Category: vancouver

“The Final Transmission,” by Erika Thorkelson

james-gilleard_1

The final transmission from Station Alpha came from General Watkins himself, who had gone to inspect the new device just two days before. Right up until the moment of the explosion, there had been hope that the device, a single man’s dream realized through unprecedented international cooperation, was the solution everyone had been hoping for.

There was no picture in the final transmission. Cloaked in static, Watkins’ voice was thick, moaning even. “The Earth’s heart is heavy.” He sighed. “So much heavier than we could even have imagined…” Then the whole facility evaporated.

Marcella Watkins, the General’s wife and special envoy to the United Nations, knew the voice well. It was the one he used when he wanted her to move closer, toward his side of the bed. It was the voice he used for quiet, reflective thoughts he could only express near sleep.

“Something is coming,” Marcella Watkins told her twin sister while the two drank whiskey on her back porch.

Aurelia nodded, watching the branches of the fruit trees rustle in the hot breeze. She didn’t want to say anything that would add to her sister’s burden, but since the explosion there had been a haze in the air that she didn’t like at all, an unnatural chemical sweetness, like bubblegum air freshener in a smoky truck.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Aurelia asked for the seventeenth time. “Can I make you some dinner?”

Marcella shook her head, loose bits of her silver chignon swaying side to side. She was still wearing her office clothes—a sleeveless white blouse and green wool slacks that must have been far too warm in this unexpected weather. The matching blazer was somewhere in the house.

Even in this state and at their age, Aurelia couldn’t help admiring her sister’s figure—heavy breasts, narrow waist, round hips. She was the shorter of the two, but certainly the better looking. No wonder her life had gone so well—until now at least.

“All those petty skirmishes,” Marcella said, her voice just above a whisper. “All those years of worrying, and in the end, it’s some damned mad scientist scheme.”

Aurelia looked at the lines on her own hands as if they would tell her what to say. “Life will go on,” she murmured, gathering a smile for her sister. “You’ll see.”

Marcella gazed at her twin, admiring how life had spared her the wrinkles that dug valleys in her own skin. She took Aurelia’s hand in both her own and shook her head lightly. “I don’t think it will,” she said.

Aurelia nodded and the two sat on her porch, hand in hand, sipping their whiskeys and breathing the lavender air until the sun went away.

 

these words by Erika Thorkelson were inspired by the work of James Gilleard

Notes on Hesitation

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The birds in my neighbourhood are having an existential crisis. They’re hesitating on their branches, resting for a moment longer than they should. Even when I scream and stomp my feet at the foot of the tree, they stand there, thinking about whether or not to fly away, wondering if it even matters.

              I learned the term “existential crisis” from my English teacher because we’re reading The Stranger by Albert Camus. I’m in this advanced class where everything is so deep. I love it. Anyway, the birds, right? I think I noticed it before I learned the word—is that possible? Can you notice something subtle like that and then learn the word for it, or is it kind of invisible until you can name it? I guess it doesn’t matter—the point is I’ve learned it and I can’t unlearn it.

              It’s weird because I was pretty sure flying was autonomic. That’s another word I learned recently—it means things you do without thinking. The fight or flight instinct, for example. You feel it in your body and you’re off. Thinking is a problem. It interrupts the things you need to do to survive. Like, imagine if you had to decide to take every breath—you’d die.

              I kind of know how the birds feel. Lately, when things get confusing, I slow down and get stuck in my thoughts. I can’t even choose between flavours of ice cream anymore—I just stand there at the 7-11 with the cooler door open, breathing in Freon-tasting air. When my mom yells, I used to go hide right away. Now, I just sit there thinking about what to do. Half the time, I end up doing nothing at all, and that just makes her angrier.

              The other day, she was yelling because I’d forgotten to let the cat in before we all went to bed. She said she thought the cat was probably dead. She asked me for the millionth time why I was so stupid. I snapped and yelled at her to fuck off. I’d never done that before—it just bubbled up from inside. I guess that’s the fight part of fight or flight, huh?

              But the problem with things that you just do without thinking is that you don’t know what’s going to happen next. I think she was as surprised as I was when she slapped me across the face. Her eyes got really big, and we just stared at each other. We’re the same height now, I realized. Then she was gone, up the stairs to her room. I guess it was her turn to hide. Once you’ve learned something you can’t unlearn it, especially about yourself. My poor mom. Maybe that’s when I started slowing down like the birds, sinking into my thoughts all tangled like yarn. I worry for the birds. I think someday something terrible will happen to them.

 these words by Erika Thorkelson were inspired by the colour of Juan Travieso

following the toy

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As Anne watches the toy spin slowly in the microwave, she thinks about where she and Augie will go. We could go to Vancouver, she thinks. Walk in Stanley Park and sit by the water. She’d been to Vancouver once, before she got married. She watches the toy spin and thinks about the ocean.

