

There is no ventilation. My tears are sticky-hot. I breathe mucus.

The desert air shucks my throat. I am un-beautiful. I hide my face behind my shaking hand. I hollow out my belly, crawl quickly down and take a seat in its bellowing blackness. I curl my hips toward my heart. The clay dirt and sand and river water and sex from the weekend camping trip wash away. I want to hold onto it.

I fear tomorrow.

My crying convulses against the still, grass-fed air, and I become aware of the people moving on the sidewalk five or six feet to my left. I don’t care about those people who are not me. I am a bird on steroids. I want to fly away, but the weight of my wings is too much. My Love holds the tips of my fingers, as if in prayer, and looks at me with wide eyes. His eyes exist in kindness. His brow parts. It pushes everything down to my belly. I have gotten used to how this tastes. I heave and hiccup the tail end.

What can I do, Ar? What can I do for you? he says.

Take the crying away, my love. Take me away from this feeling.

Take it and make it yours.

40 V O L K S WA G E N J E T TA / / P I S M O B E A C H , C A I cry as I never have before—on the street in Portland, Oregon, on the street in San Francisco, on the stairway of a six-story walk up in Chinatown, in dorm rooms of hostels painted with the shadows of sleeping bodies. I cry as I never have on a white bed in a room made of wood that is perfumed with ocean, surf and sand. I cry as I never have across from Freedom’s arms. He will not hold me. Everything is ablaze.

I cry as I never have, rib cage shuttering like broken bones, my breath like bats flying toward the light, into night. I cry for myself, for the injury forming around this moment. This impact, its punctuation. I let go of feigning control. I let it all go. The furniture in the room of my soul is being rearranged. I stumble through its darkness.

This taking apart of people and breaking them into pieces of each other—what is this? I am angry because I still want to be held. I am sad because I want to be held, not to be shucked from arms. I want to give alms to the compassion which I know this break is creating, for that future point in time when this moment will have some quality of nostalgia. I know clock hands will continue to revolve. I cry as I never have before. The pain rushes in.

I am coming out from the cave. It is taking flight within me. The end is the beginning. The beginning is the end.

41 BUS // SAN FRANCISCO, CA You and I are both alone on this very crowded bus. You have bags at your feet. I have a bag on my back. I am carrying a notebook, some Hemingway, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and stale, empty feelings. I forget the last time I took off this bag. I am 25 years old and my shoulders curl forward like an arthritic’s. You are sat in calm contentment, chin in your hand, lucid sunlight painting shadows on your face. The driver pulls the gear stick down. The bus hiccups. Everyone jolts forward and backward from the hip like static electricity or jellyfish, horizontally propelling and rappelling. No matter how much this ride shakes me, I can’t seem to drop this feeling, this clinging. It is a two-year-old heartbreak in residence in a heart that is still in a body that is in love with the man who broke it. I don’t want to let him go.

This city is so magnificent and magnanimous that it seems unreal to me – as if when we reach the crest of this hill that is California Street, I will see its descent and the lights, camera and crew will become apparent. I will understand that all of this has been an act. This is what I want – to pick up where he and I had left off. The neon-tube marquees, hand-painted signs, cyclists, pedestrians and Victorians on the other side of the window stretch and smear into colors and colors. I cling impishly to the hanging support straps which are too low for someone my height to find their footing. I am a monstrosity. I tower.

I can pump my music louder, I can walk every hill in this city, throw myself into the frigid Pacific, but nothing seems to ease my discomfort, this inside-break. This is something I’ve never felt. It’s as if my blood froze and my internal body temperature dropped and every single ounce of me is shattering like icicles in the thaw of new spring. We continue steadily upward. But, here on this bus as I watch you, I hear something shifting other than the gears. The orchestra that is orchestrating this life of mine is about to change keys. I hear consonance approaching like the hills. Change. The vibration is picking up. It’s beginning to ooze out of every value and key, every pore of me. Some of me is staccato, some legato. Maybe I will break again.

The bus lurches. Up and up. The gray and bald scalps, the folded foreheads, bob. I look to the floor—all heels dug into rubber, knees bent. Bracing. The bus kicks and jerks. It growls. It’s teetering on the edge and finally up becomes down. All the momentum picking up. I feel it in me. I close my eyes and I dig my heels into the still bus floor. I have wings. I am piloting this vehicle. I see the conductor’s wand in my hand. This is my movement. This body is my instrument. This magnificence is me.

These people are feeling something too. Aren’t they? Are you?

How did you arrive here, on this bus, with heavy-lidded eyes, placid?

