Joanna C. Valente is the author of Sirs & Madams, The Gods Are Dead, Marys of the Sea, Xenos, and the editor of A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault.
Read MoreExploring Abandonment Through Art: Colleen Blackard's 'Abandoned Series'
From Austin, Texas, Colleen Blackard is based in Brooklyn, NY and creates drawings inspired by the light of the Texas night skies of her youth. She received a BA from Hampshire College, MA, and her drawings have been shown in London, Moscow, Tokyo, New York City, and more. Her work has been featured in such venues as Fountain Art Fair, ACA Galleries, Rush Arts Gallery, Family Business Gallery, Owen James Gallery, and Brooklyn Fire Proof. She was featured in the Brooklyn episode of the Japanese travel show, Hotel no Madokora, and is represented by ISSO Gallery in Tokyo, and Aberson Exhibits in Tulsa, OK. Her drawings are in Pierogi Gallery's Flat Files in NYC, and she was interviewed for their Artist's Q&A. Her work is featured in the current publication of Drawing Magazine, with an interview published on their website: Why Colleen Blackard is an Artist to Watch.
Read MoreArt, Activism & Motherhood: Poet & Book Binder Rebecca Gonzales
...bookbinding, activism, and mothering brown boys in these tumultuous days
Read MoreWinona Ryder's Misfit Fashion in Film
She's been a paradox, a popular unpopular...
Read MoreIn the Margins as a Sri Lankan Woman, Artist, & Educator
F. Asma Nazim-Starnes was born in Kandy, Sri Lanka and left her country at a young age to pursue a college education in Graphic Design. She studied for a BA in Graphic Design at Florida Southern College in Lakeland, FL, minoring in Art History, and took four years of painting in addition to studying digital design media. She decided to further her studies and attended Florida Atlantic University in Fort Lauderdale, FL to obtain an MFA in Graphic Design.
Read MoreNot Just Roses & Regrets, Tattoos Are a Way to Reclaim Your Body
...I decide when they become what they are.
Read MoreThese Witch GIFS Will Infuse Some Fun Magic into Your Day
Joanna C. Valente is the author of Sirs & Madams, The Gods Are Dead, Marys of the Sea, Xenos, and the editor of A Shadow Map: An Anthology by Survivors of Sexual Assault.
Read MoreStrange Beauty: Chavela Vargas
When aesthetic is subversive, it is both strange and beautiful…
Read More4 Poems by Jennifer Dane Clements
BY JENNIFER DANE CLEMENTS
the needle/work variations
drawn from the stitchings of Nelly Custis Lewis
Note: These are currently displayed as a part of an exhibition at the Woodlawn Mansion in Virginia (also known as the house George Washington gifted his granddaughter). The show runs through march 31.
Variation I
every stitch
counted
woven histories
like petticoat folds
beneath your muslin gown
we are meant
for making.
spill your words.
a sampler
a grammar
a craftsmanship of letters
cousin to
embroidery or filigree
or plainwork or painting.
is it a feminine trait
to absorb and reshape,
to ornament the world
not in beauty but in meaning
and constraint
to dispatch parts of self
enveloped
to others
and like colonial children
three of every seven
fail to thrive
we do this for those
that may endure.
Variation II
every stitch
shall be counted.
so obsess.
it is a woman’s work
arranging like daffodils or constellations
filaceous shade and shadow
what forms a thread but fiber and care
what forms a fiber but proof of life:
a cotton bud, a lamb’s mottled fleece
or wormspun silk
or you.
so embroider.
it is a woman’s work
to layer new life upon the old,
a woman’s body constructed
for its own remaking.
everything cloaks its meaning
in something else
(we call this beauty
or symbol
or preservation)
and what forms a word
but a thread spun of letters
what forms a letter
but proof of a hand
are these words threads
or are these threads words
pigmented
pin-pricked
I have remade
and sent myself to you.
look now, Elizabeth:
your fingertips
smeared thick with
ink and blood.
