Some days, I feel like the girl in the tub with the fish in the comedy show hitting so close to home but so far out in left field that eating popcorn while I watch doesn’t seem nearly as awful as eating chicken wings during an episode of Criminal Minds. Me and my dying cat curled up on the floor, my hand stroking her tail — and only her tail because otherwise she thinks I’m about to stick another pill down her throat and she’ll run to hide from me. It’s a terrible thing when a part of your heart runs and hides from you, but I don’t blame her. She likes me best now in the mornings, too tired and stiff for any chase. Instead we curl up, like the girl and the fish in the tub, floating there in the early morning hours as if nothing will ever change.
I have a confession to make. For the past six months, I have been disappearing down a rabbit hole, crawling to the backside of the wardrobe, hitching a ride on a tornado…and making my way to the empire of Une Belle Ville.
It started innocently enough — my nephew on his tablet in the backseat on our way home from an adventure.
“What’s that?” I asked, hearing huzzahs and sing-song chimes.
“Forge of Empires,” he said.
“A video game?”
“Yea, it’s cool. You build a city by collecting resources and building an army. I’m in the Stone Age still.”
When we got home, we sat on the couch together and he showed me his city. Just a few random huts, some dirt trails, an obelisk — but it had me at sing-song. So I loaded it on my iphone and away we went, my nephew and me sharing our cities and achievements.
“I’m in the Iron Age!” he announced.
“Me, too!”
“You caught up with me. I have three archers!”
“I built a fruit farm!”
We went on like this for a few weeks, comparing notes as we played dueling technologies. And then one day, I started hearing zap-zap-zap and kaboom instead of huzzah and sing-song, sing-song.
“What age are you in now?” I asked, curiously.
“I’m playing Minecraft.”
“Not Forge of Empire?”
“No. It was too boring. This is better, see…”
And so our paths diverged. He and his kabooms went one way, and I skipped along with my huzzahs from the Bronze age straight on through to the Industrial.
Ok, maybe it seems a little silly. It’s also one of those nefarious escape mechanisms that gets you strung out on dopamine. But given the state of the world (and the state of my family of late)? I’m all in for an extra hit of dopamine thank you very much.
The funny thing is, my city — Une Belle Ville — is exactly the kind of place I’d like to spend my time if the rabbit hole jumping, wardrobe crawling, tornado clinging thing actually worked. My fellow villagers and I rank high in enthusiasm and participate happily as members of the local Guild. We trade instead of battle, we polish instead of plunder, we explore the world and give aid when we can. We have lots of trees and gardens, a rosarium and a butterfly house. There’s a mountain preserve, a Celtic farmstead, and a vineyard. We can see the Oracle of Delphi, the Arc de Triomphe, the Lighthouse of Alexandria, Notre Dame, and a Statue of Zeus all in an afternoon’s walk. We can visit the zoo, laugh on the ferris wheel, take a hot air balloon ride, or climb the steps of the Observatory to see the stars.
So far, I’ve built a paper mill, am working towards a print shop, and look forward to the day I can build a library for my city, because we all need books, don’t we? Those other things that give us a beautiful out, an “I’ll be right back” excuse to leave the 21st century messes and remember what’s possible with a little bit of imagination and some escapism-flavored dopamine. Huzzah!
The bee in the meadow is chanting, its words imperceivable but for the rhythm the vibration like my own chanting sometimes before I start the day and the bee, like me is quick in its reverence quick prayer like the mealtime grace of my childhood
God is great God is good let us thank him for this food
Amen
Ommmmm
Bzzzzzzzz
ABOVE: The adoration of Common chicory (Cichorium intybus) by Bicolored Agapostemon Sweat Bee (Agapostemon viriscens). Photo and poem by Jen Payne.
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL ZINE MONTH! Come on over to the Three Chairs Publishing website and join me as we celebrate a month full of zine things! Find out about zines, zine libraries, zine history, how to make your own zine and more!
In the ruins of my cathedral I can still hear the angels sing they from their loft of branches and I on bended knee begging for absolution that will not come
not from the pine at the pulpit sheared off in the storm
not from the maple whose leaves filtered light more beautifully than glass
not from the elm or the ash who lie beneath my feet extinguished by our blaze our red hot disregard
so keenly unconcerned that we are of this and part of this and crumbling at our very foundation
the beech knows its grief spreads like sickness now
On May 24, 2022, an 18-year-old with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle fatally shot nineteen students and two teachers, and wounded seventeen other people, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. MANIFEST (zine): Endemic is a response that event. The proceeds from this issue will be donated to Sandy Hook Promise, a national nonprofit organization founded and led by several family members whose loved ones were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012.