42 A I R P L A N E / / S A N TA C R U Z , C A There is a petite man strapped to my back. This man’s eyes thrilled me when we shook hands. He is quiet, and even though we are strangers I know he is listening. I know he is considering my life. I am sitting on his groin. His feet are underneath my calves, splayed in opposite directions. I am considering my feet, how high they are from the ground and what good feet do so high up in the air. The man and I are an odd pair, and I am thinking of what small talk I can make to ease the jitters. But, the higher I go, the more I understand that a certain discomfort has been with me all along. I keep. I posses. What serves. I am calm, though, and wondering where my nerves are. The plane is not moving as quickly as it seems it should, as one would think. On the other side of the glass there is sky and sky and farther out the deep, deep Pacific—a ballistic, caustic blue. We are just about to reach 15,000 feet. He pulls tighter the straps on my shoulders.

He lifts a camera in front of my face. “How you feeling, Ariana?”

“Good. I feel good.”

43 “Let’s get a thumbs up!” He brings his other arm around from his side, fist bumps mine to his with his thumb sticking up. “After you kick your feet out, I’ll push. You let go. Once we roll out, just let go and enjoy. Keep your head up. Show me the banana.” I relax my neck, drop my head back, onto his shoulder. I tell my vertebrae to go sleep too. “Good,” he says before I really finish becoming the banana. “Just like that, be the banana and look up.”

Freedom and his guy are up. The tin door slides open and the atmosphere enters. It is loud and fast. It whips Freedom’s hair like eggs being scrambled. It dances. He and his guy edge themselves to the frame. Free’s legs are out of the plane. His guy scoots forward, forward. Freedom will turn and look to me. He does not.

He lets go, arms crossed over his chest. His head is outside of the plane. He is falling backward. He is not attached to me. He is gone.

I am alone with the petite man strapped to my back, and for the first time today it dawns on me that skydiving means, falling to Earth after jumping out of an airplane. I don’t want to fall. The man on my back moves us to the frame. I marvel at his strength.

My limbs are elastic. The atmosphere pushes my temple. It is a metallic cold cacophony in my ear. It whirls. I tell myself not to look down. I don’t look down. I look at my feet and they are outside of the airplane. The man tells me to move forward, the sky is all around me, and I tell my vertebrae to go to sleep, and I look down, and we are falling. The world becomes green/blue/ green/blue.

Gravity is an acceleration, not a force. It is drawing death with my ears. It is painting waves in my skin. We continue downward.

It will rip me open, won’t it? Please say, no. The only way out is down. We accelerate, the small spec of flesh and bones that we are. I am small. The planet enlarges below me. I pick my head up and the atmosphere knocks it down. I pick up my heart. The sky is still all around me. A leap of faith. I’ve thought out this experience of suspension, my ears drew it on the inside of my brain.

Embrace acceleration, Ariana. Gravity is unmovable. I am grace like this wind, this choir of cold air. I am but a human, and I know the man strapped to my back plans to have lunch in the next hour.

I am the banana. The atmosphere kisses the waves it is drawing in my skin. The only way out is down, and so I lift my arms; I bend my knees; I remind my vertebrae to go to sleep. I fall. We continue down. The man on my back hits my shoulder. He hands me the cord. I pull. We rocket upward. The world reframes itself.

44 FEET // GUANGZHOU, CHINA I awake and flip the sweat-sodden pillow that is pretzel-twisted under my head. I grasp the empty space next to me for a body that will never be in this bed. Is it myself for which I reach? I remind myself that I am on the other side of the world. I am alone.

Nothing familiar is next to me. I came here to become familiar with this feeling. I catch my breath. I am safe. Settle. Breathe. I close my eyes and drift into wakeful viridescent-yellow streaked sleep. I can feel every molecule become heavy. Sink down. Don’t allow too much awareness of skin. Fall. Sleep.

I awake. It is 5:30am. I open the shades to let the light in. There is hardly any light. Gray sun drapes the street some 20 floors below. The haze that is not fog. Smog. I fall back into bed. I let the dream I was having consume me. I can still taste it on the back of my tongue. Again the viridescent streaks stream overhead. I fall into sleep and try to keep hold of that dream. The sleep is too deep, the atmosphere is too clouded. My brain has not registered the 12,800 miles traveled. My body is not acclimated. I have not arrived. The empty space next to me. The empty space inside of me. I am alone. I remind myself: You came here to become familiar with this feeling. Catch your breath. You are safe. Settle.

Breathe.

