Archive

Rockhaven: A History of Interiors is a research project and book exploring the histories, politics, and presentations of female mental health via the proto-feminist psychiatric institution, Rockhaven Sanitarium. Founded in the Crescenta Valley in 1923 by nurse Agnes Richards, Rockhaven Sanitarium was owned and operated as an all-female psychiatric facility until 1967, when Agnes passed

Which Witch talks book design with Elana Schlenker: Contributor Orenda Fink reimagines her essay: Excerpts from Rockhaven: A History of Interiors, available now from Which Witch LA:

Patricia Traviss, who once dreamed of becoming an interior designer, incorporated color, light, and florals into Rockhaven’s design scheme, hoping this would have positive effects on treatment.

Rockhaven was owned and operated by Agnes Richards from 1923 until 1967, when Agnes passed the institution on to her granddaughter Patricia Traviss, who ran Rockhaven as a convalescent home until 2001.

Rockhaven’s lush landscaping was integral to its holistic treatment philosophy, which encouraged the women to spend time outdoors.

Some paper artifacts:

The many faces of Rockhaven’s families, residents, and staff:

Behind-the-scenes images captured on set of Which Witch’s Period Drama: Which Witch interviews Period Drama collaborators Henry Hoke and Malcolm Perkins via iMessage:

  This fall, a compelling exhibition was staged at LAST Projects Gallery in Los Angeles, CA. Organized by writer-artist Meital Yaniv, the show brought together eight woman-identified, queer artists whose practices also utilize the written word. “We live between the objects we make and the pages we write,” Yaniv opens in the exhibition press release.

  Artist: Ali Kheradyar Title: Untitled (Performing Death) Year: 2016 Materials: Paper, Ink, Metal, Earth   Ali Kheradyar’s contribution to “Words on Paper” stands simply. “Untitled (Performing Death)” (2016): a trough of earth holding a poetic statement printed on white paper. But it is actually a portal containing inquiry into the nature of representation and

Artist: Meital Yaniv Title: 12 frames, bronika, NE & CA 12 frames, bronika, Parkfield 12 frames, bronika, NM Year: 2016 Materials: Photography   “How many words hide beneath an object?… Does a paragraph have a shadow?” Writer-Artist Meital Yaniv conceptualized the “Words on Paper” exhibition out of genuine curiosity. She wanted to know how her

Artist: Suné Woods Title: decoy Year: 2016 Materials: Photo Collage   In “touching (a)part,” the first reading convened for “Words on Paper,” Suné Woods evokes the spirit of Mfon Essien, a photographer who died after an honest battle with breast cancer. The artist’s insistence upon being present and expressive as a whole person, in light

Artist: Cara Despain Title: May 21, 5:14PM Year: 2016 Materials: Concrete   Cara Despain contributes an enigmatic, stand-alone sculpture for “Words on Paper.” With a date and time stamp for a title, “May 21, 5:14pm” (concrete, 2016), the three pieces of cast wood hold the corner of the gallery like they hold a secret. The

Artist: Abigail Han Title: When You Get The Chance, Please Send Me The Right Brick Year: 2016 Materials: Archival Ink Jet Print and Drawing   Abigail Han’s contribution to “Words on Paper” comes in the form of recorded dispatches from Singapore and an archival ink jet print and drawing called “When You Get The Chance,

Artist: M Title: It’s impossible to feel the distance between mouths receding Year: 2016 Materials: neon, wood, wires, plexiglass, printed silk   “It’s impossible to feel the distance between mouths receding” A fragment of dialogue, a glimpse of cinema, the dreamy proclamation title of M Rasmussen’s installation for “Words on Paper” maps yearning onto range

  Artist: Toisha Tucker Title: Orlando Year: 2015 Materials: Digital Print   The striking profile of “Orlando” (digital print, ed. of 3, 2015) posits the equation of combining two portraits (author Virginia Woolf and conceptual artist/creative writer Toisha Tucker) to make a third masculine-appearing merge. In her image-based and recorded contributions to “Words on Paper,”

  Artist: Anna Knecht Schwarzer Title: Sister Year: 2016 Materials: Silkscreen Print   Verbs ratify process, duration, and transformation. Anna Knecht Schwarzer’s practice – her art and activism – is chalk full of action. Animated by a deep spring of compassion and sense of justice, her works reach out in solidarity. “Real work happens by

