Tag: art

Issue 217 (Gender, Sexuality): “IN THE BATHROOM”

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“IN THE BATHROOM”

May and Silas lie on the bed. May knows that it would be worthwhile having sex right now—to feel close to him, to remind him that she is not ordinary. Right now she would rather have sex with her substitute science teacher (he had that hair that she liked, it licked up the back of his neck) or the butch woman who had stared at her in the waiting room at the dentist after school yesterday. The staring had made her go red in the face and her vagina spasm in a way that Silas’s gaze hadn’t in months.

 

Silas turns his slender frame towards her. He is fine and delicate. I’m bored, he grins, let’s cuddle. She grins back and stretches out her arms to pull him in—her arms over his shoulders as always, her body bigger and darker than his will ever be. They kiss and then she pulls back just enough for him to pull back too. Do you want to, he asks, hot breath smelling of closed rooms and wet toilet paper. She pauses. Yes. His eyes coat her in beauty—when he is aroused she feels like he sees her better. She can toss her head and whinny, like a mare, and he will kiss her pulsing veins. They help each other to pull off their clothes: her undies, his exhausted boxer briefs. There is always a laugh here, when her undies are down around her ankles and she is shifting and twisting to fling them off. Sexy, he says.

 

Moans. Noises she never makes at any other time but that she consciously makes now. Light, quick breaths on his collarbone and light, quick bites of his stretched out neck skin. She doesn’t feel like it until his penis goes in. Then it does feel good, good, like she tells him.

 

May rolls over, taking Silas with her until he is underneath. She can feel the sweats of each of them slipping and creaking against each other.  She is provocative up here. Silas is beaded lightly all over and his eyes bulge. May resists an urge to reach out and gently move his hair from out of his eyes. This must be over quickly before the sheen wears off and he starts to see the hair on her arms, her pores. Silas tells her he loves her. She feels the warmth of the words in her fingers and her vagina aches just behind and below the labia when she looks down to see his light tuft and her dark one, their tufts, bouncing against each other.

 

Silas pulls her hips tight in against his own and heaves at her, the sound a bath drain slurping. May breathes out and pulls the sheet across her shave-cut legs. She will bring herself to climax later, will run the tap to quiet her sounds, in the bathroom.

word by Laura McPhee-Browne

From the author: “I saw this art piece as the collage of a girl going through the emotions of becoming a young adult.

 
This art piece brought back to me the insecurities, anxieties and play-acting aspects of being a young woman, and I decided to write a story that delved into the mind of a young woman trying to be ‘normal’ and to do ‘normal’ things, such as having satisfying, meaningful sex with her boyfriend, despite the ambiguity and complexity of such an act.
 
Through my story, I also wanted to get across how much pressure there can be on young women to be ‘nice’, to be ready and willing, and to be relaxed, and to sacrifice their own pleasure and well-being for the sake of men, when this is an impossible and unrealistic expectation. I believe that the various slogans in the art piece, ‘BEING NICE IS COOL’ and ‘DON’T FRET’ are the slogans that young women chant inside themselves, when really it should be okay to not be okay.”

colour by Jasmine Okorougo

Issue #215: On memory and colour

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When I look at my hands I start to cry. Leathered and worn, dry skin flakes between my fingers and my lifelines seem etched into my palms, my hands are permanently stained; dark hues of purple and green crept below the surface, and stayed there. My life is on my hands and I can’t hide the fact that I have graced many a wall with my personal epithets. I staked my claim, marked my territory with a manifest destiny-type vengeance and sought out every clear space, every void, and every emptiness to fill it.
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My face is wet and I let the tears fall freely from my face. My hands lay in my lap, unmoving, poised for continued inspection. They tell every memory and moment and hurt with the knowledge of a past ached for.
  art colour memory
In the summer time heat, the humidity was thick and held the paint in the air around me. I searched the streets for new ground and found beautiful canvasses in the neatly tucked away spaces between buildings, inside dimly lit tunnels and parking lots; these were areas ripe for beautification. Can always at the ready, I would surveil the area and quickly throw up my tag. I would come home tinged in color, turned sepia, a danger to all white surfaces in my vicinity. I would take my black off, strip down bare, lay on my back, raise my arms in the air and look at my hands with intense interest. Color caked in the crevices of my cuticles and my knuckles darkened by the paint in the creases of my skin. I would lay there until my arms were tired, feeling the adrenaline leave the extremities of my body. Right index finger bent, I would practice above my head, my tag lines fluid, clean and quick. They littered the pages of my school books, and even now, the discarded envelopes that formerly housed my bills, bank statements and junk mail. I make my mark everywhere, although no one else sees it now.

word by Cora-Lee Conway

colour by Pichi&Avo

Review: Justseeds Vernissage Confronts Injustice

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Justseeds’s artists Mary Tremonte & Jesse Purcell put up a wonderful exhibit last Friday – with Tremonte DJ-ing and Purcell showing off artwork from the thirty person collective, as part of the Howl! Arts Festival. Justseeds is a decentralized network of artists that produce pieces highlighting social, environmental and political injustices.