12-page, full-color 5×7, Cost: $8.00or subscribe and get 4 issues for $25.00
Part lit mag, part artist book, part chapbook, MANIFEST (zine) is the eclectic creation of Connecticut writer / poet / artist Jen Payne. Consider it a hold-in-your-hands art installation featuring writing, photography, and artwork, along with bits and pieces of whatnot that rise to the surface as she meditates on themes like change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times. Each issue also includes a curated Spotify playlist. Layered with colors, textures, meanings (and music), the result is a thought-full, tactile journey with nooks and crannies for you to discover along the way.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
On May 24, 2022, an 18-year-old with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle fatally shot nineteen students and two teachers, and wounded seventeen other people, at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, United States. The victims were Makenna Lee Elrod, 10, Layla Salazar, 11, Maranda Mathis, 11, Nevaeh Bravo, 10, Jose Manuel Flores Jr., 10, Xavier Lopez, 10, Tess Marie Mata, 10, Rojelio Torres, 10, Eliahna “Ellie” Amyah Garcia, 9, Eliahna A. Torres, 10, Annabell Guadalupe Rodriguez, 10, Jackie Cazares, 9, Uziyah Garcia, Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10, Maite Yuleana Rodriguez, 10, Jailah Nicole Silguero, 10, Irma Garcia, 48, Eva Mireles, 44, Amerie Jo Garza, 10, Alexandria “Lexi” Aniyah Rubio, 10, and Alithia Ramirez, 10.
MANIFEST (zine): Endemic is a response that event. The proceeds from this issue will be donated to Sandy Hook Promise, a national nonprofit organization founded and led by several family members whose loved ones were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School on December 14, 2012. Based in Newtown, Connecticut, their intent is “to honor all victims of gun violence by turning our tragedy into a moment of transformation. By empowering youth to “know the signs” and uniting all people who value the protection of children, we can take meaningful actions in schools, homes, and communities to prevent gun violence and stop the tragic loss of life.”
12-page, full-color 5×7, Cost: $8.00or subscribe and get 4 issues for $25.00
Part lit mag, part artist book, part chapbook, MANIFEST (zine) is the eclectic creation of Connecticut writer / poet / artist Jen Payne. Consider it a hold-in-your-hands art installation featuring writing, photography, and artwork, along with bits and pieces of whatnot that rise to the surface as she meditates on themes like change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times. Each issue also includes a curated Spotify playlist. Layered with colors, textures, meanings (and music), the result is a thought-full, tactile journey with nooks and crannies for you to discover along the way.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
The deer in the field were startled by the first shot, were you? You in your pews a thousand feet away there praying for sins praying for life while gun club gunshots rang in the holy morning, frightened the deer
and the bobolink.
Or you, while the tactical defense cleric in police surplice preached a safety sermon to the congregation there from the sacred pulpit: carry your faith defend from evil shoot to kill all lives matter…
From my window all I need to know of Earth this morning: her ombré sky indecisive her sun bold no matter glowing green buds of spring / that flash of red? a cardinal who was singing just a moment ago a duet like a record baby spider spinning another masterpiece as shadows fly across the lawn they bob and weave and somersault punctuated by bee bee bee bee the pond ripples with morning traffic turtles and ducks and frogs peep peep peep while the trees in unison sing Watch Our Here I Come!
Broken Pencil Magazine has been supporting zine culture and independent creative action for more than 25 years. Published four times a year, each issue of Broken Pencil features reviews of hundreds of zines and small press books, plus comics, excerpts from the best of the underground press, interviews, original fiction and commentary on all aspects of the indie arts. From the hilarious to the perverse, Broken Pencil challenges conformity and demands attention.
For all of those reasons and more, I was gobsmacked to see that MANIFEST (zine) was featured in their 25th Anniversary Issue! The cover of REFUGE, the quarantine zine, appears on page 38 – because, as they say, “the pandemic is the ultimate zine sourdough starter.”
Happy WWW Wednesday! New here on Random Acts of Writing, WWW Wednesday is a weekly blog meme hosted by Taking on a World of Words. The three W’s are simple:
• What are you currently reading? • What did you recently finish reading? • What do you think you’ll read next?
So here we go…feel free to post your own WWWs in the comments below!
What are you currently reading?
Beasts of a Little Land by Juhea Kim
“An epic story of love, war, and redemption set against the backdrop of the Korean independence movement, following the intertwined fates of a young girl sold to a courtesan school and the penniless son of a hunter.”
I’m taking my time with this one, holding on tightly to the separate stories that are dancing around each other from page to page.
What did you recently finish reading?
Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History Art Spiegelman
“A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.”
Truth be told, I am not a fan of the graphic novel approach — but this book got so much press after it was banned by a Tennessee school board, I was curious and felt compelled to read it.
What do you think you’ll read next?
What Do People Do All Day? Richard Scarry
“An illustrated panorama of the animals of Busytown at work, describing the occupations and activities of many of her citizens through detailed drawings with labels indicating processes and equipment used as they perform their jobs.”
Research for the next issue of my zine, MANIFEST (zine), I can’t wait to revisit a favorite illustrator and favorite characters from my childhood. Who could resist?
A woman takes a knee by the side of the road thinks: “Surely the Mourning Cloak I spied this morning is mourning. Having surveyed our condition from its higher vantage point, it must wonder, as I do, if the storm that fell so many trees, that destroyed this holy place, did so on purpose. Barring us from passage. Asking us who we think we are, as Frost wrote, insisting always on our own way so. Our own way. God help us. Who DO we think we are…littering these open spaces with our trash, leaving our detritus and dog shit behind? Dragging our noisy selves and our machineries along paths as if we have some lofty right? Infesting the woods with our toxic nature, our assumed religions, our fabricated joy? Infesting the world with our opinions, our politics, our petty, pathetic proclivities? Insisting on our own way and ever ignorant of the ripple effect, the consequences?”