  On June 12, 2016 a man entered PULSE, a gay nightclub in Orlando Florida and used a SIG Sauer MCX semi-automatic rifle and a 9mm Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol to murder 49 people and wound 53 others. The club was hosting Latin Night. The vast majority of victims were Puerto Rican and Latin@. This

Brendan Constantine’s work has appeared in FIELD, Ploughshares, Virginia Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, and Ninth Letter, among other journals. His latest collection is ‘Dementia, My Darling’ (2016 Red Hen Press). He has received grants and commissions from the Getty Museum, James Irvine Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.  He currently teaches poetry at

Paige Lewis Reading “We Are Surprised” by Ada Limon Paige Lewis is an Assistant Poetry Editor at Narrative Magazine.  Their work has appeared or is forthcoming in The Cincinnati Review, The Journal, Ninth Letter, and elsewhere. Kaveh Akbar Reading “THICKET” by Kazim Ali Kaveh Akbar founded and edits Divedapper.  His first books, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, will be out

Ellen Krout-Hasegawa is a writer, gender-queer Angeleno, sometime artist, and lifelong flaneur.  For over 15 years, she wrote for the LA Weeklyon books, theater, music and good times.  She currently is a former member of the post-Fluxus Yoko Ono tribute band, The Ohno(!)s.   Nina Rota is a writer and filmmaker. Her writing can be found

Poem Read in the video is by the 12th Century Sufi Mystic Ibn Arabi I believe in the religion Of Love  Whatever direction its caravans may take,  For love is my religion and my faith. -Ibn Arabi The day after the Pulse nightclub shooter in Orlando killed 49 people, between The Golden Lantern, one of

Coco Wilder is a queer maker from the U.S. South. Her writing has appeared in Public Pool, Oxford American, The Carolina Quarterly, and elsewhere. She lives in New York City, where she works at the Academy of American Poets and is a MFA candidate at Columbia University.   Previously published on Public Pool   I DON’T WANT TO REMINISCE I

E. PARKER PHILLIPS is a teacher, writer and performer who works across the genres of writing, kink and performance. Parker received their BA in Chinese from Yale and an MFA in Creative Writing from FIU, teaching at FIU and Broward College before opening a BDSM and fetish studio in Miami in 2014 where Parker produced

Lisa Donato specializes in directing, writing, and producing for commercial and indie film productions. Credits include shows for National Geographic Wild, Oprah Winfrey Network, and several short and feature films. Her personal stories have been published in the LA Times, Self Magazine, Curve, 5280, and more. The first feature screenplay that Donato wrote with comedian/writer,

For as long as I can remember I’ve found pleasure in paying close attention to color. It only intensified when I moved in 2011 to the North Woods of Wisconsin to get an MFA in poetry. When I visited, the locals told me there were only two catches: “winter, and you’ll never want to leave.”

Wo Chan is a queer Fujianese poet and drag performer. Wo is the recipient of honors from Poets House, Kundiman, Asian American Writers Workshop, and Lambda Literary, and is published in The Margins, Cortland Review, No Tokens, and others. Wo is also a member of the Brooklyn based drag alliance Switch N’ Play, and has

Whit McClure is a queer black femme florist, cook, gardener, community organizer, & artist currently based in Los Angeles. whithazenblog.wordpress.com What do you remember from childhood about coloring? I remember loving coloring so much! I was particularly drawn to the Crayola “Cerulean” blue hue. To me, it was the most perfect and magical shade of

Tyler Driscoll is a freelance artist and trans man, who lives on the shore of Lake Superior. He enjoys painting and giving new life to old objects. What do you remember from childhood about coloring? My older sister and I had a small table with chairs in our bedroom. With a sunny view of the

Temim Fruchter is moved by warm yellows, wet emerald greens and purples so deep you have to look twice. She writes stories and essays and makes art on the edge of a forest in Washington, D.C. and lives on the Internet at http://temimfruchter.wordpress.com   What do you remember from childhood about coloring? My mother is

Maggie Gosselar is a tattoo artist at Colt’s Timeless Tattoos in Madison, Wisconsin. She earned her degree in art and museum studies, and even she is amazed she’s working in her field (when she isn’t pulling shots at her local coffee shop part time or taking the track to play roller derby with Madison’s home