Variation III
every stitch
counted
thread-made things
in female-governed spaces:
harpsichord, piano
bracelets beaded in seed-small glass.
these hands
intractable makers
conductors of string.
look:
a firescreen.
its basket of flowers
tactile and scentless
save the memory of berries
bacciferous pigment dreams,
stitches the age of a nation.
it was blue once
the way a song tethers memory
the thread’s song is blue
yellows deepened to ochre
whites dusted to gray
still blue is most willing to fade
as though a lesson
on age, or sunlight
each thread traces a different path
counting only its own rows
they may take years to complete.
I have stitched without planning
it has landed me here
yet always there is a design.
thread will not ask its reason
its pattern
but like a good skeptic
I do.
Variation IV
every stitch
counted
we have worked by candlelight
for hours now
or do I mean days,
or do I mean decades
let us not suggest the process is delicate
a pierce repeated
through and through
tell me where creation occurs
without rupture
I dare you.
thimbles and revolution
obsessions of different scale
the fall and the falciform
the carmine of cochineal
your dye a siren acid.
let us not suppose women are delicate
a puncture repeated
through and through.
tell me where creation occurs
without rupture
even counted, even planned.
let us not suppose we do this
only to pass the hours
I am this thread
and tapestry needle
the wounded fabric
the loveliest
and most colorful
carnations and daffodils
tattooed on me
as on canvas.
Jennifer Dane Clements is a writer and editor based in Washington, DC. Her work has been featured in publications including Barrelhouse, Hippocampus, WordRiot, Psychopomp, and The Intentional. She holds an MFA in creative writing from George Mason University, and is currently working on a collection of creative nonfiction. Jennifer has received fellowships from the Fulbright Commission and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, as well as nominations for the Pushcart Prize, the Larry Neal Writer's Award, and the Best of the Net Award, among other honors. She serves as a judge for the Helen Hayes Awards and volunteers as a teaching artist at the Sitar Arts Center.
Come See Luna Luna at KGB Bar in NYC March 8 for The Body As Object
12 poets, KGB Bar.
Read MoreWhen Pop Goes Gothique: A Music Video Roundup
Here's what happens when popular music gets darkly glamorous...
Read MorePhotography by Toby Penney
Toby Penney is a southern artist working in paint, photography, printmaking and multiple sculpture media. She creates work accepting, even glorifying simple objects and fleeting moments. Penney holds a sculpture degree from Middle Tennessee State University. From 2005 until 2010 she held a Vitreography internship with Master Printmaker Judith O’Rourke at Harvey K. Littleton Studios, in Western North Carolina. She was honored when asked by the studio to photograph the process for the first Littleton sanctioned studio manual/ book about Vitreography. In the Fall of 2008 Toby was the guest artist in the printmaking department at Penland School of Craft, working with book/paper artist Frank Brannon of Speak Easy Press. Find Penney’s paintings in private and corporate collections and museums. Her images can be found on the cover of Professional Artist Magazine and Hellbent Magazine and featured in Numinous Magazine, Feroce Magazine, and Polonium II, a book by David Downs, among others. She is currently developing a new publication featuring interviews with working artists and crafts people as well as exploring film making as a medium to expand her voice.
Read MoreThis Anti-Trump Art Illustrates Why We Can't Forget About the Holocaust
In times of protest, we rely on artists. We rely on them to create bold works of art that say, and see, what the public understand but can't always articulate. Great art allows us to see ourselves objectively, to evaluate and analyze ourselves and the outside world. Now more than ever, we need real stories from people, showcasing the various perspectives that America is home to.
Read MoreNYC Student Art Show Is the Rally Cry Against Trump That Art Needs
In times of crisis, we rely on art to be bolder, to express how we feel and think. This is why I'm grateful that 17 artists, currently students at Parsons The New School for Design, have come together to express the concept of identity. This exhibit is called “id: ME,” and is currently being shown at the Undercurrent Gallery in the East Village. Yesterday, the exhibit opened, and it's a key exploration in discovering the boundaries between between real and fake identities.
Read MoreThat's So Gay
BY TANMOY DAS
Tanmoy Das lives with their partner Eric and a pea plant in New York City. Their poems have appeared or are forthcoming in several online journals.