A woman takes a knee by the side of the road — butterfly, startled, flies away, a world away a world dies — and we think she is praying.
My first family was soft and warm, and covered me with enough love and affection to keep my heart hopeful for decades. My second family was threadbare, though, worn down so much that it hardly covered the dysfunction anymore, left me sick and unable to breathe. My third family fell apart at the seams. My fourth has been a patchwork of cotton and corduroy — thin in places, strong in others, woven together over time and enough to pull up to my chin, close my eyes and remember the little girl skipping, blanket always in tow, her Mom and Dad laughing.
Twelve pop art Cakes by Wayne Thiebaud to celebrate TWELVE YEARS of blog posts here on Random Acts of Writing. Thank you for your ongoing attention, support, and likes.
“In a time of destruction,” say author Maxine Hong Kingston, “create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.”
I save their stories like scraps of stolen poetry. I know, for example, that she was conceived at the 1965 World’s Fair and that hidden above his left ear is a question-mark shaped scar. I remember the name of the child they lost, what she called the family dog, and that he wakes from nightmares as if in a back-alley brawl. Thief, collector, storykeeper — how easily I can tell the stories of couples in love and couples lost; about the pillow talk of lovers, the half-life of trauma, and the white-haired widow forever chasing a dog by the shore.
It’s definitely BIGGER ON THE INSIDE, but you’ll have to see Sarah Zar’s solo exhibit Guilford Art Center for yourself. This awesome photo is just a hint at what you’ll find. (Photo by Ashley Seneco, GAC Programs Assistant and Visitor Services)
Jen Payne, friend Laura Noe, and Maureen Belden, Executive Director of Guilford Art Center. (Photo by SeaneenThorpe)
Guilford Art Center (Guilford, CT) is currently hosting a tale of two stories about connections made across the world wide web, and together they weave a story of lost histories and creative bravery.
On Valentine’s weekend, Guilford Art Center hosted a fun and electric book signing for local author Jen Payne’s new book Water Under the Bridge. Told through a series of emails, it’s about two former loves who reconnect after 15 years apart and work to reconcile their pasts and futures. It’s a conversation, a memoir, a love story…sort of.
And while premise itself is intriguing, it’s the stunning cover design that first captures your imagination. The image, called Hurricane Woman, was painted by Sarah Zar, a New York-based multi-disciplinary artist. Jen and Sarah connected through their Etsy shops back in 2019.
But the story doesn’t end there.
When the time came to launch the book, Jen saw a great opportunity to weave the common threads — cover art and artist, artist and art center. And so it was that the salon-style exhibit BIGGER ON THE INSIDE found a home in the Center’s lobby gallery.
Sarah’s paintings, often executed in low-lit, moody colors, are filled with bizarre figures, interacting or inhabiting solitary scenes with other unnatural presences, absences, and transpositions. She paints on old book pages and found remnants, preferring the polished texture of things with lost histories. In any medium — painted or three-dimensional — Sarah’s works are often figurative and a bit fabulist. She thinks of her objects as love letters to the unconscious minds of strangers.
On view through April 16, all of the work is for sale and outlined in a full-color price list available in The Shop at Guilford Art Center. Also for sale are copies of Water Under the Bridge: A Sort-of Love Story, signed artist prints of the Hurricane Woman cover art, joy bottles, lover’s eye necklaces, postcards, and signed copies of Sarah’s art book, Riddled With Spots, a popular item at the MoMA gift shop.
A steady stream of guests filled the Art Center with enthusiasm on Saturday, February 12, including Victoria Ferrell of the Guilford Courier who featured her photographs in this Meet the Author feature.
SCENES FROM THE DAY
Sarah Zar’s solo exhibit BIGGER ON THE INSIDE, on view at Guilford Art Center through April 16.
Water Under the Bridge: A Sort-of Love Story is on sale at The Shop at Guilford Art Center.
The book signing event on February 12 was full of joy…so are Sarah Zar’s “Joy Bottles” on sale at The Shop.
Book Signing guests enjoyed gift bags filled with goodies including La Colombe coffee and donuts from Pastry Fusion in North Branford.
The Shop at Guilford Art Center has a wide selection of contemporary handcrafted work by American artisans…
…including books, zines, and postcards created by Jen Payne…
…and a featured selection of work by artist Sarah Zar.
SPECIAL THANKS…
This event could not have happened if it weren’t for the enthusiasm, good work, and warm welcome from the staff at Guilford Art Center: Elena Albergo, Maureen Belden, John Bohannan, Ashley Seneco, Suzanne Hens-Kaplan, DeeDee Hakun, Lisa Ste. Marie, and Lisa Wolkow.
With special thanks to Sue Singleton, GAC Programs Assistant and Visitor Services, who greeted and assisted the many visitors in The Shop during the event.
And to Shoreline Times editor Sue Braden for her excellent feature article about the book and the event! Click on the photo read it now.
WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: A SORT-OF LOVE STORY ($16) is available at The Shop at Guilford Art Center (411 Church Street, Guilford, CT 06437) and from Three Chairs Publishing.
