ULTISOL is a collective art zine by creatives in North Carolina, for creatives in North Carolina.
NC is full of really incredible artists, writers, and makers of all kinds, yet our creative scene is often overlooked. The goal of this project is to help change that - hopefully, this platform will help facilitate collaborations, work, discussions, and artistic community.
The word “ultisol” (pronounced uhl-teh-sawl) refers to the red clay soil that is found throughout the state. This name pays homage the land we live on and to the clay itself, which has enabled a rich and celebrated North Carolinian pottery tradition.
May our art be as malleable and stain the soul just as deeply.Organized by Anna Hart
Curators
Aurora Figueroa-Benetti @lilrawra / @thekittyriot Jade Finch Phan jfphan@my.waketech.edu
RJ Washington @sometimes_sonny
Eoin Farrell
Anna Hart
Special Thanks to Jane Linville, Chell & Sum, and the Raleigh United Mutual Aid Hub
Bend/Balance, Sanjé James
Film Photography
Sanjé James is a multimedia artist with a focus on photography. She received her BFA in Photography at Lesley Art + Design in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her work is fueled by the topics of race, mental health, and self-exploration. @moosekatt on Instagram sanjejames.format.com
Jackets, MadCore
Fashion Design
I hand sew all my pieces and love what I do :p @m.a.d.c.o.r.e on Instagram
Do Not Be Afraid, Wylie Phu
3D Modeling
Hello! My name is Wylie Phu. I specialize in realism and detailed artwork!
@wyliesart on Instagram wyphuu.wixsite.com/wylies-art
Nature is Queer, Anna Curtis Digital
Anna is a student studying environmental science and health humanities at UNC Chapel Hill, and loves bugs, loose leaf tea, college radio, and printmaking. Inspired by queer ecology theory, poetry by Imogen Xtian Smith, the earthy feeling of sex and the emotions of trees.
@lain.303 on Instagram annamc2042@gmail.com
Modular Sculpture No. 2, Sea Tong Veng Paper and wire
This sculpture is part of a series that explores ephemeral constructions, always changing form due to the modularity.
I grew up in Cambodia where I taught myself to make realistic portrait drawings, always focused on beauty and not much else, but going through architecture school has expanded my horizon both in terms of my craft and my artistic expression. @real_seabear
time begging for time wet sine wave passing over time & singing baritone for loved lovers and hated others whipped into transmission, curdling mucous membrane spread across my bare ribs until pencil sharpened to knife & i stacked it twice more again until my vision turned black. there wasn’t a cost locked in pain until i spoke it into hysteria’s stretched existence. then i laughed.
cacophony swelled again and i remembered the taste of water. gunpowder and unbridled joy & swapped contexts & moral’s morale & everything might be replaceable if you die hard enough. cardamom enjoys me insofar as my nose bends. aromas send songs and my nostrils tickled, moved to humming, moved to new summit sitting in my forehead with nothing to look at but reality & it’s there if I’m there but eye tears the map into fucking shreds tipped and toe’d around every good reason that helped me hug the grave but now i live it less. skin and crest and fin in chest since water’s here now. give that sun permission to scorch that again. darken, darken, darken the key can’t fit or else that door would phase through you. killing cords powered by shields and fake nation & fake tribe & fake me & fake you
i’m raking in battle cry warm & bloody & coarsing & pulsing Alive
signing tents bouncing in all calls for action breaking wind, scale, and motive cluttering for explosion meteorite cuddling with baked flesh cowered in the face of time & seconds & days & hours in the face of clean glass and even paint fluorescent light and corporate musk
NESTS TETHERED BY TIME, julian doaks Poetry
dj, poet, rapper, producer, seeker, and student of life from raleigh, nc. all work produced by me is a diligent excavation from spiritual recesses and evolving tensions. in these poems particularly, i aim to decimate the rigid structures of european logic and rationalization through freely associative meaning-making. in the end, though, few words will capture the whole — i just hope you can feel me.
