issue 2 // prose

visual art by Emi Knight, Cynthia Yachtman, Gabi Abrahamson, Jeanette Lamb, and Cathi Beckstrand

HARRISON CANDELARIA FLETCHER // TRANSPLANTS

nonfiction

"We watched through the window as our mother and uncle retrieved two shovels from the trunk, and attacked the hill like a couple of grave robbers, sand flying, glancing over their shoulders for approaching traffic."

ALMA GARCÍA // PEARL

fiction

"No rain for months and the irrigation ditch full, who can explain it?"

GABRILLA BALLARD // SWEET

nonfiction

"I shifted in my seat, leaned forward as if ready to lunge. I was startled by his voice echoing against the walls; crashing into our bodies."

CHARLOTTE M. PORTER // RIP CURL

fiction

"Sierra thinks about Sunday Ruth, the dumpster diver who lives in the Bible and gleans left-overs. Ruth must be pretty. That's why the boss owner says Okay to hanging around, picking over the trash, taking stuff no one else wants."

MATTHEW KABIK // SO I LEARN TO WALK LIKE FEAR

fiction

"When he tilts his head to the side, I forget he's my brother."

A.R. CASTELLANOS // TONIC

hybrid

"There's a man lying beside my body in the yard.

He has taken my heart, wrapped in his decrepit liver.

                  I lean into him. He smells ripe."

JAKE SAULS // SOMETHING ABOUT THIS

hybrid

"The year after we graduated Junie went to Paris and I became a boy."

NGHIEM TRAN // NIGHT RAIDS

fiction

"We had only been caught once. The man kicked his door open and wielded a big shotgun, pointing it right at us."

MARCOS GONSALEZ // IF LIFE WERE A COMIC

fiction

"This issue of Batman was much more interesting than those exaggerated orgasms, I mused, my body curled like a comma, dangled over the seat in front of me."

CHRISTINA MONTILLA // THE OL' NEIGHBORHOOD or DEHISCENCE /de•his•cense/

hybrid

"in the yard across the street: late August blooms."

SAMANTHA SCHNIRRING // ICE

fiction

"It was that time of evening when the sun turned cold and most of its heat had dipped below the horizon."

MIGUEL PICHARDO // TOXIC FIXATIONS

hybrid

"Home was a sub-rosa candy shop. Goodies laced with toxic lead."

SWATI KHURANA // RENEWABLE ENERGY

hybrid

"When the unwanted children turned into solar panels, they gathered along the two-way billboard-free highways in clusters between dairy farms."

GRACE FINLAYSON // BATHWATER

fiction

"The bubbles made my eyes sting; I would say I was turning blind."

QUINCY SCOTT JONES // THE END OF THE WORLD

hybrid

"The end of the world comes in a small brown box marked US POSTAL FIRST CLASS. WARNING: CONTENTS MAY CONTAIN THE END OF THE WORLD."

VISUAL ARTIST BIOS:

"These paintings are representational of the process of getting well, and the exploration of mental/emotional health and dysfunction through memories and present events. Some of the works depict places we find comfort in moments of vulnerability, while others illustrate the uncomfortable, indefinite, and often terrifying experience of growth and change. They represent the courage, cowardice, and uncertainty we stumble across when we are blatantly and unforgivingly faced with ourselves - our strengths, and our weaknesses. 

Each work begins differently, either in a place of abstraction or with a specific point of interest, and slowly, clumsily builds itself up. Some pieces find themselves in a state of near completion in a matter of hours or days, while others grow and reconstruct for months before they begin to fit together. The paintings are pieced together in layers. Patterns, broad areas of color and texture coupled with minute, illustrative details are integrated in the early stages of the paintings, and eventually recognizable forms, figures, and landscapes take shape. I strive for the process of creating each painting to be reflective of the process of internal growth and discovery – open, patient, and unpredictable." 

Emi Knight is a painter, illustrator, designer, maker from southern Indiana. She currently works in Denver, Colorado.

"My images contain many diverse layers of meaning from the universal to the specific and personal. I am frequently interested in pattern and/or creating a rich sensual surface by making layer upon layer of marks. There often is an unseen history within these layers as images are obscured and revealed. My work frequently gives reference to my experience with nature. At times it speaks to issues of social justice, revelation and connection and how we are all one. 

A former ceramicist, I received my B.F.A. in painting from the University of Washington. My works are housed in numerous public and private collections and have been shown nationally in California, Connecticut, New York, Indiana, Michigan, Oregon and Wyoming. I have exhibited extensively in the northwest, including shows at Seattle University, Seattle Pacific University, Shoreline Community College, the Tacoma Convention Center, and the Seattle Pacific Science Center."
 

Cynthia Yatchman is a Seattle based painter. She works primarily with acrylic paint, ink, papers, charcoal and canvas. Her work is often segmented into pieces, diptychs, triptychs and quartets.

"I am a self taught artist, and treat the process of illustration as one of pure emotional release. I pour not simply my anxieties into my work, but my heart and soul. Each piece that I have created thus far is finished in one sitting, ranging from a brief twenty minutes to nearly eleven hours. After finishing a drawing, I feel as if all the stress, fears and anxieties that have compressed themselves into my bones have used my hands as a method of transplanting themselves onto a sheet of paper, allowing me feel like myself once again. 

In many ways, I feel that this is why my aesthetic has become so consistent - it took me a few years, but I found the methods that make me feel the most balanced and have let them evolve on their own to the best of my ability. My most recent work has consisted of continuous line drawings, allowing my focus to become absorbed in the motion of the pen and trying to let go instead of creating something crisp through extensive drafting."

Cathi Beckstrand is a visual artist and Bay Area local currently based in San Francisco, California.  She is in her last year at the San Francisco Art Institute, studying both Urban Theory and Photography.  She primarily works with pen and ink, color film, and embroidery.  She uses her studies to influence her work, drawing inspiration from the natural sciences, critical theory, and her own personal history.