Imago Summer 2023

Imago: A Tatler Publication SUMMER 2023

IMAGO

Editors

Design Chief Designers

Zora Sowinska ’23

Aaron Zhang ’23

Eliot Aguera y Arcas ’24

Angelina Pimkina ’24

Audrey Dunnam ’24

Eliot Aguera y Arcas ’24

Angelique Guan ’24

Betsmona Alemshowa ’25

Cailyn Choi ’26

Gresham Crone ’26

Cover Advisors

Zara Zong ’24

Lindsay Aegerter

Jim Collins

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

As we approach the summer, when seniors prepare to move on and the rest of us prepare space for a new class of freshmen on campus, we are entering a time of reflection for all students. In Imago’s own year, we’ve seen through a manga collaboration with LAPS, created an awardwinning winter issue, ushered in a somewhat refreshed editorial team, and finally bid adieu to our wonderful senior editors, Zora Sowinska ’23 and Aaron Zhang ’23. With each season, we hope that the magazine will land closer to its own imago—its ideal persona, or, per Merriam-Webster’s second definition, the matured form of an insect. This is the phase of life that begins first with the unfurling of wings, and second the look back at the newly deserted shell, still holding the shape of one’s adolescent self.

For this issue, we are zooming in and zooming out— looking outward in order to look in. Self-similarity in nature is the tendency of patterns to repeat at multiple scopes: fractals, fern fronds, and conveniently enough, some butterfly wings. In landscapes, mirrors, and the imagoes of our own past and future selves, works in this issue exhibit identities that are fractured and refracted across scales. As Imelda Ramirez ’25 writes, “A cycle repeated again.”

It is our pleasure to publish your art and give you the chance to share something of yourself. We hope you enjoy the issue and take the opportunity to reflect, expand, and open your wings.

Sincerely,

Zora Sowinska ’23, Aaron Zhang ’23, Eliot Aguera y Arcas ’24, Angelina Pimkina ’24

Ben Scott ’24 ESCAPE VELOCITY

Sculpture, 7 x 7 x 7 inches.

Izzy Mbatai ’24

LEGO ADVENTURE

Snohomish, July 2021.

Amy Wang ’25 TO THE HIGH SCHOOLERS WHO WANDERED THE MALL

I used to watch you with a sort of admiration. You mostly traveled in groups, sometimes in pairs; always loud and laughing. You’d have handfuls of those large plastic shopping bags. You looked like adults, although I knew you weren’t — you had freedom, money, friends. I suspected many of you were engaging in some underage drinking (sorry if you didn’t — I probably bought into those high school stereotypes a little too much). You could definitely all drive, I thought. I was always envious of you, watching you laugh your way down the little half-steps that littered Bellevue Square, tossing your empty boba cups in the trash, stylishly dressed in the latest trends, occasionally with bright hair and chunky sunglasses.

To my elementary-aged self, you were all incomprehensibly tall, wise, and smart. I learned many little things from you. To the blonde girl who rested her hands a certain way by her side — elegant, soft — did you know that I still imitate you? To the one who slung her three shopping bags over her shoulder and walked with a determined purpose towards who knows where — I am reminded of you when I power walk. Sometimes, when I’m with my own friends, I reminisce about the way you all laughed without a care, fixed each others’ collars, and didn’t forget your sunscreen. I still remember.

I didn’t get to see you during my middle school years (thanks, COVID), so when I next visited the mall, I searched for you. I couldn’t find you, though. I saw only families, elderly couples, and young children. I only realized it when I stumbled down those shallow steps with my little crew of high school freshmen friends:

I’m you now. Down to the shopping bags, boba, and in-the-moment laughter.

Thank you for being a good role model for me — albeit unintentionally. I hope that as I pass by a young girl with her even younger sister, I can inspire the same things you did in me.

Jennifer Fitzgerald ’23 LOOKING BACK

Lakeside Schoolhouse, February 2023.

Imelda Ramirez ’25

PART I: THE MEMORY

Her embrace is warm, Her kisses are soft.

She smiles a grimace.

Unlatched, untouched. Gone. She goes away, through the bright door, To run for a life Unfamiliar.

Standing, Tears falling.

Arms spread for the runaway.

Arms held. Clutched with firm hands and Pleading shrieks.