Jady Dyer is a queer, trans artist type making a living as bicycle mechanic in Washington DC. Jady spends their time finding ways to exist in the realms of color & creative collaboration,music‐making, geometric & gendery ponderances, and in building queer community.       What do you remember from childhood about coloring? I remember a

Jackie Lang is a queer librarian and roller derby girl in Oakland, California. She loves NPR, binge watching Netflix, thrift shopping, vegan cooking, museum-ing (gotta use that art history degree somehow), and reading everything. What do you remember from childhood about coloring? As a child, I remember being really good at coloring but I was

Introduction as written in late August 2015 francine j. harris The video was originally produced in December 2014/January 2015. “The Radio Amateur Is Patriotic. That’s what the manual says. It is your responsibility as an amateur radio operator to pass the word in time of trouble, time of war. Time of danger or disaster. Time of tragic

Places to start: our mother’s heart, first sound to prove our ears—tells us we’re not one; or the fish, fowl, cattle, and thirst for dominion and those words beat to wrought this reality; or one fish, two fish, since two is all one needs to make other of another which explains our clannish ways, and

Psalm 6:6 and this is how a young boy finds manhood | at once constructed and crushed | into the body | on his back drunk cheek to burnt floor | ass wet on fire and lifted toward the sky of the den | a circling of wax-wood laths | the circle of his face

Last Night, I Was Trapped in the Wrong Body Again A downy woodpecker shakes its head the way, say, a scruffy faced teenager might. It’s pulsing—the red streak running down the middle of its crown. Or at least I think it’s red in the glow of the bird-spiked Meijer sign. Then again, this late, I’m

Hands “Dear God, if we were made to be ghosts, why do the bullets still work? -Airea D. Matthews [dear god] I have seen the door of a black child’s face open to let the sidewalk in as a cop stands over his body. I am not going to pretend that your eyes are anything

is the ordinariness of color is dirty money is the last trap on the left is the viscous part gone amok; an echo-shuffle of feet shucking is the plug telling you he wouldn’t bullshit is a blackish colored rat he spit up—its body hobbled in bile, already a sung secret is getting gurbed for your

Each night this 21st century frontier town settles Enough for me to hear the thrum and hiss in my ears, My tinnitus, which I choose to think of as the harmony Of my firmament—all so far away—like the whush And hiss from Nana’s gas heater that warmed the winter- Chilled bedroom in Georgia while she

David Tomas Martinez introduces the second week at Voluble.

Two Poems by David Tomas Martinez: Shed and Symposium

Music: Brooklyn Shanti  http://www.brooklynshanti.com & Robin Sukhadia http://www.tablapusher.com Editing: Brooklyn Shanti  Poems and Vocals: Tarfia Faizullah  Footage of “Love Poem Ending with the Eye of a Needle” comes from Sita Sings the Blues: http://www.sitasingstheblues.com

Video shot by Jamaal May: www.jamaalmay.com 

This poem is the moment. It is part ekphrasis, fiction, and history. The location is real, after 40 years, it is still a part of the community. The need is real – a simple fundraiser; a “benefit dance” created by the parishioners of Church of the Resurrection as part of a larger community effort to support

A.H. Jerriod Avant introduces the first week at Voluble.

Listen to Rachel Eliza Griffiths artist’s statement:

In art class, the students were astonishing: a quiet woman who made prints of disfigured mice, a woman who photographed her roommate wrapped in toilet paper, a woman who often had a bottle of wine and wanted to make books with no ink. She wiped down the teeth of the typewriter and pressed the keys

Listen to Nadia Huggin’s Artist’s Statement:   An interview with Nadia Huggins This work developed over the course of weeks, months, years? I started developing the idea behind the series from December 2013 and spent a year from January 2014 photographing the boys. I suppose creating an emotional consciousness and sensitivity to the experience also

This is a description.

  Experience “See-Hear” My ideas about the representation of self and others in art and the relationship between art and memory are largely formed from having studied and loved photography and having been a serious amateur photographer for several years. I don’t currently make photographs as an artistic practice, but I am still deeply enamored of

“this dull chaos,” wants to track a very specific emotion, through at least a singular episode of social chaos, right down to the family function. an episode where the speaker wants to escape, if just for a moment, or from a cycle of these moments, even if that escape’s no larger than one’s own mind,