The Luna Collective x Winter Zine II

winter.

Cover Photos By Chiara Cappetta / Milano Background Photo By Ross Kaplan / Delray Beach

i love putting together these seasonal zines so much. our audience is so talented & i feel immense privilege that these creatives allow us to showcase their work. each page brings a source of inspiration - even during this winter of chaos. slow down and take some extra time for yourself this season. try to connect & create if you can, but at the very least observe. xox, sophie

Chiara Cappetta, Milano

December It’s melancholy. It’s bare branches and brown withered grass, the glisten of a new layer of frost on the salted ground. It’s bitter cold wind biting at every inch of exposed skin, cutting right through to your bones. It’s basking in the sun through your living room window because the winter air sucks out its warmth.

December has its moments too. When I get to bury myself in my childhood blankets and pretend the howling wind is transporting me to somewhere where it’s spring. I like having the cup of tea my grandmother makes next to me whenever I go. I like when the fairy lights around the neighbourhood twinkle like stars you can touch or when snowflakes dance in the air and land on my tongue.

I guess I also like the way the snow gets in your hair and tangled up in your eyelashes. Or the way the cold makes you blush the same way you do after drinking two glasses of wine.

I suppose I have to like December, because without it I wouldn’t have you.

- Sylphia Basak / Toronto

Chiara Cappetta, Milano

Jamar Latin By Patrick Grady / Houston

Shannon Murphy By Patrick Grady / Houston

faces in the clouds the sun was spilling, dripping streaks of gold onto velvet white staining faces in the clouds california winters. gentle raindrops splashing onto fuzzy boots warm breath blowing cold halos into the air. peppermint kisses stained with soft sunshine.

- Sydney Ling / Palo Alto

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Ferruccio Giacalone / Milano

Gabrielle Barrera / Cincinnati

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Sarah Eckstine / Funkstown

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“With Strangeness & Rarity” There’s a part of me still hanging in my closet finely creased through unstitched seams outcast by the antiquated beliefs dic[k]tating what it means to be a man.

It hangs between the stripes // & the plaid # seeking refuge from the confused faces of old friends or strangers who have had the awful misfortune of having to hear me speak.

There’s a part of me still hanging in my closet losing color like an old photograph of someone you never knew.

The reds & the blues were the first to f a d e , but I’ve only ever seen purple violets, & my favorite roses are pink.

It hangs //with strangeness & rarity// & you tell her she’s wrong.

You tell her she’s a pervert & a freak.

Well, since we’re being honest, you’re not, too far off... but that’s still really mean.

There’s a part of me still hanging in my closet, & it wants you to know that no one wants to be this way.

Hell, if it were up to me, I’d have already taken the easy way out -- just like the 33% (now resting peacefully) before me.

Don’t quote me on this, but something like one in every three transgender lives ends in suicide.

There’s a part of me still hanging in my closet from her neck by a black leather belt with a gold buckle.x - Michael-Rex; San Diego

SĂŠlina

Amelia Paige / Brooklyn

Winter Dandelion I could watch the snow fall for hours, flakes settling outside my universe, touched only by the birds who didn’t fly south.

I stayed behind too, searching for spring in the coldest December.

I found it in the dandelion sprouting outside my front door, too impatient for spring’s breeze, too strong for winter’s wind, still growing proudly under my planted feet.

- Kendra Nuttall / Salt Lake City

Amelia Paige / Brooklyn

Emma Potter / Auburn

Shonali Bose / Washington D.C.

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Emma Roche / Austin

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floating, in flux swimming drowsily in the daydream delusion of you waves of hazy california blues swallow me, surround me you let me breathe, loving me loudly viscerally, deliciously

Erica Davis / St. Martin

i’m savouring the taste of golden moments on your skin an oasis of embers as the dust settles on our tangled limbs drenched in soft hues tearing at my seams floating, in flux - Josephine Houman / Copenhagen

Steph Estrada/ Miami

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Nicole Mejia / Los Angeles

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A Walk in Winter Lips chapped like Patches of dried up snow All weathered and worn Crackled and thorn Painted with red lipstick As bright as my nose With the richness of wine And lusciousness of a rose Hair in a coil Fastened like a rope From the cool breeze That rises up this slope -Melissa Rose Miller / Long Beach

Silvana Smith / Jacksonville

Adelaide Wilson / Chicago

Daniela Guzmรกn / Mexico City

Jonathan Roensch / New York City

Long Story Short I Survived On the other side of this tree there is a grave.

There is a peach sky, with bleeding stars you can't see yet because the big bully star is still at large, and underneath that nectarine sky is a grave. Someone's body is buried in the ground, and there's a stone marking what others called them and when they were put into the dirt behind this quaking aspen tree.

And I know you're annoyed at the stone fruit sky, I know you're ticked off I can't stick with which fruit it looks like. But you and I, we are attending a festival of sadness right now, and you can't exactly choose to leave. You have a choice—you always have a choice. But the one you have right now has nothing to do with staying. You are going to sit there, in your black cap-toe shoes, and watch while I rage with love. You are going to watch, and you are going to decide—will you dredge up what lays dormant in this earth? Or are you going to descend nosefirst into this undertaking you set in motion?

- Skyler Saunders / Berkeley

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Maryna Shtanko / Kharkiv, Ukraine

Maryna Shtanko / Kharkiv, Ukraine

Marissa Ding / Rochester 51

DonnĂŠe / Capetown

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- Alexandra Keyser / Laguna Beach

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Alex Mehiel / New York City

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Alex Mehiel / New York City

Covey Carpenter / Cape Porpoise, ME

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COLLECTIVE

The Luna Collective is a platform for the creative community spotlighting a variety of young artists. Our film only magazine highlights talented individuals we come across as well as the work of our readers. The magazine is only one part of The Luna Collective so join us to see what else we get up to.

SAY HOWDY

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Designed + Curated By: Sophie Gragg & Julia Im

Ferruccio Giacalone / Milano

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