[QUINN GRUBER]

Tomatoes

Lanternfly

“Lanternfly” and “Tomatoes” are both linocuts that I made in 2021. The former was a potential logo for a zine-anthology of ecopoetics I helped design in a class on poetry and print culture; the latter was a gift for my grandfather, who has taught me how to care for the plants around me. Lately, I’ve tried to experiment freely with techniques and media rather than obsessing over making my art “perfect.” This comes across in the rough textures and imperfections of the prints. I’ve found, overall, that experimentation has allowed me to grow much more.

These pieces also make me think about questions of imperfection in an environmental sense. Spotted lanternflies are highly invasive in the US, first introduced to Pennsylvania in 2014. Meanwhile, tomatoes, native to South and Central America, are grown widely across the world, but are not considered “invasive” because they do not spread beyond where humans plant them. Invasiveness, therefore, is measured by the utility of the introduced species and the perceived threat to the ecosystem. It is undeniable that invasive species and diseases often have catastrophic effects on native life; Hawai’i has suffered an incredible number of extinctions due to Western colonialism, for example. But dialogue about invasive plants and animals in the US often fails to acknowledge that species from North America are invasive in Asia, Africa, and Europe, and some non-native species actually benefit our environment. This raises questions about how such black-and-white binaries of “good” and “bad,” “native” and “invasive,” shape our politics, cultures, histories, and languages, and how we might reframe them to become more nuanced. While my art doesn’t explicitly deal with those issues here, I think getting to know the plants and animals around us can teach us a lot about the world in general.

Quinn Gruber

[about]

Quinn Gruber is a poet, artist, scholar, and translator from New York that finds endless joy in little things like leaves, doodles, and tiny doors that go nowhere. Their art and writing has appeared in DoubleSpeak, Q-INE, and Equilibria, and they’ve published short reviews in Jacket2. Most recently, they had the good fortune to present at this year’s International James Joyce Foundation symposium on Joyce’s challenging of nineteenth-century degeneracy theory and ableism in Ulysses. They’re currently working on a translation of Italian poet Margherita Guidacci’s The Sand and the Angel and figuring out their next steps after university.

You can tip Quinn on Venmo: @QuinnGr

[ELLEN HARROLD]

Woven Rocks

My work focuses on the relationship between learning, scientific exploration, love, and understanding. Through my work, I aim to explore histories of storytelling, art, and science as the means by which we understand the natural world. This piece is based on the decimation of eels in the Shannon river basin and how their loss will impact our understanding and relationship with nature. As someone who grew up within a stone’s throw of the river, these creatures are as much a part of my life as the air itself. In the face of collective mourning of culture and people at the death of a species that has preceded them and shaped our world, does our curiosity and love of the world continue to hold meaning? ‘Woven Rocks’ is part of a series of handwoven wool pieces. These pieces map sedimentary changes, water levels, and eel migration patterns in the Shannon river in recent years. Drawing on images of eels through their life cycle, our attempts to map out and understand their behavior and the ecosystem of the rivers they inhabit.

Ellen Harrold

[about]

Ellen Harrold is an artist focused on the human connection to science and nature. She is currently completing a masters degree in Art, Science, and Visual thinking at Dundee University and has recieved a bachelors degree in Fine Art from IADT in Dublin. A core aspect of her practice is the use of painting, drawing, text, and textiles to explore the connection between conscious mind and our understanding of the world around us. At the moment she is focused on how scientific understanding was, and continues to be understood through the lens of art and storytelling. She has taken part in IADT student shows such as New Translations in IMMA (2019), On Show in IADT (2022) and Propositions in IADT (2022).

You can tip Ellen on PayPal: @elliebelle2015

[LINDA HAWKINS]

Into the Mist

“Into the Mist”, came about simply on an early morning walk along the often foggy California coastline. The view in front of me seemed like something out of a movie thriller, so I felt compelled to capture it with the camera.

Linda Hawkins

[about]

Linda Hawkins is a self-taught watercolor artist and photographer, living on the central coast of California. Linda uses her art to express her appreciation for nature, both through the camera lense and the paint brush. Her visual art has appeared in various literary magazines, including: Flash Frog, The Jupiter Review, Pithead Chapel, Acropolis Journal, Wrongdoing Magazine, Moss Puppy Mag, and Harpy Hybrid Review. She can be found on Twitter: @lindamayhawkins and at lindamayhawkins.com

[CAYCEY POUND]

Entrance

I stopped in a small town in South Carolina, and found it mostly empty (the only open business there being a family-run thrift store). Standing in the wreckage of an old tire shop, looking out onto the street, I kept thinking of that phrase “When one door closes… another opens.” I always kind-of hated that phrase, because it seems like it’s only good in hindsight, not when you’re actually grieving the loss of something, feeling like you really may have closed your only door. When the stores close one by one, when the local tire shop is torn apart, when the town barely has anyone left, what or where is that next door? “When one door’s glass has been broken and its wood is starting to rot–abandoned for so long a tree grew through it… there surely is another Entrance (however ominous) lined up just for you.”

