Photo: A holiday tribute to our Contributors’ antique, vintage and thrift store “favorite things.”
Welcome to (Re)!
I am very excited to present a curated “journal of ideas” that is a meeting place of visual art, prose, science, and more.
The idea for this endeavor came about from my love of vintage clothing and found objects and the way in which one ‘re’cycles these objects, et al. to make them their own. This concept then grew from that which we acquire in this vein, to that which we create through our various art forms (and yes, science and math are considered here, to be ‘the application of creative skill and imagination,’ as art is formally defined). All of the material presented incorporates a re-root word, such as relive, reinvent, reuse… into its framework in whatever way the artist chooses. And so, (Re) is a product of this expanded idea.
The journal, available monthly online, features the work of artists/creators/thinkers in various categories and I am honored to present their work within this forum.
Thank you so much for taking the time to explore this new and evolving (re)source.
I hope you enjoy the ride!
— Felice Neals
Writer, reader, photographer, dance devotee, film citizen, language-a-phile…
Rat Park
Novel Excerpt
(Re)erection
Adam Novak
Frock Consciousness
Essay
(Re)print
Lisa Levy
Tall Kink Cross Stamp by the DC Escape
Poetry
(Re)live
Rogan Kelly
Welcome to our multi-genre Science Corner
“Science is the poetry of reality.” — Carl Sagan
I Have a Question...
Interview
(Re)collect
Dava Sobel
Strategies: An African American scientist shares the elements of his road to success (1960s-1990s)
Self-report
(Re)flections
Dr. John Madison
Poet Wrestling with BloodFell
Poetry
(Re)actant
Rosebud Ben-Oni
(Re)state
Artist: Cynthia Kerby
I show familiar objects in unfamiliar ways and make observations of life’s frailties or uncertainties through a lens of personal awareness and curiosity. My focus as a visual artist is to create work that facilitates change in human behavior and the role I play in promoting public awareness towards action. In these three installations, I (re)state truths regarding environmental and social injustices by exposing difficult realities imposed on our restrained consciousness. Common elements are deconstructed and then reconstructed to express solidarity where viewers decide how much CHANGE they are willing to see and accept.
Deconstruct/Reconstruct: Cairns of Solidarity
Slate, leaves, stones, glass, wood, caution tape and embroidery thread. 2020
Wildfires/Megafires/Flashpoint: Crossing a new Threshold. Binding Consequences without Constraints
Acrylic on canvas, water hose, ribbon, vintage glass, wool felting and burned wood. 2020
Weak Stays/Weak Steel: Binding Oil and Water Rights. The Consequence of Constraints
Acrylic on canvas, steel, corset stays, metal, wire, black onyx, glass, and vinyl. 2018
Cynthia Kerby is a visual artist, former design professor, jewelry designer, curator, and co-founder of True Ideas, a design studio in Evanston, Illinois. She earned her MFA in Visual Communication from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her visual art has been included in ArtPrize 10, and shown at the Evanston Art Center, at Woman Made Gallery in Chicago, and in the Valade Family Gallery at the A. Alfred Taubman Center for Design Education, in Detroit, to name a few; and she has curated exhibitions at The Westchester Children’s Museum in New York and at Space 900 in Evanston. Cynthia’s conceptual Coronavirus mask was recently included in the 2020 Port Townsend Wearable Art Exhibition. She is also a recipient of a Ragdale Artist Residency in Lake Forest, Illinois.
Music Stuff
City Espirit in the Key of G
This month, as it is the holiday season, I thought we here at (Re) would ring in good tidings with a few of the countless recordings made of the song, My Favorite Things. A tune written by Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1959 for the musical, The Sound of Music.
On the heels of playing a few versions in preparation for this month’s issue, I walked along the streets of New York City (with the melody still in my head) and lo and behold, there was a singer delivering her smooth rendition of THIS SONG(!) standing on the corner, surrounded by a small crowd.
I was able to video a small snippet of her lovely performance and was thrilled that she has allowed me to share it here with you. Thank you Lauren Kidwell for keeping our city full of music and inspiration.
Kismet? Absolutely. I will call it city espirit in the key of G. — FN
Musicians: Lauren Kidwell (www.laurenkidwell.net). John Coltrane. My Favorite Things Karaoke. Sarah Vaughn. YoYo Ma with Chris Botti.
Enjoy!
OTHER STUFF
Here is where I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the (Re) contributors, the friends and family who support this adventure with their encouragement and guidance, Lori and Jim, the web consultants who are holding my hand as I build this site with no previous experience in the web tech arena, and the wonderful readers, who I hope will continue to follow our monthly content. Thank you! Merci! Gracias! Shukriya! Grazie! Obrigado! Xiexie! Amsegenallo! Asante! Shukraan!
COVER photograph by Felice Neals: I asked the Contributors from our past and present issues to share some of their wonderful vintage/thrift/antique favorite things. As this journal and this editor is a big fan of such items, and this issue is a kind of tribute to favorite things, it was fun to create this month’s cover collage of (re)appropriated trinkets.
Trinket credits: Thank you Chris for your antique pink velvet sofa; Michael for your Grandfather’s driving gloves; Pedro for your roaring 20s coin; Jordan for your 1980s Timex watch; Philip for your bronze Venetian replica of a carnival mask (found in a bookstore in Venice); Kathleen for your Grandparents’ carved, wood breadboard (brought to the US in 1900); H.E. for your vintage pedal pushers; Wilson for your vintage Heywood Wakefield “Kohinoor” dresser chest (won on eBay!); Lisa for your vintage “In the Trees” dress; Christie for the page from your Grandmother’s sketchbook featuring her sketches from the mid to late 30s; Brian for your mother’s antique wooden chair; Kay for your vintage purse; Jane for your antique dishes from Denmark; Corinne for your Grandmother’s antique hair comb; Briallen for your Grandmother’s 1930s bathrobe (featured in Briallen’s essay, Rewear, presented in the July (Re) issue) and I dropped in my sunglasses, circa early 1970s.
ART photographs by Cynthia Kerby.
TEXT photographs by Felice Neals: Deck the halls with boughs of Fall leaves, which are still displaying some of their late Fall colors. In the Science section: Moons in the sky, photographed in New York City, Marlborough, England and New Mexico, part of the ‘Things are Looking Up’ series.
THANK YOU as always, to our Editor H.E. Fisher for her sharp eye and invaluable contribution. I could not have gotten this project off and running without her support and editorial expertise.
What better gifts to put under the tree than books! Here are a few links to the wonderful works of prose and poetry by our Contributors from past issues: Philip Clark: https://siblingrivalrypress.bigcartel.com/product/the-carnival-of-affection-by-philip-f-clark, Christie Grotheim: https://www.amazon.com/Year-Marjorie-Moore-Learned-Live. Kay Bell: https://www.iamkaybell.com/books.html. And a new tune by Jordan McLean: https://systemdialingrecords.bandcamp.com/track/new-paris-single
If you are interested in learning more about the books, art and music by our full list of Contributors, please check out the (Re) Archive page.
Wishing you all Happy Holidays and a great ringing in of a well-earned 2021!!!
We really appreciate all of the support we have (re)ceived since our launch in June this year! Thank you!
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Email: info@reideasjournal.com