KNACK Magazine #56

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Editors & Staff Andrea Catalina Vaca

Co-Founder, Publisher, Director, Photo Editor, Subscriptions, Artist Coordinator, Marketing, Advertising, Digital Operations

Jonathon Duarte

Co-Founder, Creative Director

Ariana Lombardi

Co-Founder, Executive Editor, Writer, Artist Coordinator

Jake Goodman Design Director

Fernando Gaverd

Designer, Digital Operations

Chelsey Alden Editor, Writer

BFrank

Designer

Juraj Gagne Proofreader

Rufino Medrano Design Intern

KNACK Magazine is dedicated to showcasing the work of artists of all mediums, and to discuss trends and ideas of art communities.

KNACK Magazine’s ultimate aim is to connect and inspire emerging artists, working artists, and establishes artists. We strive to create a place for artists, writers, designers, thinkers, and innovators to collaborate and produce a unique, informative, and unprecedented web-based art magazine each month.

Sleep Sparrow Cover Artwork

Andrea Catalina Vaca Spread Photography

Jake Goodman

Cover, Spread, and Magazine Design

Submission Guidelines

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Photographers, Graphic Designers & Studio Artists 10–12 high resolution images of your work. All should include pertinent caption information (name, date, medium, year).

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 12-pt 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

KNACK encourages all submitters to include a portrait, a brief biography, which can include; your name, age, current location, awards, contact information, etc. (no more than 250 words). And an artist statement (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.

Formats Images

pdf, tiff, or jpeg

Written Works

doc, docx, or rtf

Knack Needs Your Help!

Email

knackmagazine1@gmail.com

Subject

Submission [Photography, Studio Art, Creative Writing, Graphic Design]

KNACK Magazine is requesting material to be reviewed. Reviews extend to any culture related event that may be happening in your community. 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 Magazine. 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 Magazine 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 N. 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.

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Contents

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Anthony N. Amato

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Franz

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Serra Naiman

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Rey Carlos Rosales

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Luis Sahagun

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Featured Artists

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.

Franz is 24 years old and grew up in Caloocan, Philippines. He has a Bachelor’s in English from the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Manila. Currently, he is one of the resident critics of Wordsmith Sanctuary and Poetry Enthusiasts’ Guild, a small but growing non-profit Facebook page that helps young writers in the Philippines. Some of his written works have been featured by Anxious Poets Society and Wildsound Festival Review. e: janfranzmacaso2@gmail.com & janfranzm2@gmail.com i: @janfranzm

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Serra Naiman is a 28-year-old writer and performer from San Francisco, currently living in Chicago. She has written multiple one act plays, short films, and short stories. Lately, she has been focusing on sketch comedy and music.

Featured Artists Rey Carlos Rosales is an amateur street photographer and freelance writer currently residing in the province of Cebu in the Philippines.

Rosales got into street photography in 2018, after his girlfriend let him borrow a Nikon D3100 DSLR she had not used for a long time. In this case, romantic love gave his life a little bit more fun and joy. i: @reycarlosrosales_

Luis Sahagun is an artist that creates paintings and sculptures using building materials as an homage to his working class roots. Sahagun earned a BFA from Southern Illinois University in 2006 and an MFA in painting from Northern Illinois University in 2015. He has participated in multiple solo, juried, invitational, and national exhibits in the US and Mexico. In addition to being featured in New American Paintings (Issue #111), Luis' work has also been showcased at the International Exposition of Contemporary and Modern Art (EXPO) Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art (Roswell, NM), the Chicago Cultural Center, and the National Museum of Mexican Art (Chicago, IL). He is currently a teaching artist for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smart Museum of Art, and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago.

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Anthony N. Amato

The cycle of life (birth-growth-decline-death) is a journey. It is vegetative in design and always rewarding with rebirth. My life has transitioned from a city lifestyle to a rural environment and back again, and again. My poems explore this cycle and embody the sensibilities that nurture both states of being.