Caycey Pound

[about]

Caycey Pound (@briefcayc on Twitter and everywhere else) is a poet from South Carolina with a B.A. in English from College of Charleston (‘20). She spends most of her time with family, her super-wonderful pug, and her plants. You can find her poetry in Magpie Literary Journal.

You can tip Caycey on Venmo: @briefcayc

[MITCHELL LÜTHI]

The March

The March is a surrealist piece depicting the 20th century’s march against untamed nature. In its surrealist composition, it features an amalgamation of harvestmen – arachnoid figures with dead human eyes, industrial constructs, and the plumes of smoke heralding their journey west, toward distant trees. The March was created in the moments after finishing and reflecting upon China Miéville’s The Last Days of New Paris, and an investigation into an art style that defined the 20th century for many. 

Mitchell Lüthi

[about]

Mitchell Lüthi is the author of a number of short stories and novellas, as well as the forthcoming audio dramas: The Meridian Watch and Arizona//Cultist. His latest release, His Black Tongue: A Medieval Horror, can be found on Amazon and Audible.

[ABUBAKAR SADIQ MUSTAPHA]

Inside the mouth of a river

Inside the mouth of a river explores the human’s continued dependence on nature, how we take and take and do little or nothing to preserve nature. This work titled inside the mouth of a river shows how different people depend on a river located somewhere in Lapai, Niger state, Nigeria for income with focus on a group of young boys who come daily to the river to fish and sell it in the town, to a rice farmer who irrigate his paddies from the river water, to men who fetch river sand used for building construction, to boys who come to the river to swim. In this picture story, we see how the river plays a role in the simple life of the rural people.

Abubakar Sadiq Mustapha

[about]

Abubakar Sadiq Mustapha is a storyteller, a poet, and an art curator. He believes in the power of photography and how it can be used toward mental health. His work has appeared in the Ebedi Review, The Song Is, The Nigeria Review, The Shallow Tales Review, Libretto Magazine, Literandra, Lolwe  and elsewhere. He is a fellow of the Bada Murya Fellowship. You can find him on Twitter @musadeeeq

You can tip Abubakar on Paypal: abdullahisuleiman599@yahoo.com

[CIERRA G. ROWE]

DIRTY CHIC

Cierra G. Rowe’s DIRTY CHIC

House of the Red Sun

Cierra G. Rowe’s House of the Red Sun

[about]

Cierra G. Rowe is an American painter, poet and fine artist. Her zeal for painting blossomed during adolescence and has since then snowballed into a constant passion. Her artwork has been featured in The Magazine 43, The Bolton Review, Phoebe Journal, Art Reveal Magazine, West Trestle Review, Sad Girl Review, Parenthesis Journal, Mookychic, Candid Orange Magazine and many others. Her poetry has been featured in Arteidolia.

[HALEY MONTGOMERY]

Captain Vancouver 

Haley Montgomery’s Captain Vancouver

Chalet Fever

Haley Montgomery’s Chalet Fever

They said they’re blooming Monday at noon. 

Haley Montgomery’s They said they’re blooming Monday at noon. 

[about]

Haley Montgomery (She/Her) currently lives on the traditional unceded Traditional Coast Salish lands, including the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish), səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), kwikwəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) and Katzie Peoples. This is also known as Vancouver, Canada. Currently, she’s a masters student in public health at Simon Fraser University. She has been published in RatsAss Review for poetry. She spends her free time playing spades and biking really fast around her neighbourhood.

[HANNAH GREENBERG]

Mystic Circle

[about]

KJ Hannah Greenberg tilts at social ills and encourages personal evolutions via poetry, prose, and visual art. Her images have appeared in various places, including in: Bewildering Stories, Les Femmes Folles, Mused, Tuck, vox poetica, and Yellow Mama. She uses her trusty point-and-shoot camera to capture the order of G-d’s universe, and Paint 3D to capture the chaos of her universe. Sometimes, it remains insufficient for her to sate herself by applying verbal whimsy to pastures where gelatinous wildebeests roam or fey hedgehogs play.

[SERENA PICCOLI]

English Garages

Manchester

the dust is yet to come

[about]

Italian poet\playwright\photographer\charlatan\cyclist\performer\feminist\lesbian\swimmer human rights activist\traveller\chocolate lover\

Her political chapbook “silviotrump” was published by Moria Poetry, Chicago, USA. Her poems and photos are featured in anthologies and magazines in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Ireland, Nigeria, India, Croatia, Italy and Romania. She writes both in English and Italian about social contemporary issues with a touch of irony.

Twitter: @piccoli_serena
https://serenapiccoli.wixsite.com/serenapiccoli