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buy this print now by Jesse Purcell

One project, “Celebrate People’s History,” has been fifteen years in the making, and recognizes and commends ‘little people protesting big things’ through print art.

‘Big events’ include the Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) in Chiapas, Mexico, protesting the American Free Trade Agreement in 1994, or the 2011 Wisconson protests that opposed the Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill.

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buy this print now by Sue Simensky Bietila

For those of you who missed Justseeds’s event last week, don’t worry! You can still check them out online at justseeds.org

Allison Kutcher, 28 Apr 2015

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Support Word and Colour’s live art event!

On Beauty Standards: “Deep Hues and Curves”

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“Deep Hues and Curves”

It was her thirteenth birthday and she’d asked for red lipstick, strapped heels, and an appointment to have her eyebrows waxed. We went to the mall together to try on dresses for the celebration. She wanted pale blue to match the balloons.

She picked one with a frill along the neckline that accentuated her small waist and cut off above the knee. She had flat-ironed her springy brown hair and twirled a smooth lock around her finger as she gazed at me from the floor of the changing room.

“This would look better on you,” she moaned.

I winced. What was unbelievably clear to me seemed positively inaccessible to Ella. How would she react if I told her she looked like Brooke Shields in the pale blue—smooth-skinned, perfect frame?

What I would give to look anything like that.

Instead I mustered a weak, “I like it.”

I saw a spectrum of colour in her eyes.

She shook her head and tossed the dress to the ground. We finally settled on a violet strapless cocktail dress that draped across her body regally.

I came over early to help set up. Her mother asked me to tie the knots as she inflated helium balloons. I watched Ella stride down the living room stairs in the purple dress, lips tinted bright red, eyes lined, she flashed me the kind of grin that said you’re in on the secret.

I smiled back, twisting the elastic of another balloon around a ribbon and letting it float to the ceiling.

How reassuring it must feel to be factory-made.

“Let me do your hair!” She sang, running her fingers through my messy blonde.

I followed her upstairs, where for a moment as she braided, I watched her lock eyes with herself in the mirror. The colour drained from her face and she looked away, turning back to me. “Will you help me go blonde?”

It was somewhat an absurd request, but one to which I was compelled to oblige. The title of best friend came with great levels of moral responsibility.

It was five and guests were supposed to arrive. Her mother was frosting the cake in the kitchen. It was chocolate, Ella’s favourite. She proceeded to dip a slim finger into the bowl of frosting, receiving a glare in return, and a harsh murmur of disapproval. Promptly, she ran her hand under the faucet, sugar dissolving in water, before turning back to me.

“She’s right,” Ella whispered.

I didn’t ask about what.

“I don’t need it.”

I found myself by her side for the remainder of the evening. It felt natural, shadowing her: my image of womanhood. She grasped my hand as she blew out her candles.

After her mother sliced the cake, I watched Ella stare at the plate placed in front of her. She prodded the chocolate with a fork, all the while inhaling the wafting smoke of blue striped candles. Not once did I see her lift the fork to her mouth.

word by Annie Rubin

colour by SHAKA

From the author: “Adolescence is the time when our ideals of beauty are explored most thoroughly. As we grow, we learn about ourselves through our parents, our friends, and through what we see in the media.

Often, though, we are our own worst critics—what we see in the mirror is far more flawed than what our friends might see when they look at us.

Each of us are made up of many colours, and once we begin to accept our uniqueness, we can rest as confidently as this figure sprawled upon her couch.”

Support our live art event! 

Support our art event!

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Join the rest in helping our art event come true by visiting http://www.kisskissbankbank.com/en/projects/word-and-colour-s-live-art-exhibit/ !

On memory: “self and other”

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Despondent at the sight of her, waxing caramel and silk, bruising blue from apathy. Who it is I am looking for in the shape of her, the curve and weight of her bones. The scrutiny of this survey has everything to do with consumption. Mass of flesh, scent of jasmine, soap, talcum powder.