*

Their first night at the shelter, Anne woke up wet, Augie pressed into her side. “It’s too dark,” he said. They got up and Anne changed the sheets. She took the toy out of the backpack—it was one of only a couple Augie had been able to bring—and he clutched it to his chest as he fell asleep. Steven had given him the toy, not for a birthday or for Christmas; he just came home with it one day. It had been a good day.

The next morning, she found the tracker in her purse, in one of the side pockets she never opens. It was small, a little bigger than a dollar coin. Steven has touched this, she thought. He bought this little thing and turned it over in his hands and slipped it into her purse when she wasn’t there. She dropped it on the ground and smashed it with the heel of her shoe. She heard it crack, felt it flatten beneath her. She experienced a moment of relief before the panic—if there’s one, there will be others, she thought.

She dreams about the toy, but it looks different than it does in real life. She wakes up wet, with sweat in all the places. Augie is fast asleep beside her, a baby bird in a nest. She sees the toy in his arms and tries to think of how it looked in the dream, but all she can remember is that it wasn’t the same. And that’s the terrifying thing.

*

The fire isn’t huge, but it’s a fire. She thinks about how upset Augie will be. She’ll come up with an excuse. We’ll have to leave again, she thinks. The microwave sits on a wooden table, which is turning black as the flames eat. The microwave door hangs loose on a hinge. We’ll always be leaving, she thinks.

these words by Leah Mol were inspired by the colour of Teodoru Badiu

On Heteronormativity: “Blue”

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She recoiled from me; our breath left stagnant carbon dioxide in the air.

“What if—”

She bowed her head, interrupting me with piercing subtlety. I felt my body succumb to the numbness of rejection, some feigned self-defense in preparation for when she’d say the word that would make me crumble at her feet.

Her hollow cheeks were flushed, lips pursed- eyes, pensive now. I couldn’t bear the insurmountable shock of no.

Leave now, get out, I begged myself.

Go before she tilts her cheek at me the way she so-often does, ensconced in blue-violet, and says my name.

She was scorching and the thought of losing her felt unbearably electric as I reached for her arm, craving that magenta, tell me it’s okay.

She looked spooked.

“I’m sorry.”

She shook her head as if ridding herself of an awful dream.

“No.”

Blinking, I withdrew. She ran a finger over her lower lip, as if to feel the words as they left her mouth, and then shifted her gaze to me. “I don’t…”

I felt a surge of disappointment. But she let her eyes linger on mine. I studied their magenta hues, wanting to learn her before the moment she would inevitably tell me say goodbye.

I stared at her expectantly, unsure of what I could say.

“Of course I still care for you,” she spoke softly.

I no longer felt like crumbling.

“I want children, you know? This was fun. You have to understand.”

Now it was she who awaited my reaction. I wanted the moment last as long as possible. Anything I said now would become inextricably linked to a new era of us and I wasn’t ready to let her go just yet.

word by Annie Rubin
 
“Bold colours, and the well-defined silhouette of a woman inspired this piece to focus on passionate intimacy. This is a critique of heteronormativity, emphasizing two conflicting views on the legitimacy of a relationship between two women. I want to bring attention to the ways in which societal standards shape individual choices at a basic personal level.”

colour by Andre Barnwell 

Andre Barnwell was born July 7th, 1984 and raised in Toronto but currently resides in Vancouver. Ever since moving out west in 2013, Andre has been inspired by the city’s art community and motivated by the accessibility to the tools he needs to pursue his artistic passion and desires. Graduated as an animator from Ontario’s Sheridan College he was exposed to various styles and media to create art even though he prefers to use digital as a means to an artistic end. Fascinated by the human face, most of work is portrait based ranging in different colour schemes, particularly his blue and red monochromatic digital studies.

Outside of portrait work and digital sketches, he enjoys music, film, travelling, and building his brand, Sex N Sandwiches. He looks forward to collaborating with artists such as sculptors, photographers and musicians for future projects. With the world getting smaller with the help of technology, he implores artists and art lovers to follow his growth via social networks and eventually to international stages.

Keep it growing!

Professional Contact: 
Email: andrebarnwell@gmail.com

Social Contact:
Twitter: @AndreBarnwell77
Instagram: AndreBarnwell77

The author’s words do not necessarily represent the views of the artist.

On #Alllivesmatter: “The Sting Of The Jellyfish”

2

There’s a mural in the street that says ALL LIVES MATTER. A few days ago, it said BLACK LIVES MATTER.

