Looking Forward: Luna Luna's Risky Relaunch & Our Plans For 2016

BY LISA MARIE BASILE, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF & CREATIVE DIRECTOR

On October 31, my staff and I relaunched Luna Luna Magazine. Actually, let me clarify: I forced a relaunch. Fed up with WordPress and its forever-glitchy plugins and crashing themes (we're a volunteer staff who operates late-night from our bedrooms, and we don't have a tech support team), I made the switch to Squarespace. I even bought a brand new URL (to hell with SEO! Just kidding, that's a huge pain point).

This overhaul wasn't conventional, at least not for a content-focused publication. But I wanted something beautiful, something that could create the magic reading experience we envisioned, and I wanted something that reflected our aesthetic. I also wanted that something to be easy for our team, since we're mainly updating on the go. Ah, such is the glamorous life of a niche internet magazine. There were plenty of others variables, and I won't pretend I knew everything, but I believe in big fucking risks that positively impact long-term sustainability.

I made a frightening decision to change our editorial focus and voice too. This is to say that I had push-back as well as major support. A lot of tense G-chat debates and in-person conversations. A lot of excellent points made all around. A lot of weighing clicks versus craft. A lot of wondering if Luna Luna Magazine was repetitive, redundant, messy, wonderful, necessary, unique or impactful.

Joanna (our managing editor and the one I've worked most closely with for the better part of a year+) wanted to ensure the magazine's success in practical ways: consistently publishing content, making sure our pageviews were growing. I too wanted that, but I struggled with the things that tended to make things clickable. I refused to let Luna Luna Magazine become yet another Click This Headline magazine. All things said, Joanna's eye for strong and shareable content has meshed beautifully with my stringent (aka relentlessly pushy) creative direction. (My boyfriend called me the 'witchy Anna Wintour', oh god.)

Intermission: No, for real, props to the Luna Luna Magazine team for being absolutely badass. 

Part of the risk of relaunching this October was in cutting a portion of the kind of content we published. We had started as an edgy, darker arts & culture magazine in the summer of 2013, but we slowly became a daily feminist touch-point. The majority of our content focused on women's rights and feminist first-person essays. I loved this, and meeting so many incredible women and writers did things for my life that for which I am endlessly indebted. Our pageviews skyrocketed.

However, I fell and felt deeply out of touch with our content. I wanted to keep writing about women, but reduce any one niche focus in order to do more of everything: art, culture, the original occult vertical, confession, intersectional content and even bad feminism. We don't want to be perfect; we're explorers. 

We were also publishing so much that I couldn't edit (9-5 jobs, am I right?). I couldn't work with my writers closely and I couldn't go through with a fine-tooth comb to find the voices and perspectives we hadn't published already. I felt that there needed to be a way for me to connect with my writers as much as our readers. After all, Luna Luna, as I envisioned it, was always a community for dialogue and opinion from the inside out. It was about creating a space for readers and writers to be friends, supporters and dreamers together. 

Maybe I'm an idealist. Maybe I'm lacking a sense of entrepreneurialism. But no. I've worked in rigid corporate content institutions, and I've worked at startups where growth at lightspeed (sacrificing quality) was the dominating factor. I've written for clickbait paychecks and I've written beautiful essays that will probably never be seen again. And time and again, I come back to that which makes me proud, makes me uncomfortable, makes me feel I've collected a menagerie of perfect words. 

Balancing that obsession with beauty and slow growth with the way the internet works is a struggle, I won't lie. After all, we want to be able to sell ad space on our new site. In my day job, I'm all SEO and headlines, but at Luna Luna, I can and will take the time to finesse it. 

Since we relaunched, our bounce rate reduced by over 50% - a beautiful thing. Our older site (lunalunamag.com) had more pageviews of course (three years' worth), but people were leaving. Was it the site design? The content? We don't know. Now people are sticking around. Our return visitor rate shows we're building a beautiful community. And our top-viewed articles show that our readers are still coming for the art and staying for the intimacy. This is an area we'll continuously work on.