I become suddenly thirsty and my legs fold in like a hand. From every angle calls some small adjustment, something not quite in place, not quite concealed. I remember the shirts I wore in highschool, carefully selected from your laundry pile and big enough for my body to move beneath them unnoticed.

Meanwhile she moved with such a lightness I had never been empty enough to feel, spread her toes across the bathroom counter smoothing lotion into her calves; she had six children for the institutions of God and marriage. What I saw for the sake of this story was the width of her waist on an inhale, saw her spinning across the living room floor. She praised my poetry then stopped calling altogether.

Of course I never expected she would, and this is not really about her, or the blue light of my new apartment where no one eats and everything is covered with a film of dust and the smell of smoke. I blink into the mirror and take a sip from a white, enamel cup stained with her lipstick. I know that I will see her in the kitchen and she will have cut her hair again. She will be quietly frantic, pouring cream in her coffee and letting the filter drip. The garbage can is full of dust and the ends of her cigarettes stained with lipstick.

If the weight of my bones were a little less dense. If I did not bruise under the touch of her fingertips. I could step into this room unfeeling, dressed in animal prints and steel, chewing a stick of gum.

word by Alisha Mascarenhas
colour by Gan Chin Lee 

Job opening: Head Of Colour

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Job opening: Head of Colour

Word and Colour

Reports to Editor

The Art Director will curate the art for upcoming features at the magazine. After contacting artists, the Art Director will inform the Editor of upcoming features with all required information. Certain events in Montréal may require the attendance of the editor to represent our brand, and the Editor may also select artists to feature.

*An awareness or openness to social justice politics is essential as a representative of the Word and Colour brand. Word and Colour is a creative Non-Profit Organization of volunteers. This position will be paid when revenue streams are implemented according to workload, and requires minimal hours of commitment.

Our Ideal Candidate:

Reliable, organized, proactive

Education / Experience with visual art

Knowledge of social justice issues

Responsibilities:

Contacts artists for weekly features

Represents Word and Colour at art events

Responds to e-mail within the day

Is available for monthly meetings in Montréal

 

Please read over our mission statement before applying!

Application deadline:  Friday, May 1, 2015

Send CV to word@wordandcolour.com

On Consumption as Religion: “Print Nation”

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Print Nation

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Oona was woken with a shove of the alarm. Thrust out from blissful nothingness through ever-lighter hoops, consciousness clicking its groove to bring a bleary world into focus. She passed the morning broadcaster in room 117B, tuning in to the daily download.

         … another day of fantastic performance with the corporation hitting total sales of 68 million yesterday – over target but as always, room for improvement…

Her crisp striped dress, fresh from the delivery draw, she filled her mind with the days work – excited as always.

          … and with 17 new opens yesterday and another 1300 upcoming until the end of this quarter we have plenty to get on with, it’s booming business as usual!’

Oona picked up the final piece of uniform, moved towards the sink; once again it captured her attention.

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She observed the tiny dark red patch amongst otherwise perfect chrome tubing. The tiny rust that had evolved into a tiny leak with a tiny drip. The tiny puddle in the nook of the room.

“Did you find it?” said her sister.

Greta’s mousey brown eyes, squared and neat, glimmered like fish scales under the mirror light.

“Oona, you have to promise me this will be just ours. A bond between two chamber sisters.”

Oona knew that when she had to pray at day recap to MOD that evening, the Almighty One would know this memory.

“Block this out at prayer, it’s possible, I’ve done it.”

Greta’s fingers dove into the crack in the concrete where the puddle had been building, tearing out a piece. She scraped the dust away gently so they could see it.

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 Small green straw with two small green spoons.

“Oona Forty-Three of Chamber 117B, do you know what this is? This is what the Customers call, a plant.”

 4

The buzzer sounded for check-in. Greta covered up the corner with the dust then concrete and they grabbed their headphones before walking out the chamber.

The morning download finished.

        …And remember folks, one day we will get to the Golden Gates and that day we will all be rewarded by MOD.

Briskly they headed out before parting ways –Greta assigned to Food Print and Oona to Physical Server.

The shutters pulled up and in walked the first of the days Customers.

“Welcome to McDonalds, how can I help?”

word by Sam Fresco

From the author: “Once I received this image, I looked up some facts on McDonalds and was stunned to find the following:

  • McDonald’s feeds 68 million people per day – about 1 percent of the world’s population (and more than the population of the UK; twice the amount of Canada)
  • 1 in every 8 Americans has worked in a McDonald’s
  • McDonald’s’ $27 billion in revenue makes it the 90th-largest economy in the world.
  • On average, McDonald’s opens a new branch every 14.5 hours
  • A recent study by Scholosser (2002) found that the Golden Arch’s were more recognizable than the cross. 