The white coat away. The bright door shut. Darkness everywhere.

A cycle repeated again.

PART II: THE LETTER

Dear Kelly,

You had me two months before your college graduation. Grandma and Grandpa watched the delivery. It was their first time ever holding a newborn since they first met you and Uncle Ryan when you were three months old. Daddy was there too, holding your hand. When you saw me, you screamed. Daddy cried. I looked like an alien. But somehow, you must have gotten to like me because you guys gave away your precious dog over me.

We grew up together in a sense. It must have been hard going to medical school and leaving me behind every morning. I remember the pained expression on your face every day as you went through the front door. I remember my pleas for you to stay while the nanny held my arms back. It’s okay though. The pain subsided, I got used to being alone, and I learned to cherish the time I had with loved ones. I was prepared for the future.

I know this wasn’t the life you planned for . . . but you made the best of it. You always found time to read stories to me at night. You made cookies with me every holiday season. You let me see you cry. You made me learn that being vulnerable is a skill of great strength and resilience. It always made me sad when you looked down on yourself because I thought you were the most brilliant person I knew.

I appreciate you. I wish I told you this more.

Angelina Pimkina ’24 AMALGAMATION

In 2005, I was the first in my family to be born in Minnesota. In a November snowstorm in Edina, Minnesota.

Confusion and deception are at the root of the name. Mnisota — means cloudy, muddy water — Minnesota.

Rodents scurry, snow flurries, hidden worries — all the same. A place for people who long to conceal themselves: Minnesota.

The winter rages calling my name. Snowflakes float, yet the cold air pricks in Minnesota.

No amalgamation of cultures is the same outside of Minnesota.

A forgotten flame lost in a name. Dampened by watery skies in Minnesota.

We have different names, but we look the same in Minnesota.

Still, Angelina is an international name. It belongs to Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Russia, and Minnesota.

It is clear to me that I am not the same. In the summer, mosquitos sting in Minnesota.

Mia Larhs ’24 TENSION

August 2022.

Lakeside School, December 2022.

Vivian Anderson ’24

NATIONAL PEACH MONTH

i’m on my porch waving to my neighbors and having one of those honeyed afternoons when i don’t know who i am. i know everything else, though, and it’s ringing in my head.

in my palm i peel a peach, its velvet skin bruised in plums and rubies sliding off with little force. still, the knife

slips. blade into soft flesh, steel into taut skin. blood runs smooth across my thumb; pools form in carnelian lilypads atop the pond of golden flesh, its raw surface newly exposed.

my vision blurs in glassy waves as i find the peach pressed against my lips, blood dripping down my chin and splashing my pants in scarlet inkblots.

my palate floods with sweet florals, sides coated in a thin translucent film of bullet and nectarine. peach juice and warm blood gush as one, painting my mouth in a late summer sunset of rusts and garnets and words unsaid.

i’m on my porch watching how my blood-stained teeth gleam crimson under the august sun, wondering why my neighbors have bolted their door.

Sean Raftery ’23

PINK TREE

Zora Sowinska ’23

AUGUST’S LIST

The fruit tree in the front yard, the whisper of silos, the solidity of a hand-written note, signature stamps, sky so thick I can breathe, stars above and below, maybe this is what god thought of, I don’t know, I still pray, we are least worthy when most necessary, August has come, my bed is made, the fruit tree out front flourishes in rain’s absence, two parents wait with the lights on, nothing is cosmic, and I don’t think the sky is thick after all, I think it’s full.

Max Siauw ’24

PARADISE

Tivoli Gardens, Copenhagen, Denmark, July 2022.

VANCOUVER HARBOR

Daniel Wang ’25

Vancouver, BC, January, 2023.

IN DEATH, LIVIA SCORNS THE CITY

Having tied my life to a house and an inheritance which eloped with the cupid chapters might have been foreseen The strange surrender, when like a glass it fell, it fell, it fell and the band marched on and Nero played on while Rome and the fire screamed like falling eagles and over my head seven circled meaning nothing for the thousandth time. With a hand over his singing lips the viper would have risen then if there was still a city to be in me and if only for one more day the hanging gardens of which there were none the hanging open doors of the temple where Janus flees in the night and looks both ways into headlights— from the front lines he writes me: the enemy in loll-tongues speaking hounds us back across the river by his waist, and heel, and chasing, in dusk black eyes seeing something he is not as they flash their teeth.