We have a long way to go. We have to pay our contributors. We have to build a more diverse editorial staff. We have to develop our regional focus (starting with NYC), and we have to do community work. We want to work with organizations, host readings, host speaking series, and throw networking parties. We want to grow sponsorship relationships and make a difference for people on and off the site. This takes time, money, discipline and vision, and we definitely have two of those things. You guess which. 

Our goal is to fundraise for our writers this year, to say thank you, to sell ad spots, to steadily publish beautiful content that is unique and sometimes imperfect, to balance the light and the dark. We aim to balance the markers of actual real world site growth with a continued focus on selectivity and calculated aesthetic development. Those secrets we will keep, but we hope you'll come along. 

And so, I leave you with some of our most popular content pieces as we ended 2015:

13 Aesthetically Beautiful Literary Journals To Submit To & Read

This Is Why My Love Life Has Always Failed

Seeking Arrangement: On My Brief & Failed Attempt at Becoming a Sugar Baby

Stop Saying "I Have A Boyfriend"

James Deen & The Crisis of Media-Appointed Feminist Heroes

40 Books Published in 2015 That Should Be on Your Shelf

A Catalogue of Scars

A Conversation With Poet Megan Falley About Lana Del Rey

Why I Stopped Shaving All of My Body Hair

13 Aesthetically Beautiful Literary Journals To Submit To & Read

BY LISA MARIE BASILE

Great writing will always be the most important element for any journal, but being pretty also doesn't hurt. The below publishers have taken time to build an aesthetic world for their contributors and readers, making the read a much more meaningful and whole experience. Whether minimalist or colorfully elaborate, these sites are gorgeously bespoke, thoughtful and filled with talent.

ANTHROPOID
From the publisher: "We love the fundamental business of being humanesque. Issues of identity, culture, belonging or lack, vulnerability, collectivism, the body, ritual–anthropological subjects from a generalist’s view, or, cultural moments from a messy, personal perspective. Tightly snuggled with visuals for each feature, we publish in collected issues and individual articles: ethnography & essays, experiential narratives, fiction & poetry, visuals, conceptual work, and genre-bending, from voices in the literary field, the humanities, and the sciences."

We recommend reading: Aura Girl, by Shannon Elizabeth Hardwick

PAPERBAG
From the publisher: "Paperbag is interested in presenting larger bodies of visual art, poetry, sound, experiment, and collaboration from established and emerging writers and artists throughout the world."

We recommend reading: Everything Will Be Taken Away, by Morgan Parker

ROGUE AGENT
From the publisher: "If our bodies are oppressed by an outside force, we are "written over." Rogue Agent wants to retaliate. Rogue Agent wants reconciliation. Rogue Agent wants to share your stories about the poem that is the body. "

We recommend reading: Blow Her Up, by Juliet Cook
 

TARPAULIN SKY
From the publisher: "As with Tarpaulin Sky’s books, the magazine focuses on cross-genre / trans-genre / hybrid forms as well as innovative poetry and prose. The journal is not allied with any one style or school or network of writers; rather, we try to avoid some of the defects associated with dipping too often into the same literary gene pool, and the diversity of our contributors is evidence of our eclectic interests."

We recommend reading: A Mouth, A Maw, by Lital Khaikan

PITH
From the publisher: "Pith is an online journal that collects experimental bits. We define “experimental” as something akin to a deep breath of uncertainty; an inclination to remain lost when certainty is calling. Visual/written hybrids, multi-genre writing, erasures….that sort of thing."