56 hey brother can you loan me a dime or at least spare a square front door of the library sunday late to open the homeless materialize file in like ants to sugar battered faces creased by all this sunshine fresh wounds slow healing hands dirty scavenging the streets potluck remind them of last night in the arroyo the whiskey and vodka earned on the corner scribbled sos for money or compassion wood crates coveted for nights warmth the last bit of weed dolled out to a select few an angry voice violent fists blackout i am one of them accepted by the nod as i navigate the arroyo with my dog my persona a safety net for both of us i feel the heft of the knife in my pocket do i really look like them with my 1970 viet vet beard and hair confused glance at my reflection i am not in need of a bathroom a warm place to recharge water to brush my teeth a dollar for a cup of coffee empathy or sympathy really do i look like them

i just want a book words so i can escape to the comfort of first light edging the horizon near the cemetery morning refreshing nights aspirations the dog working hard to organize catalogue the smells and sights leading while i absentmindedly follow

where do all the urban nomads disappear vampires of sorts in reverse lapping up the high desert sunshine retreating into the recesses of the arroyo as nightfall erases the aspect of the sun random evidence of their worth neatly sprawled within the arroyos culverts direct my concentration away from the dog tight on their wanting domain spent syringes dog shit greasy food wrappers flotsam and jetsam of life on the edge their faces portray the downtrodden happiness surfaces beneath this mask maybe i got it all wrong a bad judgment call projecting my middle class values again hey i really think they are happy yeah man because they are free comfortable following their own voices choices partisan to the core with their cairns that lead to mundane articles that translate into treasures for the wanderer without an address this free state of existence differs from most not hinged on the constitution's bill of rights nor the performance of the dow jones or an accredited degree from lower middle even higher education more like neal cassidy

sunrise on the arroyo always amazes me warmed by the emerging sun gives the pause that organizes the day but why this angry man bellows dark words the angst of the homeless drifter finally at the end of his patience for life

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Anthony N. Amato

cash only i count 20.00 bills in the morning run my black lab in the old growth forest i count 50.00 bills in the morning swim in the little hidden lake i count 10.00 bills in the morning watch the seagulls on the dock teach their children well i count 5.00 bills in the morning sit on the dock and wonder i count 100.00 bills in the morning run in the glacier formed dunes i count 1.00 bills in the morning watch the deer nod approval occasionally i come across a 2.00 bill in the pile

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southern tier the october deer still a presence like a mile marker on the road eyes blood red disbelief a dank chill shivers steady drizzle annoys at times almost a snowflake hampers the color tour the comfortable revisited past all towns are ghost towns at best small towns left to splinter and flake forgotten by great grandchildren opens neon glow notes the towns worth no work praying for work locals line the counters stools coffee puddles in saucers as they rubberneck the doors ancient groans quiet passing judgement

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Anthony N. Amato

listening to 1966 bob dylan probably trying too hard to be cool man rearranged my dna in santa fe noodling around the plaza under the radar man hope the homeless are preoccupied and do not see me this way they may be taken aghast by the smile on my face and the coins jingling in my loose pants pockets i drink the sunshine in one gulp sometimes other times i take it in a few gulps to get it all down without a random sun ray dribbling down my chin man the morenos stack the corner follow me with their eyes all blancos look the same this fact they all agree upon but they tell me i’m different by the way my body moves among the heat vapors of the sun

man

i come down from the mountains in time most days man bidding the ravens to heed my absence until i return with new books from the library to quiet the chatter of their caw caw caw and lull them to dreams with stories of suspense

it can get weird up here in the mountains after the intense so blue sky so blue the big bright yellow sun goes down the sky cannot be contained in starry night glow it is infinite in its expanse like no end in sight man

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Franz

Having an innate shyness from people, I find that most of what I write is opposite of what I am feeling at the moment, and I hope that a reader can uncover some truth in what I write. The thoughts lingering in my mind during the quiet times I spend with myself is what sparks my interest in writing. From here grew the happiness I find in exploring and experimenting with structure and language in poetry.

The poetry that I am sharing here features deeply personal poems. Some of them may be an exaggeration or distortion of the truth, some are based on experiences shared by my friends. I hope that, in a way, it represents a Filipino poet sharing what surrounds him with you. It’s up to you on how you’ll view it.

56 2032: a bedtime story butterflies, spiders, dragonflies, grass that extends from here to there, rice farms that dance as the jeeps pass in fairview, gathering the bunch that is smoke, fumes— fumigates the rain clouds of happiness & entertainment; the sea bed, blackened slime of shit, stained (glass) as the barrier reef, building up the foundations of malls & towers of commerce that terraformed earth, where the amihan bird’s carcass will be eaten, drifted ashore & sea; the fine bosom of what once was makiling, now but a conserved pile of chemoed, deforested hilltops our binoculars will miss.

the day bathala eats the sansinukob as man forgets his place; as protector, never the invader.