Jen Payne has published two books of poetry as well as a collection of essays and original photographs. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including the international anthology Coffee Poems: Reflections on Life with Coffee; the Guilford Poets Guild 20th Anniversary Anthology; Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis, edited by Connecticut’s Poet Laureate Margaret Gibson; and The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health. Payne is the owner of Words by Jen, a graphic design and creative services company founded in 1993. You can read more of her work on her blog Random Acts of Writing, randomactsofwriting.net, and in MANIFEST (zine) which creatively explores concepts of change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times.
Sarah Zaris a book-obsessed, multi-disciplinary artist who has exhibited in the U.S. and abroad. Whether drawing, painting, collaging, or sculpting, Zar uses images in a literary, psychological and symbolic way. While finishing her Master’s degree, she played the saw in a gypsy chamber ensemble, taught contemporary art & aesthetics, quantum theory, literary theory, NLP, nonsense cryptology, psychology, and the art of microexpressions. Zar is currently working on community-based artwork in which anyone in the world can be painted into an epic narrative scene about the War on Imagination.
The Guilford Art Center is a non-profit school, shop, and gallery established to nurture and support excellence in the arts. Through classes for adults and children, gallery programs, a shop of contemporary crafts, and special events, the Center provides opportunities for the public to participate in the arts, to experience their cultural and historical diversity, and to appreciate the process and product of creative work. Founded in 1967, the Center currently serves over 2,000 students, presents juried and invitational exhibits of art in the Center’s gallery and operates a shop of fine, handmade American crafts year-round. The Center also presents the Craft Expo, held on the Guilford Green each year in July, that features works by more than 180 of the country’s most distinguished artisans.
In sports, sudden death is a tiebreaker — two teams of equal measure play until one scores. In my family, sudden death was a torpedo in the East China Sea and a kamikaze’s final score. It was a flu pandemic in 1957 that meant game over for my 19-year-old aunt…and my grandmother, who never quite recovered her self. Sudden death was an 18-wheeler on a mountainous interstate in southwest Virginia — a certain game changer for my father, and for me who wakes more often than not with an adrenaline rush of grab the ball and run before it’s too late.
It was Valentine’s Day, but we’d already broken up. I ended it days earlier because he never listened to me — not about extravagant gifts, not when I asked him to drive with both hands on the wheel, not when I said I was allergic to dogs. He also didn’t pay attention when I told him not to deliver the postscript Valentine’s gift furtively left at my door. It, a $75 teddy bear, was dressed in what he assumed was my regular working-from-home attire: suit, skirt, briefcase.
But removed of her conformity? I say: who couldn’t love a bear named Naked Betty?
I find I have fond affection for the small hemlock under whose wide branches I sought refuge that cool October day. The soft rain having changed its mind turned cold and hard, and I — caught without a hat or jacket — had no choice but to suspend my walk for a while. And so it was I tucked into a dry spot beneath the hemlock at the side of the trail and leaned into her, perhaps for comfort or camaraderie — we will wait this out together. You can form bonds like that, you know, with trees. It comes almost instinctually, as if pulled up from some deep primordial well of remembrance. She was and remains like kin, and I wave when I pass her now. I like to think she nods back.
Saturday, February 12, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. BOOK SIGNING & ART EXHIBIT at Guilford Art Center 411 Church Street, Guilford, CT
• Book Signing with writer Jen Payne • “Bigger on the Inside,” exhibit by artist Sarah Zar • Free and open to the community
Connecticut writer Jen Payne has long been inspired by those life moments that move us most — love and loss, joy and disappointment, milestones and turning points — and her new book WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: A SORT-OF LOVE STORY tells of such a moment. It’s a conversation, a memoir, a love story — just in time for Valentine’s Day!
Told through a series of emails, WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE is the story of two people who reconnect after 15 years apart and work to reconcile their pasts…and futures.
She thought about him often over the years. Looked him up online occasionally to see where he was and if he was all right. It wasn’t until last fall that she found his email address, and several months more before she got up the courage to write.
Influenced by the work of Brené Brown and a proponent of the bravery of storytelling, Payne says WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE is “about having the courage to speak our truths; it’s about trust and vulnerability, and about the true blessings found when we open our hearts — come what may.”
What followed surprised her even more…
Please note, masks are required, regardless of vaccination status, please see current COVID protocols. Snow date: Saturday, February 19.
WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: A SORT-OF LOVE STORY ($16) will be available at the Shop at Guilford Art Center (411 Church Street, Guilford, CT 06437) and from Three Chairs Publishing.
Jen Payne has published two books of poetry as well as a collection of essays and original photographs. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including the international anthology Coffee Poems: Reflections on Life with Coffee; the Guilford Poets Guild 20th Anniversary Anthology; Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis, edited by Connecticut’s Poet Laureate Margaret Gibson; and The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health. Payne is the owner of Words by Jen, a graphic design and creative services company founded in 1993. You can read more of her work on her blog Random Acts of Writing, randomactsofwriting.net, and in MANIFEST (zine) which creatively explores concepts of change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times.