We recommend reading: Deus Ex Machina/Rachel, by Jennifer Pilch

BAT CITY REVIEW
From the publisher: "Founded in 2004, Bat City Review is an annual literary journal run by graduate students at the University of Texas at Austin, supported by the English Department and the James A. Michener Center for Writers. We read thousands of submissions each year and publish only the best in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and visual art. "

We recommend reading: Afterwards, the boys stand in the kitchen, by Francine J. Harris

AMPERSAND REVIEW
From the publisher: "We are looking for creative work, but only good creative work. Give us God, give us man, give us people & make us laugh. If you can make us cry, do so, if you want to lament loss of pets & family, do not. We enjoy pleasant nonsense & the deeply profound, the sharp little crack of things we don’t speak of in polite company. We want to feel, & we want to want, & we don’t want Cheap Trick jokes inserted here, unless they are awesome. We are strict & unbiased; aesthetic & craft are Queen; we want to read a good piece as much as our readers, so write one before submitting."

We recommend reading: Illness as Matador, by Michael Klein

THE BOILER JOURNAL
From the publisher: "The Boiler began in 2011 by a group of writers at Sarah Lawrence College. We publish poetry, fiction, and nonfiction on a quarterly basis. We like work that turns up the heat, whistles, and stands up to pressure."

We recommend reading: Poems by Sarah Ann Winn

PRICK OF THE SPINDLE
From the publisher: "We publish poetry, fiction (from flash to novella-length), drama, creative and academic nonfiction, articles, interviews, literary reviews, film, and visual art. Although we do not publish genre fiction, we are open to different forms. These may be more traditional, but infused with freshness and innovation; or experimental but not chaotic: if it is chaos in complete freedom of form you are aiming at, envelop it within some structure, even if only the structure of meaning. To submit, visit the submission guidelines page for the link to the submission manager."

We recommend reading: In Case of Infection, by Vicki Entreken

LANA TURNER
From the publisher: "The Lana Turner Blog is edited by David Lau. Currently seeking essays or reviews of recent books of poetry, albums, literary criticism, films, film theory, and accounts of contemporary political economy. Accepting proposals for various kinds of journalistic reports. Electronic submission should be sent in one file to dmlau@ucsc.edu. Submissions welcome all year."

We recommend reading: 3 poems from Trilce, by Cesar Vallejo

* Bonus points for publishing Vallejo

BERFROIS
From the publisher: "Berfrois is a literary-intellectual online magazine. It is edited by Russell Bennetts. The site is updated daily. Berfrois is published by Pendant Publishing in London, UK." 

We recommend reading: Doohickey: Vertigo's Elusive Homage, by B. Alexandra Szerlip

SPORKLET
From the publisher: "Sporklet (est’d. 2015) is published quasi-monthly, features poetry & fiction, and occasionally includes solicited art, music, film…"

We recommend reading: Seven poems, by Alyssa Morhardt-Goldstein

LA VAGUE
From the publisher: "La Vague publishes eight female poets and eight works by a female artist under a set theme twice a year in January and July. La Vague intends to show the close relationship between poetry and visual art and how certain themes resonate among the contributors."

We recommend reading: Start minting, Uninc, by Candance Wuelhe

Hodaya Louis: Diary Of An Artist + Her Paintings Of Women Around The World

Hodaya Louis is a professional artist, fashion illustrator and designer. In 2010 she was officially recognized as a “Distinguished Artist of Israel.” She's been featured by Valentino, Glamour, Rachel Zoe, Vogue, Roberto Cavalli and plenty of others. Currently, she's working on a "collection of large-scale mixed-media paintings embracing the different faces of women around the world." You can (and should!) support that project here. Her Kickstarter is finalized in 13 days, at which time she will commence work on the sort of project that Hodaya has always been so good at: creating inspired artwork that manages to illuminate the beauty and diversity of women.

Hodays's artwork was also featured on Bravo’s Real Housewives Of Orange County, she is the winner of Next Generation Design Award from the Luxottica group, and she was a guest judge and speaker at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT), where she also studied. She developed her art skills with her father, David Louis, the fine artist Leonid Blaklav, as well as fashion illustration with Steven Stipelman. She went on to intern at Marc Jacobs, then was hired as a shoe designer for Payless, collaborating with designers such as Isabel Toledo, Christian Siriano and Lela Rose. From 2010 to 2013, as the head designer of an international manufacturing company, her illustrated designs and artworks were presented to the Metropolitan Museum of art, Kenneth Cole Reaction, Nine West, Bloomingdale’s, Lord & Taylor, Dillards, and OPI, among others. Her work blends art, fashion and beauty seamlessly.

