collaboration – Page 2 – wordandcolour

Magdalen Laundry

The now empty halls
a Dublin asylum
on Lower Leeson Street
you did what they said
carry the “fallen”,
Keelia, birthing a daughter
treated as defiled.
1941, aged 16,
there was no time to say goodbye

behind monastic walls
a bedroom, a cell
iron-barred windows
in each dream walking along:
“Ma, where am I going?”
but always wake up crying
bear pages of thick ledgers:
“You disgraced us!”
Unpaid workhouse

shapeless, long brown dresses.
The sound of hand-scrubbed linens
if you listen you can hear
the abbess and the nuns

on cold winter mornings
face shrouded in black veils
girls marching to six o’clock Mass

beyond, the ordinary, everyday world.
Pruning of an old mulberry tree.
Shrews, and lizards,

the nameless.
I was known as number 26.

these words by Ilona Martonfi were inspired by the colour of Alison Gildersleeve

following the toy

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

Love, left

Missed connections. Failed romances. Lost loved ones.

I’ve known too many people who’ve left.

Too many people who have been reduced to nothing but incoherent memories.

I have loved—deeply, intensely, purely;

these loves are now strangers.

– the many faces we wear

these words by Fiona Williams were inspired by the colour of Teodoru Badiu

The Accordionist

This is the memory: the grandfather sits in a chair in the kitchen, accordion on knee. He shuts his eyes and squeezes the instrument. A foot makes a beat. A crescendo fills the room, reaching for a climax that is always somewhere else. The floors shutter, the foot beats wilder. It is a miracle the chair does not break, that pictures do not fall from their hooks. Around the kitchen people dance and sway and laugh drunken laughs as the old man’s fingers dance an automatic dance upon the keys.

But in the grandson’s memory there is no music. Only a wheezing of air: the accordion desperate for breath, a gasping animal in his grandfather’s hands. Because he can never remember the music, he wonders if his grandfather ever really played the instrument—but the details are clear: the way the floor shook, the way the old man raised his knee, and the way he squeezed his eyes so tight that the unheard music became a thing extracted from the instrument’s wood, leather, and metal. Like a splinter squeezed from a finger. It is the very lucidity of the image that makes him doubt his recollection.

But that is the memory and this day is the present. And on this day the accordion rests next to the deep freeze, already aware of its ascent into that magical category of things-once-owned-by-people-now-dead. This day: two days after the grandfather’s death. The same house, located at the end of Vicky’s Close, named by the grandfather in memory of his mother. The dead remembering the dead.

The grandmother sits in the kitchen and the shadows of people enter and depart, wishing her well, bringing her food, offering condolences like cheese on a platter. She clutches a cane with knobby hands. She is 92 and she will be dead in eight months. She is thinking about the price of bread at the Co-Op, the way shadows have their own moods, and how violent men seem to love their mothers so.

And the grandson thinks about how violence expresses itself in the most mundane of actions. He thinks of how when he was young he sat in the chestnut tree outside and watched his grandfather close the curtains and turn all the taps on so that from outside the house rumbled with the gushing of water through pipes, concealing the echoing thud of belt against skin, a sound innocently mistaken for the swatting of flies. Later he will associate running faucets and the shadows of mid-afternoon with his grandmother’s bloodshot eyes and tension-stooped back. Blood and screams and broken bodies are banal compared to a tap left running, to an elongation of shadow on a kitchen floor.

The grandmother stares at the accordion and at the grandson and they both wonder if any music ever came from that instrument or if it really was just a wheezing, gasping bag all along. She thinks about a previous self, one vaguely resembling her own, and a black pit of seven decades opens up between that self and this one. She gasps and her face crumples and this loss of control lasts for two and a half seconds, but it is long enough for the shadows to notice. They think she is missing him and they offer more embraces.

‘Open the curtains,’ she says, ‘It’s a shame to waste such light.’

these words by Michael Warford were inspired by the colour of Teodoru Badiu

On Running Away: “Jack-o’-lantern”

Big city at last. Buildings, cement, a few trees. Some birds tweeting the fall of dusk. I’d hitched in. Now what? I must have had a lost look on my face because a van pulled up and drove alongside me, matching my pace.

“Hello there!” called the driver.

“Hi,” I said.

He stopped the car and got out. Introduced himself as Norbert.

“What’s your take on the problems of this country?” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Feel like talking about it?” he said.

“Sure.”

“Feel like having a free dinner?” he said.

“Alright,” I said. He opened the back of the van. There was a young woman in there.

“That’s Sarah,” Norbert said. I got in. Norbert shut the doors and the van took off.

