Heidelberg, Germany | 2023

After what felt like the longest stop in Prague, we finally moved on to Heidelberg, Germany. Unlike Innsbruck and Prague, which I had apparently barely experienced on my first IBI experience, I had many great memories from my time in Heidelberg, and I was excited to return. Overall, my experience there this time felt more…

Milwaukee, Wisconsin | 2024

Once upon a time, some friends and I tried to go to Canada for New Year’s Eve. The concept was magical, if a little bit of a logistical nightmare for the dead of winter in the North. Ultimately, due to sickness and a winter storm, the plans were cancelled at the last moment and we…

Permanence

There’s nothing quite so diametrically opposed in a world of finites. And yet,there are few concepts which we both crave and fear for the marks it leaves on our bodies and souls.Permanence. Would love last to eternity and beyond as the stories promise us?Would fame follow us all the way to an end where even…

Natural Makeup

I have some thoughts on natural makeup that I’d like to share. No—this is not an influencer post nor an MLM opportunity for you to consider. I am not selling anything. All I want you to do is buy in to the notion that you (just you, not you with styled hair care or perfect…

Being alone doesn’t have to be lonely

Recently I found myself pitying a 60-something-year-old man who was eating ice cream by himself. Ohh, that must be hard, I assumed while I indulged in a latte in the coffee shop across the street. It’s sad to not have people around to share simple joys like a weekday afternoon frozen treat, I mused as…

Lofty Mid-year Bonus-goals

Have you revisited your New Year’s Resolutions lately (or ever)?? In case you somehow missed it, we have arrived in the second trimester of 2024. Mid-May is running our schedules into manic chaos, and the weather (at least in the Midwest) is propelling us outside every moment of the day, tempting us to shirk responsibilities….

Change

If you sit still as daylight wakes and pause,expand your lungs with air sweet, full of peace—moments, time stands still you almost forgetwhat it was to you, the meaning of life.And yet in a breath suddenly it’s clear:a life lived well gives forth life abundantSuch shame to waste a minute. Time’s no thief. The sun…

Book Review: Seven Days in the Art World

One must not be an art aficionado to know that making art is only one stroke of the intricately complicated masterpiece of the modern art world. Art has inherent value from the moment a piece is started; even if that work is never shown to the public. However, when the oeuvre of an artist does…

Open call – closed to your submissions

“Open call for poetry,”the zines and mags announce emphatically.“We want you, we need you,trust us with your words.”They aren’t lying, they aren’t false,but the actual requirements tell a skewed story;dry prose in small print which dulls your dreamsand drags you back into the realitythat it is unlikely that you,the writer of poetry,will likely be a…

Post Scripts

Today, my first solo art show opens. That is crazy to me considering that I wasn’t consciously trying to make art a core part of my career until last fall. One year ago, I was transitioning out of full-time employment into an adventure of full-time creative work. That change came from an intentional shift to…