I wanted Hodaya to tell her own story, and so here it is.

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BY HODAYA LOUIS

It is Monday morning, I am sitting at my art studio, surrounded by paint tubes, sticks of pastels, buckets of brushes and oil paints. Some artworks are still drying on the floor, next to rolls of canvas and paper. It’s a mess, but I’m comfortable here, at my little island of art. It is a great morning, because last night I already found what I’m going to paint. Each artwork I paint is born through inspiration found after hours-long browsing of photographs.

Today, my inspiration is a photograph of actress Taraji P. Henson. The photo captures my attention immediately; black and white, close-up on her face, eyes closed, dramatic lighting. And now I’m sitting in front of a blank large paper. and I take a deep breath. It is an exciting moment, that second before I touch the paper with my brush.

It is terrifying too. I know that with years of art lessons and practice I’ve developed the skills required to paint what I envision, but I don’t know if others will like, understand or connect to that vision. I know that in the next few hours of painting session my energy will be intense, my concentration and senses at their pick, my phone off, I will be standing up over the developing piece with tension in my muscles, working with controlled hand movements. And I love it, that exhilarating sense of something being born, of colors and strokes and lights and shadows, and with that excitement I will feel how dark clouds of doubt are forming in my mind (will they like it? will they get it? am I a good artist? will someone buy it? can I make a living as an artist?) and I keep painting and painting fighting those clouds, my brain buzzing with non-stop alarms (is this purple deep enough, should I have started with the background, what color should go next, is there harmony, oil pastel or acrylic, is the composition good, is are the proportions correct, is the yellow too red, should I add a hint of blue to cool it a bit) If I use a wet medium that requires waiting time to dry, like watercolor, I walk back and forth like in a sort of cage, counting the seconds, or impatiently grabbing a blow-drier to speed up the process, because I cannot wait any longer, I need to continue because I’m afraid that I will lose that momentum, that the vision will disappear from my brain and I will not be able to make sense of all those smudges. And when it’s done, and the piece is completed and my mind and heart stop racing, and I say loudly – done! I sit down in a slump, exhausted, smiling, in love with the world.

Being an artist, in my mind, means to create, to leave a part of you in this world. That part needs to be correct, to be a true reflection of you, otherwise it should not exist. When you do such personal act, it feels like allowing someone to sit next to you in a private theater and seeing the exclusive movie made for you only. Whatever comes out is somehow very personal, a piece of me that I share with others.

However, I if something happens during that process, a moment of distraction, a shift of mood, a second of blockage in the course of those hours of intense energy pouring out on the paper, and the artwork is not precise, it is not part of me, it failed. I might not be able to recognize the problem, to identify what makes me flinch, but something will be off and I will maybe try to redeem it but it is lost, gone. And all that amazing energy I have pumping in my veins will disappear in an almost physical pain, and like a deflated balloon I will go to my bedroom, get under the blanket, and close my eyes. That taste of failure is as strong as as a bad memory that keeps coming back, something that I am learning to accept as inevitable part of creation, like painful PMS.

I push myself to be resilient, get out of that bed of self-pity quickly. I became a full time artist two years ago, and I learned that being an artist means that every day I do not attempt to draw or paint is a wasted day. Still, picking up a pencil requires a lot of energy, positive energy. I cannot paint angry or sad. For me, a complete piece, either pretty or dark, means I produced, created, in a good state of mind, and it’s a great sense of accomplishment.

There is a harmony and balance in the face of a woman that fascinates me. Sometimes after drawing a face, I can’t bring myself to go on with hair or body because I feel that the piece is completed. As I constantly look for faces to draw, I am intrigued by studying different racial bone structures and skin tones. I love doing portraits and capturing some of the essence of my subjects.

