Tag: south broadway press

Artist Feature: Rachel Mulder

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  • Your Gentleness Is Powerful, 2025, toned cyanotype on paper, 22 x 30 inches.
  • I Can’t Stop Drawing Angels, 2025, cyanotype on paper. 22 x 30 inches.
  • Portal (Twins), 2024, toned cyanotype on paper, 34 x 44 inches.
  • Discernment Spirit, 2025, cyanotype on paper, 22 x 30 inches.
  • Lovers, 2023, bleached cyanotype on paper, 30 x 43 inches.
  • Intimacy Loop, 2025, cyanotype on paper, 11 x 14 inches.

ARTIST STATEMENT

My work is a swirling devotion to process and surrender.

Since 2019, cyanotype has taught me subversive techniques via states of play, acceptance and transformation. This alternative photographic process uses light-sensitive chemicals which are applied to a surface like paper or fabric, exposed to UV light, and developed with water to create brilliant blue and white images. Additional processes like bleaching and toning (with everyday kitchen witchery like baking soda or tea!) make for additional color possibilities using the same old chemistry.

Both imagery and process are relational, with my work often revealing my own emotions to me before I’m even aware of their presence. I often explore this terrain by painting shapes with the chemistry, placing objects onto the surface to resist the light, rinsing and repeating this process in multiple layers. The paper holds the memory of each new layer, dodging destruction while creating space for possibility. 

Conversely, there are also magical moments where the image snaps into place in one exposure, as if by a flick of the wrist. The simplicity can be electrifying. The paradoxical nature and generative inertia of making these painterly cyanotypes continually invites me to learn and my work to transform.

INTERVIEW

South Broadway Press asks Rachel Mulder a few questions to get to know this artist a bit better.

SBP: WHERE ARE YOU FINDING INSPIRATION AS OF LATE?

RM: As a leo (sun, mercury and mars), I feel really grateful that a major part of my practice is actually worshipping the sun! Cyanotype is such a whirling dervish of magic, it’s really easy to be endlessly captivated by the process itself. I also enjoy listening to podcasts while I work, including Dean Spade’s Love in a F*cked up World (named after his most recent book, which I haven’t read yet) and Margaret Killjoy’s Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff (especially the four-parter on how the Surrealists were even cooler than we thought!)

WHAT DO YOU HOPE TO ACCOMPLISH, IF ANYTHING, WITH YOUR ARTWORK?

Currently, I feel like I’m at a kind of journeyperson stage with cyanotype; I have a lot of confidence and trust with the chemistry and timing but I feel as though I’ve barely begun deepening the secondary processes available to me, like toning or adjacent methods like anthotype or Solarfast (the latter offers lots of different colors outside of the traditional blue!). I’m also passionate about sharing this magical process with others, and am on the lookout for an ideal, accessible location where I can continue to offer more masks-required cyanotype workshops for people of all ages and abilities here in Portland.

SBP: WHAT IS BRINGING YOU JOY RIGHT NOW?

I’ve been spending a lot of time in parks lately, and I feel really lucky and grateful when a dog or baby locks eyes with me and demands to become my friend. Like, when a dog you just met gives you The Lean or crouches beneath your legs like you’re its protector, that’s like the highest compliment. 

SBP: ANY UPCOMING EVENTS?

My solo show SUNWORK will be on view at Elbow Room in Portland, Oregon next month! The opening reception is on Sunday, October 26 from 3:00 – 6:00 pm and will be up through November 27. I’m also part of a little co-op called Grover’s Curiosity Shop where I sling prints, stickers, cards and more, and we host sweet and weird events there. My website is rchlmldr.com and there you can easily sign up for my newsletter or find my online shop. I offer a selection of prints where 25% of my sales are shared with Palestinians and mutual aid efforts in Gaza, like the anticapitalist mutual aid fund Bridge of Solidarity. Last, I have a Patreon where at the $5 tier or higher you get monthly postcards in the mail as well as behind the scenes process stuff, discounts in my shop and more.

Rachel Mulder (she/they) lives in Portland, Oregon, with her two cats, Opal and Tomasina. She was born in rural Wisconsin and when she was small she spent a lot of time sitting in the grass staring, obsessing about animals, watching cartoons and peeling her skin off. Now she makes drawings using a variety of media that often yield printmakerly textures – residual effects from earning her BFA in Printmaking at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design in 2007. A process-oriented artist, her work vacillates back and forth between the meticulous and obsessive to playful experimentation and experientiality. Whether it’s drawing with human hair, mud, cyanotype, gel pen or graphite, her imagery explores human connection, expression, and the strangeness of existing in a body. Encouraging others (and herself) to create/exist sincerely is a parallel passion of hers that braids itself into her visual work.