I talked with Sarah. Another runaway picked up off the street. Where the hell were we going? Can’t be any worse than where we came from, we both laughed. She took my hand in hers as we bumped along.

The van came to a stop. Norbert opened the back. I heard cicadas.

“Come on, you two,” said. Sarah pulled up her tights and we followed him onto some sprawling estate and into a red brick country home. The cooking aromas were scintillating. I had not eaten all day.

“Help yourselves,” he said. “After that we’ll have a little presentation.”

The food was laid out buffet style in the dining area. Stacks of clean plates, plastic cups, a pitcher of water with lemon slices in it. There were six or seven dishes to choose from. Some other young people joined us. They were all quiet and respectful. The food was vegetarian, cooked to perfection, completely satisfying.

“We’ll begin the presentation whenever you’re ready,” said Norbert. There were about ten cheap plastic chairs unfolded in the salon, but only Sarah and I sat. It was a slideshow. Norbert used a pointer as he clicked from slide to slide. The world was in crisis, he said. It was up to us to fix it.

I raised my hand. “Is this a cult?” I said. Not that I really minded if it was.

Norbert laughed. “We are called a cult by the mainstream. But we think the mainstream is a cult.”

In my mind’s eye I saw a generic house, some generic suburbs. The home I’d bolted from. The home my father came to at dusk, exhausted, complaining. Ugly mood. Hating his job, his colleagues, his family. Yet, judging the fools who did not live their lives as he did.

Good Riddance, he’d have said Mom. The only way we let her back is if she cries and begs and apologizes. Otherwise she does not set foot in this house again. Is that clear?

Mom would nod, her head down, hands folded, like a statue.

He’d sleep. She would not. The light would be on all night. The house like a Jack-o’-lantern. My mother at the kitchen table, begging me to call, to let her talk to me one last time, so she could beg me to grovel before the old man like she did.

these words by Alden Chorush were inspired by the colour of Sarah Williams

Kidd & loish: “She had a horrible boss”

She had a horrible boss. He had, always, a harvest of spittle at the corners of his mouth, and it seemed to her that every particularly horrible man that she’d met in her life had coffee breath and this same sea foam at the edges of his lips. In addition to this chronic hygienic condition, this boss had ghost hands, which was worse even than the spittle. All day, she could feel his ghost hands on the back of her neck and the small of her back and, when she unthinkingly left them untucked from her desk, her kneecaps. As he caressed her invisibly, the boss would sit, legs spread, on the corner of her desk, instructing her condescendingly on how she could advance her career to reach the status that he had achieved, or else telling her about the many gifts he bought his wife. “Swarovski crystals,” he would say, as he ran his disembodied digits over her skin. “Tiffany bracelets. Trips to Hawaii, without the kids.”

She didn’t shudder and she didn’t say anything because she didn’t think HR would know how to deal with her boss projecting his phantom hands into her clothing.

On the day she quit her job, she got dressed and went to work as usual. The boss had fire in his eyes that day, because he’d heard a rumour that one of his rivals was going to be promoted. On her first fifteen minute break of the day, she went out and bought a scone with cream and strawberries on top, which she ate on the way back to her desk.

Going back to her daily tasks, she felt that one of the strawberries had fallen down her shirt and was sitting between her breasts, wet and heavy. She tried to look down her collar to see it, but her shirt was tightly buttoned and she couldn’t see anything at all. She continued to feel it, grainy and soft, as she went about her work. She plotted to go to the washroom as soon as she could. But when she got up to go, the boss blocked her way. He stood in her path, fat hands on wide hips, and started to say, “In business, keep your friends closer and your enemies closer,” and stopped, his spit spilling out, gurgling. She could see, in the soft cavity of his mouth, that his tongue was missing. She stopped and gasped as the strawberry in her bra worked its way down to her belly button.

“I think you have something of mine, sweetheart,” the boss said as he took a step closer, and she gagged as if it were her tongue that had gone wandering, and then the boss thundered, “my pen, where’s my pen,” and she ran out of the office, which she was never to see or hear from again save for a last cheque unceremoniously deposited in her account a week later. On the way home, she shook from relief at the feeling of having nothing but her own body in her shirt.

these words by Charlotte Joyce Kidd were inspired by the colour of loish

Bebenek & Loish: “Selfie”

this poem by Jessica Bebenek was inspired by the art of Loish

On the Environment: “Forest for the Trees”

I’LL LOVE THIS FOREST UNTIL THE DAY I DIE.

It was a place of possibility. Where anything could happen. Secrets hidden behind every tree. Discovery around every bend. Adventure was everywhere.