At a show I had this summer a woman came and looked at my sketch of a woman’s head, with emphasis on the bone structure. she inspected it for a while, and then asked me if it’s a portrait of an actual person, which it was not. “So what is the purpose of this?” she asked. I realized at that moment how personal my art is. It is even act of selfishness – I like this vision, I will put it on paper. Others might not get it or not appreciate it, but it does not matter to me.

Artists that create controversial art are the same way – when an artist has a vision she/he must create it as it is, whether the viewers like it or not. Just like most artists, having my work featured publicly makes me proud. Hearing compliments and comments is amazing and gives me great sense of accomplishment. I especially love when someone finds one of my pieces “moving,” even if a stranger says that I just feel like we are connected on a personal level.

My technical skills did not come easily; I studied all forms of art for 15 years, with the Russian artist Leonid Balaklav and with the legendary fashion Illustrator Steven Stipelman among many other great teachers, and I practice almost every day. So to me, a finished piece of art is rewarding as money earned after hard work, and being able to show and share it is priceless.

Nardo Lilly’s Debut Album Takes Wing

BY COLLEEN FOSTER

Brushing off those pop culture paradigms, she defies classification in any either/or, black/white, good girl/bad girl dichotomy. As the title track of The Wing Woman LP goes: “For once could I be the love interest / As well as the comic relief?”

Listening to her inaugural studio release, it’s easy to picture this singer-songwriter nailing that “As well as.” But not by hiding her goofy whims -- rather, boldly using them to fuel our collective crush on the lion-maned, guitar-strumming bundle of paradoxes that is Nardo Lilly.

Northern Virginia native Annie Nardolilli, whose surname-bending musician identity is further evidence of her creativity, is clearly educated in ways that go far beyond her Temple University Bachelor’s degree. From Les Misérables to Yuri Gagarin, Smokey the Bear to Neil deGrasse Tyson, the breadth of her allusions shows off an eclectic pop culture palate.

And, like a spicy food whose capsaicin has a delayed kick a minute after you bite in, the punchlines of her songs sneak up on you. For example: with a slick bluesy electric bass riff, the perennial crowd favorite “Benedict Cumberbatch” enumerates all the traits she desires in a boyfriend. It’s a hefty shopping list, from “look[ing] like David Beckham in his underwear” to “all that 1940s Humphrey Bogart swag.”

But then she flips the switch: “But if I’m supposed to look like the girls in magazines / Then I’ll hold men up to the standards they set up for me / So if you’ve gotta’ have your model / I’ve gotta’ have Benedict Cumberbatch.”

Ha. This is no pining ingenue. The joke’s on you. Or even better, you’re in on it.

Performing live, these twister lines come with a sly smile that pops the bubble. Gigs have included Libertine, Acre 121, and Ebenezers in Washington, D.C., the IOTA Club & Café in Arlington, Virginia, and World Cafe Live in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

This whimsy translates effortlessly on the recording, available as of a month ago on iTunes, CD Baby, and Spotify and intended soon for an old-school compact disc. It is the long-awaited culmination of a summer in the studio under the tutelage of producer and engineer Ken Barnum at Recording Arts in Springfield, Virginia.

Her own guitar and vocals shine center stage, a lyrical pop/folk alto reminiscent of Ingrid Michaelson and Vanessa Carlton. She is backed up on all nine original compositions by Kyle Harlos’s smooth strums on the bass, Corie Schofield’s soulful violin that can morph into a good ole fiddle when it needs to evoke the 1860s (check out “Appomattox”) and Ethan Drake’s reliable percussion.

“Kitty Hawk” has a pensiveness to her future, an earnest recognition of where she is but reminding any standby not to underestimate her. “Don’t think that just because I’ve found my wings / Means I’m going anywhere anytime soon / But now you see I can fly across the beach / And in due time / I’ll make it beyond the moon.” Alright, then. We are buckled in and ready for takeoff. Let’s go along for the ride.

PS: Follow Nardo Lilly’s Facebook page and Twitter to stay on top of her performance schedule and new song releases.