Sarah Zaris a book-obsessed, multi-disciplinary artist who has exhibited in the U.S. and abroad. Whether drawing, painting, collaging, or sculpting, Zar uses images in a literary, psychological and symbolic way. While finishing her Master’s degree, she played the saw in a gypsy chamber ensemble, taught contemporary art & aesthetics, quantum theory, literary theory, NLP, nonsense cryptology, psychology, and the art of microexpressions. Zar is currently working on community-based artwork in which anyone in the world can be painted into an epic narrative scene about the War on Imagination.
Her specially curated exhibit will be on view in the GAC lobby throughout February.
The Guilford Art Center is a non-profit school, shop, and gallery established to nurture and support excellence in the arts. Through classes for adults and children, gallery programs, a shop of contemporary crafts, and special events, the Center provides opportunities for the public to participate in the arts, to experience their cultural and historical diversity, and to appreciate the process and product of creative work. Founded in 1967, the Center currently serves over 2,000 students, presents juried and invitational exhibits of art in the Center’s gallery and operates a shop of fine, handmade American crafts year-round. The Center also presents the Craft Expo, held on the Guilford Green each year in July, that features works by more than 180 of the country’s most distinguished artisans.
The Garden State Parkway Rest Stop was half-way to my grandmother’s. We’d pull off the exit and shuffle into the rose-colored stalls of the Ladies Room.
Inside, near the pink-vinyl couch, a pull-knob vending machine sold hairnets, bobby pins, and rainhats neatly folded into pastel plastic boxes.
The Rest Stop burned down in ’91, years after we’d stop traveling as a family. But in my mind, it’s all still there — the soft golden light and tiled floors, the vending machine, my sister sleeping, Dad singing I Got You Babe to Mom in the front seat, his hand on her knee.
Saturday, February 12, 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. BOOK SIGNING & ART EXHIBIT at Guilford Art Center 411 Church Street, Guilford, CT
• Book Signing with writer Jen Payne • “Bigger on the Inside,” exhibit by cover artist Sarah Zar • Free and open to the community
Connecticut writer Jen Payne has long been inspired by those life moments that move us most — love and loss, joy and disappointment, milestones and turning points — and her new book WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: A SORT-OF LOVE STORY tells of such a moment. It’s a conversation, a memoir, a love story — just in time for Valentine’s Day!
Told through a series of emails, WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE is the story of two people who reconnect after 15 years apart and work to reconcile their pasts…and futures.
She thought about him often over the years. Looked him up online occasionally to see where he was and if he was all right. It wasn’t until last fall that she found his email address, and several months more before she got up the courage to write.
Influenced by the work of Brené Brown and a proponent of the bravery of storytelling, Payne says WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE is “about having the courage to speak our truths; it’s about trust and vulnerability, and about the true blessings found when we open our hearts — come what may.”
What followed surprised her even more…
Please note, masks are required, regardless of vaccination status, please see current COVID protocols. Snow date: Saturday, February 19.
WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE: A SORT-OF LOVE STORY ($16) will be available at the Shop at Guilford Art Center (411 Church Street, Guilford, CT 06437) and from Three Chairs Publishing.
Jen Payne has published two books of poetry as well as a collection of essays and original photographs. Her work has been featured in numerous publications including the international anthology Coffee Poems: Reflections on Life with Coffee; the Guilford Poets Guild 20th Anniversary Anthology; Waking Up to the Earth: Connecticut Poets in a Time of Global Climate Crisis, edited by Connecticut’s Poet Laureate Margaret Gibson; and The Perch, a publication by the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health. Payne is the owner of Words by Jen, a graphic design and creative services company founded in 1993. You can read more of her work on her blog Random Acts of Writing, randomactsofwriting.net, and in MANIFEST (zine) which creatively explores concepts of change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times.
Sarah Zaris a book-obsessed, multi-disciplinary artist who has exhibited in the U.S. and abroad. Whether drawing, painting, collaging, or sculpting, Zar uses images in a literary, psychological and symbolic way. While finishing her Master’s degree, she played the saw in a gypsy chamber ensemble, taught contemporary art & aesthetics, quantum theory, literary theory, NLP, nonsense cryptology, psychology, and the art of microexpressions. Zar is currently working on community-based artwork in which anyone in the world can be painted into an epic narrative scene about the War on Imagination.
Her specially curated exhibit will be on view in the GAC lobby throughout February.
The Guilford Art Center is a non-profit school, shop, and gallery established to nurture and support excellence in the arts. Through classes for adults and children, gallery programs, a shop of contemporary crafts, and special events, the Center provides opportunities for the public to participate in the arts, to experience their cultural and historical diversity, and to appreciate the process and product of creative work. Founded in 1967, the Center currently serves over 2,000 students, presents juried and invitational exhibits of art in the Center’s gallery and operates a shop of fine, handmade American crafts year-round. The Center also presents the Craft Expo, held on the Guilford Green each year in July, that features works by more than 180 of the country’s most distinguished artisans.
For sure there is a story to tell, of late-night clichés and coffee-stained romances there behind the counter of the midnight doughnut shop. She had written them in situ, on journal pages stained with raspberry-pink jelly: the dashing pirate, the rookie cop, the old war vet with a “crack in his cookie jar.” No doubt she learned more there than in any class at the university — or any day since. But could she find them again? Stir them up, let them proof and rise into something more than naïve schoolgirl impressions of the world and her life not yet begun?