Sinew // Three Poems by KD Hack

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Image: David Young
EDITOR’S NOTE: THESE POEMS ARE BEST READ
ON TEXT OR HORIZONTALLY ON A MOBILE DEVICE.

LAGNIAPPE

BY KD HACK

I could’ve held you / the whole night / through / the wilderness / of my body-mind / asks /
too many questions / but I am parched / & prefer / too many answers / meet me / at every
river bank / along the Mississippi / your name / a prayer / my name / a promise / your kiss / a
wish / it’s good medicine / it’s my command / teach me / something sweet / something
mother-father-auntie-grandma / tongue / I want / the knowledge / to blacken on / my tongue
/ I want / the taste / to linger / the lagniappe / of a love / freshwater / & somehow / still
molten / I molted / here / on these rocks / slippery / but not too heavy / to hold /  I will bring
them / back / to you / like precious stones / like something / we might build with / the levees
won’t break / there / the gumbo will be / glorious / & the bowls / never empty / bring your
spoons / bring your lover’s lover / bring your appetite / bottomless / as the river / where we
sent up Hail Marys / like shooting stars / fletting but full / of feeling / a feast / we won’t soon
forget.

DIOSCOREA POLYSTACHYA

BY KD HACK
Fairy 
as in 
frolick 
as in 
               lick
my faggity ass
while you’re at it 
we’re all wild
	here 
& freer
than 
they want us 
to think 
when the water 
grew 
too frigid to dip 
a toe into 
my friend 
               fluorescent 
in the finger-smudged 
mirror made 
             a man 
out of mascara 
& might 
& I might not be
convincing anyone 
but myself 
but you 
can kiss
my faggity ass 
& even my lips
while you’re at it
I promise
I won’t bite 
unless you ask
	nightly 
I wish 
for whiskers 
I whisper 
in their ear  
let me 
              come 
nearer 
let me 
             come
closer
to the fairy prince
I promised 
to be 
in the woods
where we dug
our faggity fingers
in the soil
in the seams 
making streams
across our bodies
I’d dig a grave
in the space 
	      between
your breasts 
& your	belly 
my legs melt 
into jelly
when you lick me
	       hard
enough 
this is not 
a metaphor
this is not 
a death wish
this is 
a grave 
I’m digging 
down where 
the fairy potatoes 
grow I am not 
asking 
you to 
             die 
but to be
	      reborn
beneath the soil
I’ll meet you 
down there
soon.

BLOOD MOON

BY KD HACK
Blood Moon

KD Hack is a Queer/Trans writer, Death Doula & land steward. Their artistic practices were nourished across the Northwoods of Wisconsin, & reside in the spaces between fingers in the soil & pencils on the page. His work is featured in Peach Fuzz, Fruitslice, Querencia Press, Transfix, Tence, & Volume One, among others.

Genesis – Philip Matthews

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NC048 © D. Johnson, courtesy of the Colorado Photographic Arts Center

Flutter at no wide open mind.

I did not think like an individual eyelash. 

I did not move in the hourglass house, 

perpetuating itself of flashes of quicksilver of fish-knives. My parents. 

When the sermon was streamed in the old South, it was creamy, a small amount amounting. 

Whatever I thought of / against me, little queer hook, I was writing on my centurial skull. 

Until something ovarian. A tucked testicle. I felt her tapping, almost at full plank: Petal.

Philip Matthews is the author of “Witch” (Alice James Books, 2020) and “Wig Heavier Than a Boot” (Kris Graves Projects, 2019), a collaboration with David Johnson. A poet from eastern North Carolina, he currently resides in Sauk County, Wisconsin where he is Director of Programs at Wormfarm Institute. Up to this point, his practice has anchored in site-specific meditation and performance: he is curious about what happens next. philipandpetal.com / @philipandpetal

The Colorado Photographic Arts Center has an exhibition Aug 14- Sept 23, 2020. The Space Between explores issues of queer identity, sexuality, and relationships through the works of three contemporary artists, including two photographers and a poet.  In “Through the Lens of Desire,” Kris Sanford uses vintage photography from the 1920s – 1950s to explore an imagined queer history. “Wig Heavier Than a Boot,” is a collaboration of poetry and images that reveals Petal, a persona whom Philip Matthews manifests to write about and David Johnson photographs. 