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Colleen Foster is a freelance writer, editor, artist, and language teacher in Arlington, Virginia. She carries Bachelor's degrees in Spanish and English from Shenandoah University, and her work previously appeared in Luna Luna in "10 Signs You're A Politi-Kid."

Linda Griggs Lets Us Know Plain and Simple, The First Time Is Not Like Porn

BY DALLAS ATHENT

The walls of Christopher Stout Gallery, New York are lined with expertly painted images drawn from porn by artist Linda Griggs. Faces with mouths agape moan in ecstasy. Next to these images are stories of people losing their virginity. One memory recalls “It really hurt. Tears were sliding down the side of my face. He didn’t notice. Then outside the window a bottle rocket went off and we laughed.”

What these stories do is show the reality of what “the first time” is often like, divorcing the over-saturated, hollywood version that porn teaches us is real from our psyche. Griggs’ adaptation of the images through the work of her own hand, restores them to an organic order on the page. As Griggs herself said, pornography creates unreasonable expectations. “Young women need to see this so they know it’s okay to be awkward.”

The collection is powerful and honest. Griggs has possibly made one of the most complete bodies of work to enhance feminist ideas in 2015 with this show.

Christopher Stout Gallery, New York is located on 299 Meserole Street. “The First Time Is Not Like Porn” is on view through the end of the month.

Gallery Hours: Thursday through Sunday, Noon-6:00pm and also by private appointment.
E-mail: c.stout.gallery.ny@gmail.com

Photos by Dallas Athent

Amazing Feminist Zine Roundup

BY ELIZABETH KING

Summer is here, and for many of us that means one very important thing: THE BEACH. The beach is where we relax, rollick, get sun-burnt, and enjoy light reads. I’ve perused my fair share of tabloids over past summer months, but these days, I have a new quick-read obsession: zines. All the zines! Well, all the girl power zines. The zine world is still alive and very well, even though it’s been a couple decades (we’re getting so old…) since the Riot Grrrl movement blew the lid off of the DIY feminist art movement.

Over the last several months, I have scoured the internet (and by internet I mean Etsy) for the best in what’s new with feminist zines, and I am happy to be able to report back some killer recommendations. Instead of reaching for Us Weekly or god forbid Cosmo for our summer reading, we can support feminist artists and writers while simultaneously being entertained and even learning a thing or two.

So, for your feminist reading pleasure, I present to you my top five zine recommendations of the moment:

Interactive Intro To Self-Care

This is perhaps my all-time favorite zine. Brought to us by the wonderful Janelle Silver, this adorable little creation is packed full of amazing ideas, activities, recipes, and other goodies all centered on ways to love yourself. What could be better? The uplifting and super-cute illustrations accompany serious insights about why it’s important to care for ourselves. I have never seen such a fun and honest way to approach self-care. The best parts: stickers you can color yourself and tea recipes for different moods. Check out this and other works from Janelle at www.janelle-silver.com, because you are worth it!

Empower Yoself Before You Wreck Yoself: Native American Feminist Musings

I love this zine because it exclusively discusses the experience of young Navajo women. The Native perspective is rarely heard in mainstream feminist discourse, and this zine is a great way for all of us to educate ourselves about this particularly margianalized intersection. Co-writers Melanie Fey and Amber McCrarty created this zine in order to make a space for Navajo women to contribute to the feminist dialogue and feel at home in various counter-cultures. Based on the awesome content of their zine, I would definitely say they are succeeding. In particular you will want to check out the letter that Melanie wrote to her Governor about the use of Native mascots in public schools. If you are a Native woman who wants to contribute to this zine, you can get in touch with the creators at NAfeministmusings@gmail.com.

OMG Lesbians!

This is a great comic for when you want to crack up while also giving a little side-eye to stereotypes about lesbians. OMG Lesbians! is Greek artist Smar’s exploration of the ridiculous ogling and leering that lesbians are frequently subjected to when they express any affection in public (the comic includes a lot of honking and whistling). She also humorously confronts some stereotypes that come from within the lesbian community, as well as the nutty myths that persist about gay women. My favorite quip is from a page about lesbian myths. Myth: lesbianism is contagious. Lesbian’s response: Sadly, no… You can see more from Smar at SmarMakesComics.tumblr.com. You won’t regret it.