So it got me thinking: what if it printed food took it one step further and printed its staff? In that case, where’s the line between a corporation and a religion- a CEO and a God?

colour by Kojiro Ankan Takakuwa

On Family: “Bug”

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Bug

when Benny was 1 and I was 7, I took him down to the park near our place on the lane named after Shakespeare

he’d been at the pool with Mum all morning, tucked behind the blue walls on Alexandra Parade, and his tuft of soft hair was still wet

he nestled into my arm as we walked along the cooking bitumen, and when I crooked my arm to let him in, he cooed like a bird would, if a bird was Benny

at the park I climbed us up the ladder of the slide and put his bum on the cool grey top of it

he giggled as I backed down the rungs one by one and as I walked away from him and the slide and the sand and the dog poo, I felt my heart get bigger slowly like a blowing up balloon

my heart kept getting bigger and bigger as I walked down the street towards the milk bar, and as I was paying for my lemonade icy-pole it burst

Benny was wailing when I got back

I told him I’d just gone to get us an icy pole and he didn’t have to be sad

he was choking on his tears but then the tears slowed to hiccups and then the hiccups slowed to snot and I told him he’d crawled into my heart like a funny little bug, and it was just as well you can’t spray bug-spray near your heart

word by Laura McPhee-Browne

“This painting is beautiful, and reminded me of familial love. 

It reminded about how it for me was when my brother was a baby, and how older siblings often experience a cacophony of emotions when they are confronted with siblings, emotions that are strong and fierce and both negative and positive.” 

colour by Kojiro Ankan Takakuwa

On Masculinity: “Her lipstick”

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Content Warning: misogyny, violence

“She looks like a whore,” I say, covering my mouth with my hand in case the lady can read lips. I lean back against the wall, hiding my unlit cig behind me.

“It’s her lipstick,” says Danny. “Nobody’s wife wears that colour lipstick. It makes her mouth look like a pussy.”

Danny pulls a cig out of his pocket and lights it right there in front of the lady sitting in the car. He doesn’t care who sees him. Danny takes another cig out of his pocket and hands it to Albert, who’s sitting on the curb. Albert is my little brother. He’s in a school for kids who are slow because he doesn’t know how to read. Danny hands Albert his naked lady zippo and Albert lights up, just like Danny.

Albert holds the zippo out to me, looking at me like I’m a pussy.

The alley behind the gas station is where we always come to smoke. Danny steals cigs from the bag his dad keeps in the freezer. We come here because there’s never anyone here, but today there was the lady in the car. She’s just sitting in the passenger seat staring out the side window. I’ve never smoked in front of someone older than me before.
“She doesn’t give a shit, Thomas,” Danny says. He says it like he doesn’t want me to embarrass him. He waves at the lady but she doesn’t move; she just keeps staring, looking past us at the wall, maybe even past the wall.

“I know,” I say. I take the zippo from Albert but I leave the cig behind my back. Danny’s zippo has a hula dancer on it and when you flick the cap open her head comes off. Mine just has my grandad’s initials on it.

“She looks kinda like Ms. Glover,” Danny says. “Ms. Glover was a babe. Remember last year when she left school and Mr. Plummer got arrested?”

Everyone remembers when Ms. Glover left school. The lady in the car does look like Ms. Glover, except for the lipstick.

I take the cig out from behind my back and flick off the hula girl’s head. I run it along my jeans and it lights the first time. When I was 10 like Albert, I thought you were supposed to swallow the smoke and I’d cough every time, but I’m better at it now. I was scared of sea monsters and boogeymen; I was scared of the dark. Now that I’m 12, I’m not afraid of anything.

Albert flicks his cig out into the alley. “She’s trying not to cry,” he says.

word by Leah Mol

colour by Luis Sipion

From the author: “Youth is a time of naked tribalism, a time when language and behaviours stand as shibboleths. In this story, boys are pretending to be men in order to fit in, but they believe part of being a man is oppressing others. Thomas doesn’t want the lady to see him use the word whore, but he also doesn’t understand the weight that word carries with it. Danny brings up Ms. Glover and hints at the reason she left school, but they don’t explore the importance of that.

This story is about fear and reactions to fear. Fears of children vs. fears of adults. Fears of women vs. fears of men. Fears of imagined monsters, of not fitting in, of getting caught somewhere you shouldn’t be. And fears of the very real monsters that make people cry every day.”