In Our Own Small Bodies — Violet Mitchell

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sad rainbowphoto: Dewang Gupta

your breasts hang in a fog & you can no longer see the ceiling or clouds & can no longer
feel your (   ) you do not know where they are

his jeans ripped at the knee showed hair (   ) & dried scraps he says unreasons says hair says bodies says sweat says it won’t matter once it’s done

a pear split so that you could dig out the seed to see what you’ve always wanted to rid (         )

hexagon breath turning like a wheel up your throat clunky like (          it was man-made          ) the air was yellow & glittering sharp a fast sun was it always so full-bodied

until then you had always loved yellow

it was like a side stitch after running too far it pierced that you looked to the stars & ran to find thread sew sew sew it tighter

your opening is gone it is red & songblue it wasn’t firework it wasn’t a redred balloon it was a dried puddle

set of drawers with kids’ clothing the shade of moths’ wings holes absorbing the mahogany grief this is the morning you decide your new outfit

it was late late light loose hair clinging to plastic rose petals       quiet & dry

(       ) you kept wanting to close the shades to stop the light to just know the lick of darkness to just be in it & not be talked at about pointed stars & wishes they made

if you are caught in quicksand you have to lay down flat spread your limbs hold your weight in your chest you must face palms up & open like the sky you watch who is blue & counting ( close) your eyes (think) of water (think) of the year the flood came & swept your home away

he said he found a ring it was diamonds cut from earth just like you how you were born he slipped it over your ankles, thighs, hips (   *   ) & when he reached your stomach rock after rock fell out of you & became the ring became a gift of the earth’s ground

Violet Mitchell is a Denver-based writer and artist. She earned a B.A S. in cognitive literary studies and is completing an MFA degree in creative writing poetry, both from Regis University. Her work has been published in Heavy Feather Review, The Blue Route, Sixfold, Word for Word, ANGLES, Furrow Magazine, and several other journals. She received the Robert A. O’Sullivan, S.J. Memorial Award for Excellence in Writing in 2019.

violet

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Standing at the Edge of the World — Alyssa Jordan

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kyle-ryan-jtSO-EnyqjY-unsplash
Photo: Kyle Ryan

i. In the garden, Jena thrives.

Loneliness has transformed into electric-green cacti and short, spiny plants. Anxiety raises flowers that look vibrant and oily in the daylight. Restlessness enriches the earth, coloring flora with a spill of magenta, a blaze of orange.

In the end, fear evaporates entirely under the sun. It turns into the soil caked under her nails, the wet clumps that stick to her thighs and the back of her knees.

This garden takes terrible things and puts them to good use.

At least, that’s what she tells herself.

 

ii. When Jena is eight, her father picks her up from school and drives for two days straight.

He tells her it’s for the best.

Sometimes, he says, running is the only thing a person can do.

The farther they drive, the quieter she becomes. Tears dry to salt on her skin. Beneath their feet, the thunderous rhythm has become something dangerous.

In her mind, she disappears.

Jena feels safe amongst the shrubs. She can easily envision this sanctuary, and so she builds it. Trees and plants and birds sprout from the ground. They start as feathery buds with paper-thin roots. As their bodies take shape, her father’s voice thins into the breeze, his face hardens to bedrock.

Every time fear creeps in, her hands form fists. With the garden she can outrun it, outmatch it, and she barely has to wait before it subsides in the grass.

 

iii. Jena doesn’t know it yet, but theirs will be a life on the move.

It will start with a string of motels. Each one will be indistinguishable from the next, with their jelly-lit signs, the soap slivers that cut her skin. They will turn into a monochromatic blur of vending machines and scratchy sheets and stained walls.

Soon, she won’t be able to fall asleep without barks of laughter, or the drone of a generator. It will feel unnatural to sit outside the cramped design of a car. Most of her spare time will be spent in a garden that never changes.

Years will pass before she is home again, standing in a room that no longer feels like her own.

Processed with VSCO with g1 preset

Alyssa Jordan is a writer living in the United States. She pens literary horoscopes for F(r)iction Series. Her stories can be found or are forthcoming in The Sunlight Press, X–R-A-Y Literary Magazine, Reflex Fiction, and more. When she’s not writing, she’s hanging out with her partner or watching too many movies. You can find her on Twitter @ajordan901 and Instagram @ajordanwriter.