Black Women Matter

The importance of this zine can’t be understated. Created by the artist and writer’s collective Underground Sketchbook, Black Women Matter uses portraits, quotes and thoughtful biographies to honor and remember Black women who have been killed by law enforcement. The zine is heartbreaking in that it details tragedies many of us have never heard of before, but it is also very empowering to take the opportunity to commemorate these women. This zine is critical reading for anyone involved with, interested in, or following the Black Lives Matter Movement. I would encourage everyone to explore more of the social justice-based art created by Underground Sketchbook at undergroundsketchbook.tumblr.com.

Anxiety Comics

As someone who struggles with anxiety, this comic really resonated with me. Artist Stacey Bru portrays her anxiety in a way that so many of us experience it: as an annoying little creature that incessantly nags us with insecurity, self-doubt, and angst. Stacey also shows readers that it’s possible to deal with anxiety in healthy ways (see: Intro to Self-Care!) so that it does not control our lives. This is a really cathartic zine to read if you experience anxiety, and a great learning opportunity if you have any sort of relationship with an anxious person. You can see what else Stacey is up to on Twitter at @staceybru.

So there it is! I am always fiending for more zines, so if you have a cool idea for a comic, informational series, or DIY art book, go ahead and make one! Chances are I will end up being one of your customers.

Hair Jewelry, Post Mortem Photographs and iPhones - A Lineage Of Haunting & Desire

BY LIZ VON KLEMPERER

To love someone is to want to give them your body.  To love someone is to want to be given their body.

No one illustrates this point more grotesquely and tenderly than The Victorians, who bundled the hair of their lovers and wove it into jewelry.  Men, for example, often braided their lovers’ hair to secure watches to their wrists.  Women adorned themselves with coiled wisps in glass lockets.  These would be worn on low hanging chains, allowing them to rest right over the heart.  Hair jewelry, as it is commonly called, was a display of affection and devotion to both living and deceased lovers.  Mourners incorporated these strands of the dead into black material such as jet, or more inexpensively, vulcanite (a hardened rubber) and bog oak.

This practice offers a variant spin on our current conception of the phrase “to have” someone.  The Victorians claimed ownership over the bodies of their beloveds by transforming them into ornament.  Not only was this ownership asserted very visually and concretely to others, it also symbolized a triumph over the inevitable: estrangement, death.  Everyone knows that hair is dead from the moment it becomes visible on the scalp, but even so, The Victorians so delicately curated these lustrous and dead clumps to symbolize vivacity, sexuality, and the eternal.

Soon after the invention of the daguerreotype in 1839, however, hair jewelry became less trendy.  People could now carry flattened, shrunken images of their loved ones.  By the mid 1840’s, the middle of The Victorian era, the daguerreotype was made relatively accessible and affordable to the public.  

The slow shudder speed, however, forced subjects to sit still for uncomfortably long periods of time.  Thus, the daguerreotype was initially used to memorialize the dead, who had no qualms sitting without blinking for over a minute.  Photographers concocted methods of propping up corpses or shrouding them in blankets to make it appear that they were leaning on a sofa or merely resting.  Mothers could carry the black and white image of their deceased children with healthy rouge superimposed on their cheeks.  In this way we got closer to our ultimate desire to possess the people we love, to own them in a constant, albeit fabricated, state, to lessen the sting of death and departure.  Desire shape-shifted into a new era.

A century goes by.  Our preoccupations morph but never evolve.  Tonight, I fall asleep cradling my phone, which contains thousands of images of my former lovers.  Now they are ghosts, swirling under a blackened glass frame.  Sometimes the ghosts talk to me.  Not to me, exactly, but at me.  Your ex lover is 5 miles away from you now, my machine chirps.  There she is now, for 6 seconds only, an apparition, a puff of smoke.  Tonight, I am fed this video: she is smiling garishly against the flash before tilting her device upwards to capture the sea of revelers behind her.  The scene ends abruptly as someone utters her name, and I am in the dark again.  I know that my machine gains nutrients from the outlet it is plugged into, and that comforts me.