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Franz

morning routine: a still life stand, stand, stand; yet, lie down, weightless by the nines, discovering my procession; the wake, the funeral of youthful leaves: burnt—ashen as energy.

listen, listen & hear it by giving into the afternoon sun, it discovers the pyre of warm water for coffee, to disintegrate its molecules soon.

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where, marches the bed sores this early morning, i tighten my esophageal sphincter, hoping the heartburn that settles in my gut dissipates as the sun rises & the cost of turning on the right side of the bed will not reflect me, curling to opportunities that i continuously close in the red of my mind, its purple snot conquers my abilities of feeling & thinking what experiences are wasted on the ink of the printed paper that i will soon pass. if the chances offered are minimal cost of job turned to vapor i hope to deaden the pain of my waking.

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Franz

the big break the brain is a monarch seeking steam, from weed—diluting pupils. the body its timber fallen from grace; not of addiction, but of constant panic

awaiting, what

awaits irrationally, by the train station. my brown skin patches, the loss over obsessive misunderstandings of what i am & the trend is to be. i seek muted colors of marble to be a sculpture in front of a widened bathroom mirror & its trail, the smoke & the wandering eyes, question standards of myself/what i see to be (not be).

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56 burnt out stars aren’t light years away the hum of erasure sustain the wrinkles on my face, strong candidate for indignation where breaks, the river in the fault lines of my brow

big dipper, n. also known as the plough, large asterism consisted of 7 bright stars of Ursa Major— constellation. stuck in the distance of light years, where the gibbous gravity is neither friend nor enemy—my god, for these revolutions of my eyeballs of fire, that ferry wanderers of mo(u)rning.

it is to you, like i, this face that is a mirror of the world, its faded scars, & longing calloused finger tips from the suckling of the marrow, due to therapy, are just pencil marks, easy to erase by the wig, by the scalp, by the garments.

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Franz

graduation day this inauguration of my abdomen, monthly cycles that encompass the sun, my gut, the child—home, in it, floating tumors reside to eat me, teething; over the cavity of its lips, wishing the dry excretions of infected ammonia stay there. to be cured by medicines. the sink, with blackened strips of my head; remind me of sanity, of courage, never gone by. i close my eyes for the suckled prayers i hadn’t believed until the calendar pass. this, too, is just a short dress i’m willing to bear; it is a lonely child seeking companionship, hoping to heal, to which i tend to its wounds & its misgivings will never be me, the same way old shoes are kept, its half-life will be ragged, tired & i shall wear my new shoes again.

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i* i. grew to like my wounds, in this avenue dress; courtships which sting both my suitors & i when the window closes, of singing uneventful. courteously i smile for their rejection, to be read wrongly the way unbuttoned shirts are read by judging eyes, & the judging headless mothers counting the days: i fear to be(come), fear as my demons, cast shadows on my back, talking, leaning against the wall & laughing from another woman’s wounds not far different than

*continuous poetry

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Franz

where to place the sun dial as it rains morning’s sun allows buses to expand & reach the other side of the road with its shadow. noon & afternoon traffic cones that patch up the dirt, polluting white shirts, staining them with smog— collected losses from the march’s day & the night welcomes the smile of a husband going home with pasalubong, a wife, who brought kulit his new toy, an old sister squints her eyes to not sleep. time passes, passes—but never passes, it only races on to those who chase their dreams.

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the significance of print in the days of digital taps the desk that is made up of bond papers, in letter, legal & A4 sizes, are distractions being sent to the printer. each smear of the ink

temporarily tattooed to be washed off by water —to be spread & coated like paint thinner, only to spring fruitfully as a throw-away draft; manuscripts covering life, yours & mine, or theirs, to take. all the less in worth, as the papyrus is to the mobile phone;

as the rosetta stone is to google translate, the desk only becomes a stand-in; dying embers of experience creaking, creaking & creaking, as we grow.

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Franz

here, nearby the mother’s touch her caring hands embrace the child & scolds the curious mind the love embroidered in the mornings with a glass of warm tablea sinangag & pandesal all served well

her care, the chest, n. a part of the body located between the person’s neck & abdomen; it contains the heart & lungs, supported by the ribs; the thorax.

vaporub for the crying blanket & eagle’s wings that cover her younglings from the cold soon as their wings grow to fly & your greatest gift is there not by medals or by payroll but by reminding the ragged hands you welcome a mother just as much as you welcome a father

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Serra Naiman

The letters featured here are a few small selections from a much larger piece that attempts to blur together poetry and personal stories—a kind of patchwork biography.