I was always struck by the trees. So much bigger than anything we had in the city. And so many. No matter where you looked, there they were, towering above and continuing on past the horizon.

Walking beneath them today, I’m reminded of the games of hide and seek we’d play in their shade. The time I came upon the perfect spot. When no one could find me, I cried my eyes out, waking hours later to Mom’s touch as she picked me up and carried me back to camp. To the bonfire.

I craved the smoke’s heady scent in my nostrils while simultaneously doing everything in my power to avoid its brutal sting to my eyes. Every night Liz and I would get one step closer to the perfect s’more recipe. It’s a miracle our teeth didn’t fall out with all the scorched marshmallow and melted chocolate we ate amongst these trees.

In later years, we discovered the lake. The forest stayed to its shore, watching on as we swam and played. It became near impossible to get us to leave the water. We’d spend full days splashing about, emerging only when our bodies became too tired to keep us afloat.

It’s still hard to believe this will be my last visit. I wanted to protect this place. To protect the memories it’s given me. Now all I want is one last dip in the lake.

I never knew there were so many different machines for destroying trees. I can only hope the water will drown out some of the noise.

word by Grant McLaughlin

colour by Julien Coquentin

On Heteronormativity: “Blue”

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.

Not Afraid of Drowning

The first time they met was spectacular. She moved her hands across her body like breath, and told her every lurid detail of her dreams. She listened so hard and attentive as they untangled the depths, brushing pollen from her cheek and unfolding the bedsheets. She pulled the socks directly from her feet, insistent, and stood there naked and nauseated.

Her spit on her mouth like the milk at the broken stem of a fig pulled directly from the branch: these are soft, round fruit, weighty as organs. Fleshy and pink she carried them all day in the sun, stopping intermittently to adjust the sweater that cradled them in her bag. They bruised and split anyway.

Blackberries ripened in the hot field and along the train tracks and the only blank space was the white blue sky: asking no questions, reaching for nothing. She was having trouble looking at her hands, berries bleeding from small fists hanging at her sides.

What was soft at dawn had unfurled wicked and cheap. Every sentence was a scribble: unfinished and impossible to hear. The last time they met there was gravel underfoot and it was raining. She was indecisive and distracted by every turning head calling her name. They ate oysters and hard, ripe cheese. Green grapes.

When she turned the tap out poured rust and sediment, but they stepped in all the same to bathe in that murky swamp. She rubbed tea tree oil into her skin and ran a comb through knotted hair

When they made the bed that night every fold made her choke. She pulled the sheets taught and felt her body tense, muscles binding. Every sweeping gesture cut through the air, the blurred alarm clock’s blinking digits. It was not terrible, it was completely normal: the weight, the sinking feeling, the inability to remember what it was like to be awakened by her own vital breath.

She woke to the rain and the dampening of summer bush fires. The sharp smell of a half empty glass of red wine on the table reminded her of last night’s strain and she poured it down the sink.

She showered: clean, hard, spitting hot water, and sat at a single chair at an empty table in the kitchen and wrapped herself in a lavender bathrobe. She ate toast with warm blackberries, and the sugar hurt her mouth and the seeds lodged between her molars. She was not afraid of drowning in this rain, but only of slipping away.

word by Alisha Mascarenhas

“I wrote the piece as a documentation of tumultuous experiences occurring on several planes: fragments of dreams, fiction, and so-called reality that met or clashed in some way with the form and feeling of Rondeau’s work. The painting fed its form, and served to surface and to purge some previously unarticulated sensations and images.”

colour by Emilie Rondeau

“My visual practice is a transgression and alteration of our perception of reality. I encourage free and intuitive interventions. Although abstract, my paintings carry the memories of atmospheric gardens, nebulous spaces, organic landscapes and architectures. Made of solid and bright colours, washes, painted and drawn marks, the compositions are reminiscent of complex and dreamlike environments. From the infinitely big to the infinitely small, cosmic or cellular spaces transport us with a strong impression of movement and energy.

The lines intersect and intertwine, linking shapes and colours together. Sometimes fast and agitated mark making succeeds to slow and smooth gesture. Colour is pure and vibrant. The harmony is rich and thoughtful within the limits of strangeness. A delicate balance takes place in this continual research for new visual forms. The eyes travel, search and rest. My paintings are an invitation for a trip in between the painting surface and your mind.”

SHARE this collaboration!

SHARE this collaboration!

SHARE this collaboration!

SHARE this collaboration!

SHARE this collaboration!

SHARE this collaboration!

SHARE this collaboration!

SHARE this collaboration!

SHARE this collaboration!

SHARE this collaboration!