Wake up to beep, beep, street noise – cars and tires stretching over asphalt. I am alarmed. Remember you are safe. Catch your breath. I open the window and feel the sting of smog percolate and stick to the top of my throat. I close the window. I get back into bed. I remember that I came here for a reason. It’s time to get to work. I roll onto my back and lift my arms above my head. I make angel wings. I repeat this for two minutes. I remember that I am safe in this body.

I repeat these these like a mantra. They pull me from the sheets.

You chose. You, in your power. You, falling in love with yourself.

You, unwilling to look back. You, yes. You. Set it on fire.

Observe Patience. Observe Grace.

45 This is the beginning of the day. Press start. Wind up. Find music.

Drown the silence of aloneness. Turn up the volume. I dance naked in the mirror until I can’t anymore. I watch myself while I dance. I imagine that I wrote these songs about the love affair I am having with myself.

I repeat this ad nauseam for months until I forget the person I was those first nights, sweating panic and time into the pretzel-twisted pillow, until I understand the length, width, breadth, depth that is 12,800 miles, until I catch and swallow every minute of the 14 hours I lost, until me myself and I become we, until the cacophony of me, myself and I orchestrates itself into electric blue and ivory revelry, until I can recognize the way time passes, how these hours feel. Me, alone on the shore of the past washing into the present into the future, into time lost and time gained and time to come, until I don’t remember why I was ever afraid of myself or of being alone, until I can’t remember an alternative to being alone, until I stop grasping for what was and see only what is, until I don’t check the time because the gap between where I was and where I am is a figment of my imagination because the world outside of me is not my world – it is everyone else’s, until I put the crown of my kingdom on my head and proclaim my the ruler of this land, this body, this cacophony, until I am not afraid to look in the mirror at my body, alone in a room, naked, until I begin to see the beauty of aloneness, the volume in the silence of solitude getting louder than the traffic of the world passing some 20 floors below.

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Ariana Lombardi is the Executive Editor of KNACK Magazine.

She is from Nutley, New Jersey, and began traveling in 2010.

She has spent considerable time in San Francisco, Istanbul, Europe, and at the end of 2015, she moved to Guangzhou, China. While living in China she traveled to Taiwan, Malaysia, and several Chinese provinces.

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SALON

a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host held to amuse one another, refine the taste and increase the knowledge of the participants through conversation

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KNACK Magazine hosted a salon on February 4, at Iconik Coffee Roasters Coffeeshop in Santa Fe, NM. The community was invited to share their stories or poems, or share written works that inspired them. Portraits of those in attendance were taken. The works shared dealt with themes of death, the fixed and fleeting nature of perception and the necessity of language. As the readers performed, there was an overall sense of nostalgia and therein, the vibration of a changing world, the pulling apart of old to new. Attendees were also asked to make suggestions for the world and deposit these suggestions anonymously into a suggestion box. These considerations were provided for them: consider yourself consider the world consider want and need make a suggestion.

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world suggestions TA K E A N A P SHHHHHHHH! N O M O R E Z O O S. BA N S OC IA L M E D I A G O OU T A N D WATC H BE N IC E TO YO U R S E L F MOR E B IR DWATC H ING G E T YOU R G R OOVE O N.. .

SHIF T YOU R P E R S P E C TIVE EAT S PAG HE T T I E V E R Y DAY DON U T S ! E V E R Y. DAM N. DAY. SM IL E . HA P P IN E S S IS INF INITE ( DO N ’ T ) C O N S ID E R YO UR O P TIO NS C A L L TO T H E VE N USIANS F O R HE L P. . .

G E T OVE R OU R S E LVE S, IND IVID UAL LY SEE YO U R S E L F WIT HIN THE P E O P L E AR O UND YO U BA S K E T S OF PA P E R C R ANE S O N E VE R Y D O O R STE P PU P P IE S, A N D K IT TE NS TO O, BUT M O STLY P UP P IES PE OP L E S HO U L D TAL K HAL F AS M UC H AS THE Y D O NOW W E N E E D TO B E M O R E O KAY W ITH THINGS NOT MA KI NG SENSE BE C O N S C IOU S, E NGAGE D, AND LOVING! TO YO U RSELF A ND OT H ERS F LOW PA S T T HE WAVE S, E VE N IF THE Y AR E C R ASHI NG TOWA RD U S. A FT ER A LL , WE WI LL DA NCE I N T H E RET REATING T ID E

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por traits J. D UA R T E

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Fly Fishing To Imagine Being Heard

QUICK

W. J A C K

LOOK

SAVAGE

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Let’s Go Home When There Are No Clear Choices

RUFINO MEDRANO

UP

SIDE

THIS

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