I saw an elf bent over, studying the bark of a tree just up the path. “What are you looking at?” I asked, feeling curiouser and curiouser. “Mushrooms,” he told me, “these.” Then he bowed and plucked a bouquet from the log at my feet. Edible, he explained with a smile, so I asked “What are you making?” and he replied “Oyster mushrooms with a sherry cream sauce.” Mouths watering, we talked a bit about wild woods and food fare before we parted ways. Darn, I keep thinking, I forgot to drop my shoe. How will he ever find me?
Much to the alarm of a grandmother, I picked up the baby and ran, leaving the Christmas celebrations in our wake.
Gathering festive crinolines around her tiny feet for warmth, we dashed out to the front yard, and I pointed up to the sharp winter sky. “Look, Little Miss, it’s the Christmas star!” And she laughed and giggled and leaned into me — a shared delight.
“Remember,” I said, “That’s the star the wise men followed.”
Who’s to say, of course, if it was just a plane as I was admonished. The spirit whispered love and hope and sweet small wonders.
I assure you, I did nothing to encourage him. I was simply kneeling trailside, counting petals on a flower — he loves me, he loves me not, he loves me, he loves me not.
Then I heard him approach, footstepping through memories of trees scattered across the forest floor.
In his camouflage, I recognized fear and wonder, the wild and unpredictable nature of things, the magic of connection.
There was no amorous announcement to my ear, but a sound, a something sound I could not believe.
So as not to dash his hopes, I left quietly, wondering: do spiders really sing?
In Austin, she bought a rock star coat — black velvet with embroidered-flower sleeves and a faux-fur, mid-calf hem. In the dressing room, she laughed — it was a perfect fit.
“I’d never wear it,” she told the saleswoman. “Back home, we’re all L.L. Bean and Talbots.”
She bought it anyway, hung it by the door — her alter-ego, set in wait.
Then she met her new neighbors, Zach and Joe, walking their two chihuahuas.
“This is Amy and this is Pacho,” Zack said, “they have a cabaret act.”
When they invited her to their house-warming party, she knew exactly what to wear.
It was an all-points bulletin: MISSING IGUANA! Jake likes to roam, be on the lookout. Don’t chase!
I was a little busy when I first saw the news; parking my car outside the hotel was proving more difficult than it should and the sun was in my eyes. Maybe that’s why I had a hard timing believing them when I saw the iguana on the hotel lawn, sitting atop a purple octopus.
I didn’t think to ask how the octopus was managing out-of-water, I was actually deep in thought, wondering: what inspires an iguana to roam in the first place?
She wonders if he remembers the night he found that cat. Left to fend for itself in the winter woods, it died by the trail — as if it waited for someone to return. Collar with its name, no address or phone. Alone.
He carried it to the vet, along with his warped sense of humor. “Were you attached to it?” she mocked. “Yes, and then I abandoned it,” he replied — each of them poking fun at intimate confessions they’d shared. Achilles heels, laid bare.
Ironic, how easily they laughed at the inevitable.
In his absence now, she remembers…poor discarded “Love.”
MaryAnne and I were shopping on Canal Street in New York City. My polite “No thank you” replies to the onslaught of “Tiffany! Tiffany! You buy?” catcalls clearly indicated my novicity.
Thirteen blocks of brand-name idolatry was her pilgrimage, but I didn’t see any religious icons in the dimly lit backroom we entered solemnly.
Behind faux red velvet curtains, a thousand ordinary pocketbooks lined the walls; two Asian women exchanged furtive glances and slipped our twenties into small black pouches.
Later, in the car, I looked at my purchase ambivalently. “Is that a Coach bag?” MaryAnne gasped. “OH MY GOD!”
I think, maybe, it’s our hearts I keep meeting in my dreams. Not as often now as before, but still, they’re curled under a winter’s weight of blankets, not daring to move. Reading by the fire with coffee before the sun rises. Walking through the woods on familiar paths, old stories kicked around like leaves. Sitting on lawn chairs in the back yard before the big storm changed everything. It’s always he who reaches out for her hand, calls for her attention. And she who closes her eyes and breathes it all in — just one more time before I wake.
The born-again Christian man wore head-to-toe camouflage — a fabric used to disguise one’s appearance and to blend in with the surroundings. In nature, organisms use camouflage to sneak up on prey, to mask their identity and intentions. But his were clear. A warrior of god, proclaiming he is the way and the truth and the life. Praise God, he announces for all to see — while discussing guns and ammo with a friend in the post office lobby. They laugh, she thanks him for his advice, drives off in a car with a pro-life bumper sticker. Goes to stock up. Pray.
I suppose I was a force to be reckoned with, even then at 19, when we stood in his driveway and I explained how my world was just bigger than his, drawing circles in the air like the orbits of planets. But he loved me then, loved how we could talk for hours when only the stars were listening, loved that I loved him back in those sweet moments we traveled around each other. In the end he was the only one with courage enough to ask me to marry … and I wonder what if maybe every blue moon.