I’ve combined some genuinely intimate moments and feelings with a more playful commentary on the world around me. It's 100% experimental and 1000% fun.

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A Series of Letters to a Friend 1. if we were a town, i would be the village idiot and you would be the church. i'm in california even though you can never go home again. (but a home is a person place or thing.) i'm going to be in san francisco in a few hours and then leave right away. i'm going to see a few people that i love and a few people that i used to love. which is scary in a naked-in-public kind of way. last week i watched a storm from a mountain top. it came right up to me and then it turned around. it was flat and it seemed like i could press my hands up against it like a glass window. the mountains know when a storm is going to start before you do. you will be walking, looking at your boots, hearing a chopped up version of a song bleed in and out of another song in your head, and then you'll stop and look up and notice that everything around you is completely still. everything around you has its eyes wide open and is waiting. it's a brand new kind of quiet. and then the sky rips open in a violent way like stitches. it makes you queasy. and the thunder is all through you. someone can disappear on a mountain so easily. and then a cloud can come by and devour the mountain whole. (try to remember that you are no bigger than that.) i guess what i’m trying to say is, coming home and leaving home can really spin you like a haunted top.

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Serra Naiman

2. i obsess about bill callahan and joanna newsom. i obsess about writers and try to read everything they've ever written. maybe getting obsessive is how you learn and produce the most meaningful work. i read this article about the REALLY big earthquake that's going to hit that no one talks about but that will wipe out everything west of the I-5 and how it typically happens every 243 years and at this point we are 315 years into a 243 year cycle so it could hit at any moment and there will be a wave half the height of a continent. (but it doesn't specify which continent. so we could be talking Australia or we could be talking Asia here.) and when i was 5 or 6 or 7 i had a dove egg i found in the backyard that i was keeping in a little jewelry box full of cotton. i kept it near me all day and i wouldn’t stop picking it up because i wanted to keep it warm and make sure it hatched safely. and i remember that i was carrying it through the kitchen and it broke in my hand all of a sudden. i looked down and it was dripping through my fingers and i couldn’t understand what i had done wrong. and it could have been a bird if i had just left it alone. i cried, and then i went to school, and i thought about it occasionally. i kept growing. now this fucking earthquake is coming. i panicked and lost sleep over it (and then bought a new skirt without an occasion to wear it. then made an appointment to get my hair cut next week). and something involving the word “brevity.” and something about how it is literally (not hyperbolically) it is LITERALLY us vs the WORLD (all caps). we are 4.5 billion years young. and our indifference to these colossal planetary gears that turn so slow, so slow. and our Ignorance (capital “I”). and something else about how the universe is living its own life and if one day it’s running through its kitchen with us in its hand and accidentally crushes us it will be a little sad but it won’t stay home from school over it and it won’t stop growing. the average lifespan of a dove in the wild is only 1.5 years. your whole body can fit inside the heart of a blue whale. that is nothing. yes i can get obsessive sometimes.

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56 3. i’m afraid. i’m afraid of my mother with her bottle of wine. because sometimes she is a mirror.

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Serra Naiman

4.

You were x's through the calendar but you were even more. You were walls. You were aged carpet and linoleum. You were plans. You were painted brick and a yard dug up by a dog. You were a crumbling swing set and lemon tree. You were children. (maybe. probably not. but if there was any chance at all, You were children.) You were allergies and a landline. You were creaking in your silence. You were cold feet under a faded comforter. You were the steps to the top of north beach and the swing that blew down on the hill. You were the giant cross that was a lightning-strike-threat. A potential fire. (but weren't we all?)

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56 5. driving and noticing how slow your car moves when it’s moving you away from someone. the doors and windows are midnight cement. and the ghosts spinning on your axles howl you home.

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Serra Naiman

6.

It’s evening and it’s orange.

It’s windy like a different planet.

A garbage bin blew over this morning in the alley below my window and I listened to someone’s thrown-away-life get tangled in people’s porches and smash apart on bricks all day. “pried open for all the world to see.” (that’s how henry feels in dream song #1.)

And that’s how it really is. Like my arms are spread and held down with pins.

It’s so addicting to be romantic. But there’s never any reward for it. you see you see you sea.