@shelf_mover on Instagram linktr.ee/ju_ud
Histor y of Ar son
In this fading indig o twilight of a bedroom, see how the evening g races her collarbones
Pay attention to her fing er tips skating across your waist and wait for the fever to come.
When it ar rives, search her for exit wounds
Cradle the tremors in her fing ers; tell her to breathe. Show her what it is to be valuable ag ain; show her that she is not violated that she is still whole, that her body was not stolen from her. Remind her that she is new now
Watch her eyes f licke r under pinhole stars as she guides your hand across the horizon’s fring e. Notice how constellations sew the ocean to the night sky Remember to be g entle
because nobody is ever g entle with the pre-owned. She still f linches under your palms, your soft palms, despite their promises to be different Use the edg e of your t-shir t to wipe the sweat from her brow Do not leave her alone to blister in the dark.
Lightning fractures a g rey summer sky and trees g roan under the wind’s fing ers
Allow her to fall asleep to your pulse.
History of Arson, Emma Carter Poetry
Emma Carter is a big sister, poet, and graphic designer in North Carolina. A recent BGXD + BACRW graduate from NC State, she is interested in the dance between language and visuals, and how language and design can (and must!) inform one another. She particularly enjoys layout and publication design, information architecture, quiltmaking and other fiber crafts, frogs, southern literature, and beverages of all kinds. She is a Virgo sun, Libra moon, and Aquarius rising.
@ec.arter
Metamorphosis, Emily Vidovich Collage
Emily is a Raleigh, North Carolina based freelance graphic designer, illustrator, and collage artist with a love of all things colorful and kitschy.
@emilyvidovich on Instagram
From the River to the Sea, S.M.K. Digital
Free Palestine.
@smkazart on Instagram fromtherivertotheseazine.carrd.co
Untitled, reilly screen print over finger paint
Reilly is a multimedia artist and designer who is passionate about using her art as a platform to bring people together and inspire action and solidarity in the audiences she touches. This monster was inspired by a patch her mother had on her backpack as a college student, over 30 years ago. The original art behind this saying was created by Lorraine Schneider in response to the Vietnam war. It’s continued relevance is angering, but the continued support behind the sentiment is inspiring — calls for peace will never be silenced. @all.reilly on Instagram linktr.ee/reillyleaver
Tim, Martina G.B
35mm photography
My work shown here is from a short series of portraits capturing personal narratives beyond the board. Shot on my Minolta X-700.
@marto.graphy on Instagram
Self Reflection, Natalia Lopes
Digital
Natalia Lopes (they/them) is a queer Latinx illustrator making queer horror art, comics, and zines. Their retro line work, alluring and horrific subjects all pay a loving nod to horror, anime, and science fiction.
@mystopress on Instagram mystopress.com
Carmela V Jewelry, Christina Miracola Ring
My name is Christina Miracola I created Carmela V Jewelry to express the art of Jewelry using differnet mediums. @carmela.v.jewelry and @christina.n.miracola on Instagram
Lethal Angel: Rebirth, Kaylynn Crowder
@giant.squiddy on Instagram
Fish and friend Pen
Cleopatrix Brush pen markers, Juan i love you
@sanarmoire on Instagram
Her First Name
These are the things I know about my Nai Nai.
She wore purple almost every day Her cheongsams and smocks and little faux fur slippers were all mauve or lavender or the color of cheap orchids.
She liked to pin bugs in little glass displays that she kept under her bed. In secret, she would weave little snares from dried grass to catch them.
She never shared a bed with my Yie Yie. Their single cots stood on separate ends of the room. She played mahjong with the other grannies but they played in silence.
She did tai chi in the beaten earth yard.
She hated my mother.
She only knew two English words - go and run. To make the most of them, she used them in pairs. Go, go and run, run were the metronome for market trips, chores, cooking.
Her hands were speckled with pain. When she sat in silence, they would cup around the pain, grasping it precariously
These are the things I don’t know about my Nai Nai.
Did she grow up in a village where the haze of mists turn the mountains purple, Where sunlight turns the rice paddies to lavender pools?