Downstairs, along a neon-lit hall of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, there’s an Art-o-Mat. From it, for $5, you can purchase small, original works of art. But I confess, my fascination with Art-o-Mats is more about their past lives than their brilliant creativity. You see, their artwork resides in old cigarette vending machines, and with each purchase I am transported to the Route One Dairy Queen, 1984. That very first pack of cigarettes. The sound of quarters dropping, the brazen pull of the lever, the musical-mechanical delivery of Marlboros on the offering plate below. The light. The smoke. Magic.
For more about Art-o-Mats and where to find one near you, visit www.artomat.org.
I met a man in the woods. He was going for a walk with his frogs…two Sonoran Desert toads, actually, along the green trail on a rainy afternoon. He had them in a cat backback, facing forwards so they could see as they went past the pond and around to where the stream crosses the trail. “What if he lets them out,” I ruminated. “They would die, it’s too cold.” “But is it? Gloabal warming.” “What if he’s conditioned them? Got them used to colder weather.” “This is silly.” “More silly than a guy on a hike with pet toads?”
In my version of the 2020 apocalypse, I lit incense and whispered fervent prayers to Saint Anthony and Ganesh. I started meditating. He bought a gun safe. It’s as definite in his living space now as the altar to Buddha is in mine. This should not come as a surprise. I have loved on the cusp of the yin and yang all my life, and it has been no different with him these past seven years. Of the first gift I gave him, he wondered: Speartip? Pestle? Arrowhead? “It’s a heart shape rock,” I swooned, our end-time a forgone conclusion.
This special “quarantine zine” features the words and images and thoughts within which we found REFUGE last year. The literal and figurative reflections, the comforting quotes and laugh-out-loud memes that kept us breathing all those long months, and helped us regain our sea legs when it seemed like the worst was behind us. Includes a full color, 36-page booklet, fun inserts, a curated Spotify playlist, and more! Cost: $6.00.
The Annual Subscription rate of $20 includes four issues of MANIFEST (zine), and starts with the September issue REFUGE: A Quarantine Zine.
Part lit mag, part artist book, part chapbook, MANIFEST (zine) is the eclectic creation of writer / poet / artist Jen Payne. Consider it a hold-in-your-hands art installation featuring writing, photography, and artwork, along with bits and pieces of whatnot that rise to the surface as she meditates on themes like change and transition, solitude, time, storytelling, and finding refuge in these turbulent times. Each issue also includes a curated Spotify playlist. Layered with colors, textures, meanings (and music), the result is a thought-full, tactile journey with nooks and crannies for you to discover along the way.
You can pay through PayPal using a PayPal account or any standard credit card. If you prefer the old school approach, please send your check, made payable to Jen Payne, P.O. Box 453, Branford, CT 06405.
There is a time to act, and a time to wait, to listen, to observe. Then understanding and clarity can grow. From understanding, action arises that is purposeful, firm, and powerful. — Charles Eisenstein
Back in the early 90s, I created a newsletter called The Latest News as a way to keep in touch with college friends and family. It had essays, quotes, photos, bits and pieces of personal news.
I didn’t know it was a “zine” until I read about the zine phenomenon and learned about Mike Gunderloy who reviewed and cataloged thousands of zines in his publication Factsheet Five. I sent him a copy of The Latest News and he reviewed it, and the next thing I knew — BAM! More than 350 people had subscribed and were reading my little 4-page, photocopied newsletter zine!
And then more BAM! The New York Times interviewed me about zines. And Tom Trusky, a professor at Boise State University invited me to be part of a zine exhibit called Some Zines: American Alternative & Underground Magazines, Newsletters & APAs. And later, The Latest News was featured in several retrospective books about the zine phenomenon: Notes from Underground: Zines and the Politics of Alternative Culture and The World of Zines: A Guide to the Independent Magazine Revolution.
Flash forward…I hate to say this, OMG…30 years, and BAM! MANIFEST (zine) showed up on my creative radar.
It’s been 12 months since I launched this new project, and I can’t tell you how amazed I am at the response. Folks from all over the planet have read about Divine Intervention and Cat Lady Confessions, they’ve discovered It’s About Time and what one does about Crickets. And they’ve been enthusiastic and supportive about what comes next.
I don’t know what comes next…or should I say which idea comes next, because I have a bunch! I hope you’ll stick around for the adventure.
Issue #1, DIVINE INTERVENTION What is the force that moves us? Changes us? Propels us with such acceleration that we hardly recognize ourselves. Is it grief, heartbreak, indignation? Or joy, courage, determination? Perhaps it is DIVINE INTERVENTION — masked for our benefit as demon or angel or a hurried white rabbit who intrigues us just enough to move. To trip, fall, test the waters, grow up, expand, explore. And praise be to that because often, so very often, those big and unexpected transitions become our greatest and most profound adventures.
OTHER INGREDIENTS: acetone transfers, acrylic paints, Avery labels, collaged elements, color copies, colored pencils, gold star stickers, Golden gel medium, hand-cut templates, hand-drawn fonts, hand-dyed paper, handmade papers, handmade rubber stamps, ink jet copies, laser prints, metal arrow, mirror labels, original photography, paper napkin, pigment inks, poetry, watercolor paints, with cameo appearances by Sir Isaac Newton Laws of Motion, Dirty Dancing, Star Trek, Solbeam, Eadweard Muybridge, Lewis Carroll, Sir John Tenniel, Alice, The Principals of Cartography, and the Serenity Prayer.
