Dear Reader,
Every day we are called upon to say something new. Through class discussion and conversation with the people around us, we often find ourselves discussing ideas that we might not have totally worked out yet. In those moments when we don’t quite know what to say, we either kill the conversation with an I don’t know, or we open our mouths and see what words spill out, letting them flow until they work themselves into some sort of cohesive thought. Even tried and true topics can prompt us to be impressed by our own speech. Every once and awhile we’ll say something that strikes us, that makes us realize something, now obvious, that we’d never quite known before.The same phenomenon takes place in the creation of art. Often we start with a seemingly well conceived plan: an image, a storyline. Perhaps even more often, the final result of our work hardly resembles our original intentions at all. Along the way we surprise ourselves with what we’ve sculpted or sketched or written. An interesting shape or a line of dialogue sparks something else. The paintbrush in our hand stops listening to our brain; characters take on a life of their own and write the story for us. The form takes over until we’re left looking at what we’ve created and scratching our heads. Only then can we see the story we were trying to tell. Only upon reflection do we learn something about our interests or our style. The work speaks for us, speaks to us. And so, let’s take a look at what our peers have to say—please enjoy the Fall 2010 issue of Canvas Creative Arts Magazine: a manifestation of surprising ideas.
Editor's Choice: Visual
The Movable Book of Letterforms artist book by Kevin Steele
Pages were inkjet printed on
Mohawk paper, then cut and
assembled by hand. Velour cover
was debossed with polymer plate. Book is housed in a velour
clamshell box.
Editor's Choice: Written
All of Life by Sarah RobinsonWhat really spooked me about Tuck's brother's suicide was
that as near as we could tell, he’d done it on impulse
like it was nothing, like dying is the kind of thing a
grown man gets to make up his own mind about. Gene
Whitmoore—that was the kid’s name—hadn’t had any
mental illness, had a nice family, and according to the
autopsy he was pretty close to sober at the moment
he died. He didn’t leave a note. Gene, on a sticky July
night, had been walking home from way out in the
country where he and some of the other ball players
and their girlfriends had been drinking in the woods
like a bunch of rednecks. Having decided he didn’t
want another beer, Gene walked home before one of
the others guys could sober up enough to drive him
back. At 400 South and Mulberry, a quarter-mile north
of his house and way west of the ballpark, Gene must
of gotten the idea that he was going to die, and stepped
out in front of a Ford explorer and dropped to his knees
before the poor sucker driving it had time to stop. We
didn’t know the guy who hit Gene, but in a shaky TV
interview he’d said the boy hadn’t said a thing, just died
right there on impact. My dad, eating chili and shaking
his head at the news, kept silent as he watched so I
didn’t say anything either.
Download the magazine to read the entire work.