As I stare at the defaced artwork, I begin to understand that the great sin of our time isn’t hatred. It’s apathy. It’s the impulse to surrender to your default settings, to your pre-configured notions of who somebody is based on how they appear. To assume, rather than think. To fear, rather than learn. Hatred has agency, it has intent. Hatred is a spear, ground to a fine point over hundreds of millions of years to serve a single purpose. It knows only one end, and therefore it’s limited. You dig? We can overcome hatred. But apathy? Apathy is easy, unassuming; it’s a jellyfish floating in the waves. Shifting and amorphous, it poses a far greater threat to the ocean than the spear, it’s callous indifference spread to all those around it via a simple touch. The  jellyfish is content in its carelessness, happy to administer its sting to both the tiniest fish and the greatest whale, as though they have fought the same current all their lives. Except they haven’t

This is why BLACK LIVES MATTER is an anchor, a rallying point for the marginalized and disenfranchised victims of systemic violence, and ALL LIVES MATTER is a mindless platitude, a jellyfish whose deadly sting serves only to satisfy our base impulse towards indifference, our desire to look beyond the pointed issue towards a world where we may all float along, unaware of to whom our ignorant stings are being administered. That’s the non-polyp ideology;  float on and care not who runs afoul of your tentacles, for your conscience will remain clean. You didn’t make the ocean violent, and therefore you don’t feel responsible for the structures that exist before you, around you, inside you. This is how indifference has become our new prejudice, how a lack of awareness has become far more toxic than even the most hateful of voices. When everyone is content to say nothing, even the quietest utterances of discrimination can be heard.

word by Josh Elyea

colour by Andre Barnwell 

Andre Barnwell was born July 7th, 1984 and raised in Toronto but currently resides in Vancouver. Ever since moving out west in 2013, Andre has been inspired by the city’s art community and motivated by the accessibility to the tools he needs to pursue his artistic passion and desires. Graduated as an animator from Ontario’s Sheridan College he was exposed to various styles and media to create art even though he prefers to use digital as a means to an artistic end. Fascinated by the human face, most of work is portrait based ranging in different colour schemes, particularly his blue and red monochromatic digital studies.

Outside of portrait work and digital sketches, he enjoys music, film, travelling, and building his brand, Sex N Sandwiches. He looks forward to collaborating with artists such as sculptors, photographers and musicians for future projects. With the world getting smaller with the help of technology, he implores artists and art lovers to follow his growth via social networks and eventually to international stages.

Keep it growing!

Professional Contact: 
Email: andrebarnwell@gmail.com

Social Contact:
Twitter: @AndreBarnwell77
Instagram: AndreBarnwell77

The author’s words do not necessarily represent the views of the artist.

sleeping over

pix

A prickling sensation creeps from the bottoms of her feet up the backs of her calves and thighs. The silkiness of the satin sheets underneath fades to cold cement ground. His left leg is sprawled just below her knees, occasionally twitching with the rhythmic echoes of his snore-embedded breaths. She doesn’t move it. Her legs can do the sleeping tonight. They can have the pins and needles. Since she too, with eyes wide open, is on pins and needles.

          When will he be gone?

Just like all the other ones.

That’s all she can think about.

College girls always joke about fears of waking up with a stranger in bed Saturday morning.

Her biggest fear on the other hand,

Is waking up without the stranger Saturday morning.

        “Don’t leave me tonight, okay?”

        “Okay.”

Honestly, it’s not because she cares about them (at least she tries not to). It’s not the who, but the what, that breaks her every time. It’s the reminder that to these thirsty bodies, she’s esteemed for nothing more than the vacant space inside her (and every other female). She’s a Marlboro. Lit up. Inhaled. Exhaled. Until the last bit of romanticism and hope is sucked out and released; foul and toxic secondhand smoke that pleads to be appreciated one last time before evaporating and losing all evidence of existence. Then disposed of. If she’s lucky, she burns out before they’re done (at least she’s left with some dignity). If she’s not, they’re done before she burns out. And she gets stepped on. With a little extra pressure in the toe box, just in case she’s not out with the first step.

Nothing more than a butt.

That’s what she is to them.

Why does she still do it?

Some presume she’s masochistic.

Some think she’s outright stupid.

However the rare few, like the one sleeping beside her right now, knows otherwise. He knows that behind her indifferent eyes, hidden emotions and sarcastic comebacks:

She’s been hurt, deceived, and mistreated.

She’s tired of clubs, parties and alcohol.

She hates empty words, hookups and promises.

She sleeps with both eyes open, because she’s reluctant to yet again lose this game that she thinks she finally knows the rules to.

She’s still hopeful.

What she doesn’t know, is that she has finally found someone, who feels the exact same.

Someone who is determined to dismantle her walls.

Someone who plans to patch her wounds with his own skin.

Someone who sees her not as a cigarette, but as a cup of coffee.

The Americano with a spoonful of sugar that he can’t start a morning without.

word by Eleanor Tsang

colour Pixel Pancho