Who can blame the Bacchic baying?

Who after all can fault the young empire whose limbs of lime gave ground to ground Daubing the figs, the poison I seeded I watched blossom in you; my child, weaned of dog flesh

I watched you hunt the familiar taste down foxholes and linoleum aisles and in the department store window catching your own eye—did you see there behind your revolving ears the mark of prey? Or were the lights already covered by the twin evenings of your envy?

Sophia Cheng ’26

ISLANDS AND DRAGONS

IMAGO | 26

Watercolor and brush pens on paper, 2023, 12 x 16 inches.

Max Siauw ’24 CONCEALMENT

Kenmore, March 2022, digital.

Gabi Guidero ’24

THE HISTORY WE CANNOT REPLACE

Yesterday, San Francisco lobbied to vanquish a dragon full of strange faces and fear evoking chatter. Yesterday, the dragon was ostracized

forced to flee from home forced by the earth, by human hate, by what is unknown

so the dragon fled, abandoning gold, dark rock, cold — and now a city lost another life and a people another home.

This city is a plague. Every fall, the leaves crumble with shame as they remember the hatred of the earth, a rumble against a race, in the cold hours between sleeping and waking

the old silence of many

In history books, we read how the coal miners were excluded from the celebration of golden spikes we read

not our story but the story others wrote they deserve an apology. What an atrocity.

We see only warped faces drawn askew, rendered inhuman by comics

but not Sunday dumplings, light chatter short syllables roaring laughter not promise nor hope

We see only fear and difference

We are taught how fortune does not favor our slanted eyes, our rounded faces

We are taught that history is a weight every one of us must bear because even hours of music, sleepless nights computing the consequences of our difference will never be erased

We are taught that we can never replace the single story of our face.

LIGHT PAINTING

Lakeside Portrait Studio, February 2023, digital.

IMAGO

Sonya Hamid ’24

Khalil Wilkinson ’24

SOLITUDE

Cascade Head Preserve, Oregon, April 2022, digital.

CAMARADERIE

Cascade Head Preserve, Oregon, February 2023, digital.

Aaron Zhang ’23

BURIAL BY THE SEA

blunting my own blade I have dulled, skulled, and sullied the sun’s shade. in the perfume of oils

human and otherwise dumbed in the half-lidded

gaze. who is it lurking beneath the pool who

is it a parasol to war who is it

for the cold division between hands: Dutchman to Dutchman touch

men to the sand. watch them exhale,

inhale. tulipped, tulipped.

The air emptied of summer. The summer emptied of air. The impression in the sand’s edge; The wave as shadow. Silking over The branches, spidering

As we watch. Lose a leaf, lose Another. Lose the pretense Of loss.

Where is the winter, the unimaginable Zero winter? The noon and the paper Wreath. The soiled and coiled

Breath. Waver in the dark beam.

Sit for the afternoon. Stir sand

Underfoot and hear

Nothing. Beneath light as a pool, a stream

Over the mouth, the bridge, the canal

Of an ear. Do you hear it ring.

The children leap and assume waterform.

The flesh of a shell, peach, cheek.

Cochlea as nautilus, the world reflected

As warble. As sustenance, as the echo

Of a fallen peach.

JANIE’S DREAM

Brittsan Kirkdoffer ’24

Digital collage, 2023.

Tony Nguyen ’23 CLOUDED VISION

Lincoln Park, January 2023.

FEATURING

VIVIAN ANDERSON ‘24

SOPHIA CHENG ‘26

JENNIFER FITZGERALD ‘23

JULIA GU ‘23

GABI GUIDERO ‘24

SONYA HAMID ‘24

BRITTSAN KIRKDOFFER ‘24

MIA LARHS ‘24

IZZY MBATAI ‘24

TONY NGUYEN ‘23

ANGELINA PIMKINA ‘24

SEAN RAFTERY ‘23

IMELDA RAMIREZ ‘25

BEN SCOTT ‘24

MAX SIAUW ‘24

ZORA SOWINSKA ‘23

AMY WANG ‘25

DANIEL WANG ‘25

KHALIL WILKINSON ‘24

AARON ZHANG ‘23