Sometimes I walk away from things that are too hard. But then once you get far away from something it seems so small and harmless. (remember the cloud that ate the mountain?)

I did so well when I was told what to do.

Maybe instead of seeing so many therapists we just need to go see someone who will tell us exactly what we need to do.

Brush your teeth.

Share that.

Don’t touch that, it’s hot.

Don’t send that text message.

Bring an extra sweater today.

Stay away from him, he will change who you are.

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56 7. i could be a plum or a song. something sweet that easily fits inside a summer. i can’t keep still. all this with us and more and more while the rest of them are building cabins. two is a family. (i always forget that.) two is a family. this one builds a dream home cabin with what they have saved. the two of them. i bet the night before they fill it with furniture, they lay out a huge carpet beneath their vaulted ceiling, start up the wood burning stove, and they sit and they glow. maybe they lie next to each other and press into each other. or maybe it’s just their heads touching, legs in opposite directions. i bet they get high. so they can laugh at how they glow. whiskey too. a back-and-forth-bottle. and time and time and time and then. (the record needs to be flipped but they forgot they had put on any music to begin with.)

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Serra Naiman

8. remember a few weeks ago when i was sick? so sick that you had to help me out of bed and into the bathroom? you taught me how to stick my fingers down my throat to make myself throw up because i had never done it before and then you rubbed my back? (thanks for that by the way.) well i haven't felt the same since then. at all. so now let me ask you, and be honest, did you see anything? anything abnormal? maybe it got washed down the drain? i think something came out of me that was supposed to stay inside. something is missing. i keep waking up with my arms stretched out in front of me, reaching for something. i'm going to have to call the plumber and see if he can get it back for me.

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Rey Carlos Rosales

This photography series, Man, Paused, was made by accident. Frustrated with unemployment, I decided to go out one fine afternoon and photograph whatever I thought was a good subject. Later that evening, as I was choosing my best shots, I noticed something: many of the shots from that afternoon were of people resting. To me, this pattern was a reflection of what I needed most back then; I was so tired of job hunting and I needed a break.

The pattern also revealed a message to myself. Sometimes I struggle with beating myself up over things that won’t matter in the long run, things beyond my control, and things I cannot change. The pattern of rest reminded me of what people tell me each time I beat myself up over silly things—“relax.”

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Man, Paused

Asleep with Trust in God 20 january 2019

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Rey Carlos Rosales

Mid-Work Nap 21 february 2019

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Seated on a Sign 24 march 2019

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Rey Carlos Rosales

Resting on his Cart 24 march 2019

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Smoke Break 24 march 2019

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Rey Carlos Rosales

Sleeping with Shades On 24 march 2019

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Public Massage 4 may 2019

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Rey Carlos Rosales

Sidewalk Nap 4 may 2019

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Luis Sahagun

My drawings, sculptures, paintings, and performances confront the palpable inescapability of race and transforms art into an act of cultural reclamation. Like DNA strings of mestizaje, my practice metaphorically represents contradiction —Indian/conqueror, violence/unity, and ancient/contemporary. My work embodies a visual language of cultural resistance that counters the traditional, heterosexual white male historical canon. I aim to contribute to alternative Latinx narratives with my own stories, and to spotlight the importance of Latinx cultures and contributions in order to combat the anti-immigration and antiLatinx national rhetoric that persists throughout the country.

As a previously undocumented immigrant and former laborer, my art seeks to reveal the aesthetics of relocation and transgenerational trauma by utilizing building materials such as silicone, lumber, drywall, concrete, and hardware as symbols that represent working class immigrants. As the grandson of a curandera, I transform my art making into a mystical instrument that forges a pre-Columbian spiritual connection in order to heal wounds of conquest, colonization, and capitalism.

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Pain is Our North Star 2018–2019

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Luis Sahagun

Pain is Our North Star

2018–2019 (detail)

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Pain is Our North Star 2018–2019 (detail)

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Luis Sahagun

Pain is Our North Star

2018–2019 (detail)

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Pain is Our North Star 2018–2019 (detail)

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Luis Sahagun

Sombras de mi Ayer

("Shadows of my Yesterday") 2018

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Hasta La Rais ("To the Root") 2017

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Luis Sahagun

Conflicts of Desire

2014

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An Old God Renewed 2016

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Luis Sahagun

Naturalized Citizen

2014

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Janus on Cardboard Diptych 2014

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Luis Sahagun

Janus on Cardboard

Diptych 2014

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