We’ve worked for centuries to keep the dead alive, and now they are, almost.  The frame updates.  Mechanisms work silently inside, allowing us to see those who have departed us laugh, drink, and stare with an agonizing adoration at a face that is not our own.

In the continuing lineage of desire, we have become the designers and facilitators of our own haunting.  And everyone knows the secret to a good haunting is to make the mind play tricks on itself.  Now instead of the illusion of eternal life, we have fabricated the illusion of eternal closeness. Death is not solely the passing of the body but also a severance of ties.  We are haunted by the living dead, by the people who have vanished from our daily lives but not from our consciousness.  In my desire to possess my beloved, I know where she drank coffee this morning. I have read the article she skimmed on her lunch break.

I try to put away this vehicle of my own haunting.  I try not to carry it to bed.  Still, it feels as though I am relishing the image of a corpse as I go to refresh my newsfeed on some park bench during my lunch break.  It is noon, and I am drowsy, hungry, and seeking the comfort of a screen that contains all my bright and illuminated dead behind it.

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Liz Von Klemperer is the author of the unpublished novel "Human Eclipse."  She also writes for Art Report, and has work forthcoming in Autostraddle.  When she's not writing or tweeting at @lvonklemp, she coordinates events at The Powerhouse Arena in Dumbo, Brooklyn.

6 Incredible Pieces of Art We Saw at Mana Contemporary’s Open House

BY DALLAS ATHENT

On Sunday, October 18th Mana Contemporary hosted one of their quarterly open houses. The Jersey City art establishment boasts studios, galleries and performance spaces in a former tobacco factory. While we didn't get to see everything during this event, we chose some of our favorite things that were on display. 

Painting by Arnulf Rainer, exhibit presented by Ayn Foundation

Rainer's versions of the cross are lined up in a vast, open space. Each one has its own truth and reality. In this painting, we see the innocence of a teddy bear plastered in aggressive smears of red. The teddy bear--a symbol of American childhood and innocence is questioned and re-examined along with religious imagery. 

Aluminum Sculpture by Seung Mo Park

This artists' work uses metals to distort landscapes and reality. What you see above is not digital art or a painting, but actually layers of wire mesh with different sized holes cut out in front of a light fixture. The effect is ethereal— softening the harshness of the metal and using its spindly texture to create a new reality. 

Tick Talk by Ziv Yonatan and Lily Rattok

These artists transformed Mana's early 20th century boiler room into an avant- garde, explorative installation. One of the films projected showed details of a spider web, belonging to a spider who actually lives in the boiler room. This small creature's life, displayed in such a vast space was re-purposed and examined in a same parallel universe, causing us to re-examine our own world and what is truly paramount. 

Series by Maria Pavlovska

Maria Pavlovska's work is no stranger to drama. In her latest series, hung at her studio, she represents both disorder and science through wild gestures, overlapped by geometric lines. Behind both of these juxtaposing views, we see her method, and the process the goes into making work that describes the polar opposites of life. 

Painting by Antonio Murado

Chemicals and water are used to dilute paint and provide it with its own, organic, natural order. Murado pours the paint over the canvas, and the results are stunning. By treating the paint as its own matter, as something of the earth, the artist finds that it mimics life naturally. 

Performance by Jon Tsoi

Jon Tsoi gets in his zone in front of a eager watchers for this performance piece. We sit in anticipation, waiting to see what this blindfolded man will do with blank canvasses and a knife. But before he does anything, Tsoi takes deep breaths, centering himself in the space. The crowd is forced to enter a calming state with him, before he meets the canvasses to a knife, destroying the object that's meant for creating. In the destruction, he creates something new. 

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Photographs by Dallas Athent.