Or did she live in the city where the shimmer of oil in a muddy puddle reminded her of orchids?
Did her mother teach her to weave lassos for grasshoppers and butterflies?
Who arranged her marriage to a man she wouldn’t even speak to, For whom she bore two children she tolerated?
Why did she not gossip with the other women? Why did she not have friends that would flap about her and ease her mind?
When she moved her body, did she imagine she was running far away?
What did she say when her son brought home a woman with hair like beaten bronze and skin like milk?
Did she stop loving her grandchildren when they grew into a language that sat in her mouth like cumbersome pills?
When she died alone, did she smile at the pain as it curled and caressed her body, as if to say, I am here and you are here and you are not alone.
Her First Name, Andy Li Poetry
Andy is a queer Asian American storyteller born in Southern Appalachia. He currently lives in the Triangle working to preserve and expand civil rights in the South. When not working or writing, he’s doing embroidery, playing Dungeons and Dragons, and baking while listening to Mitski.
@andyisvcool on Instagram
Your garden
I have known you, my friend,
Since before I stopped hating myself, I came to know and love you, before I ever learned to love the boy in the mirror, And if by chance life carries you far from me, Know the love I grew for myself came from your garden, And my heart remains full from your spoils, Know I’ll feed my new community of friends the same helpings of happiness you did me, And they’ll bake benevolence within themselves to serve plates of peace to their next community,
Because if by chance life carries me far from them, Do not feel sad for me,
I will not be lonely, my friend,
For the love I grew for myself came from your garden, And my heart remains full from your spoils,
Your garden, Therapy for the kid, Keem Poetry
I feel that most of my inspiration is just observation. Observation of my surroundings and just me in my human experience.
@hakeemj19.jpg on Instagram
Always Together (Juntas Siempre), Gabriella Linoleum with gamblin oil-based relief ink
I’m Gabriella, a Black, Latine lesbian multidisciplinary artist living on the east coast. My work tends to center actions and feelings of community, healing, interconnectedness, introspection, love, and passion. I create a lesbian zine titled “Eclectic Collective” alongside art direction, curation, printmaking, sketches, tattoo design, and writing. Created from linoleum with gamblin oil-based relief ink referencing Vashti Persad’s untitled journal entry in Makeda Silvera’s “Piece of my Heart”; an anthology of poetry and prose by lesbians of color published in 1991. “I stare out the back window of her house, mesmerized by the countless stars in the black sky and comforted by the watrees and the smell of curry and rain. I breathe in deeply to capture that energy within myself but realize that it is already inside of me.” gabriellaanalise.cargo.site @gabriellaanalise on Instagram
Lotus Picking; Floating Seeds, huiyin zhou
35mm film photography
Born and raised in the industrial hub of Dongguan, China, huiyin zhou 徽音 (they/she) is a transnational queer feminist organizer and communitybased photographer, writer, translator and multimedia artist. Creating with intimate and tender sensibilities, huiyin explores themes related to queer feminism, intimacy, memory, diaspora, and community and approaches photography with a relational, reciprocal praxis. huiyin co-founded and co-direct a queer feminist art and activist collective, Chinese Artists and Organizers (CAO) Collective 离离草
The photos were taken in summer 2023 on the Hongze Lake of Jiangsu, when the artist took a boat trip to an abandoned island their maternal extended family used to call home. They are part of huiyin’s ongoing project, A Queer Child’s Home Coming, a photo-based multimedia work to be exhibited at Center for Documentary Studies, Durham, NC in April 2024.
Sluggish, bramblebug Block-printing (relief) on fabric
As a printmaker, zinester, and scavenger, my work is inspired by my experiences as a queer transmasc person, my personal witchcraft practice, punk culture, upcycling, and the weirdness of nature.
Carving rubber blocks is incredibly relaxing for me and I find a magical connection to repeating and transmuting images onto different materials—though my favorite print-ground is cotton fabric. It evolves further when others use my patches and clothes to create something of their own. As if I become a part of their magic too.
@bramblebug on Instagram
bramblebug.etsy.com