Did you know that each issue of MANIFEST (zine) includes a Spotify playlist especially curated for readers? For the CAT LADY CONFESSIONS issue, I explore all things cat, with songs by artists like Dee-Lite, Peggy Polk, Psapp, Alexis Saski, Lee Ann Womak, and Janet Jackson. It’s purr-fect! Take a listen now!
Issue #2, CAT LADY CONFESSIONS Poor Cat Lady. She always gets a bum rap. No one ever makes fun of Ernest Hemingway, whose Key West home was filled with cats — and he of a certain age. His strapping action figure includes a typewriter and a shotgun. Cat Lady? She gets six cats, bed head, and a ratty bathrobe. Doesn’t she earn points for opening her heart wide open? for loving even the most unlovable? for her strong, independent nature; Her patience and acceptance? for her superpower ability to nurture trust, stillness, solitude, balance? This issue of MANIFEST (zine) explores the oft-maligned life of the cat lady: crazy or contemplative? recluse or dancing to the beat of her own drum? You decide.
POEMS • The Obscurity of This Week’s Words • Bury Me in Yellow • Serenity • Chasing • Note to Self: Smell Roses • The Anatomy of 3 a.m. • Sunday Haiku • Cat Meditation
OTHER INGREDIENTS: acrylic paints, appropriation art, collaged elements, color copies, color scans, colored markers, colored pencils, cracker box, crazy cat lady action figure, Golden gel medium, hand-drawn fonts, hand-dyed paper, handmade cat mask, handmade linoleum block print, handmade papers, ink jet copies, laser prints, latex animal cat head mask, original photography, pigment inks, poetry, ribbon, rubber stamps, soap wrapper, sparkle paint, vintage photographs, watercolor paints, with cameo appearances by Cassastamps, Vikki Dougan , Matt Fry, Carl Larsson, Nina Leen, Pietro Longhi, Amedeo Modigliani, Mary O’Connor, Pixelins by Dana, Eckhart Tolle, Hattie Watson , Helen M. Winslow, and special thanks to Fuzzy, Calico, Crystal, Emily, CJ, Mousse, Little Black Kitty, and Lola.
MANIFEST ZINE Issue #3, It’s About Time! Poems & More by Jen Payne
We humans sure are creative with time, aren’t we? This arbitrary turning clocks backward or forward twice a year, assigning time to zones and lines and frames. I myself try to trick time, setting clocks randomly wrong and always fast as if I can somehow control the hours, beat the Kobayashi Maru of time. Even Albert Einstein said time is an illusion — “a stubbornly persistent illusion” — that time and space are merely “modes by which we think and not conditions in which we live.” Of course, if you think too hard on things like that you end up down rabbit holes and worm holes…want to come along?
Then check out the next issue of MANIFEST (zine). It’s About Time this time — time travel, time loops, time passing — a 28-page, full-color book filled with artwork, photos, poetry, and a curated Spotify playlist just for you. Cost: $6.00.
POEMS • Time Peace • Moonwalk Writer • Time Flies • Time Traveler • There is No Synonym for Reunion • This Affliction of Longing • Shape-Shifter, Time-Shifter Crow • Black Bird Haiku • Missing Banksy
OTHER INGREDIENTS: acrylic paints, appropriation art, collaged elements, color copies, color scans, colored markers, Dymo labels, ephemera, essays, Golden gel medium, hand-drawn fonts, ink jet copies, laser prints, mixed-media collage, one sci-fi geek, original photographs, pigment inks, poetry, postage stamps, postcard art, rubber stamp art, time travelers, vintage magazine pages, vintage photos, vintage postcard, and watercolor paint, with thanks to the Leo Baeck Institute, Joy Bush, Paul Delvaux, Albert Einstein, Esther Elzinga of StudioTokek, Rowland Emmet, the Everett Collection, Michael Jackson, Julien Pacaud, Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Robinson, Sir John Tenniel, and Rudolph Zallinger.
Issue #3, It’s About Time! 28-page, full-color 7.5 x 5.5 Cost: $6.00
Did you know that each issue of MANIFEST (zine) includes a Spotify playlist especially curated for readers? For the CRICKETS issue, I had fun playing off the themes of silence, finding one’s voice, and creating from the heart. It features an eclectic set of songs by artists like Disturbed, Grace Carter, Barry Manilow, John Mayer, Natasha Bedingfield, and Brandi Carlile. Take a listen now!
IMAGE: Midsummer Frolic, British Library Digital Library, When Life is Young, Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge, 1894.
Storytelling is in our DNA says Brené Brown in her book Rising Strong. We share our stories because “we feel most alive when we’re connecting with others and being brave with our stories.” That process, she explains, causes our brains to release cortisol and oxytocin, the chemicals that “trigger the uniquely human ability to connect, empathize, and make meaning.” So we write. And we create. No matter who listens or responds. Crickets be damned.
MANIFEST (zine): Crickets is a riff and a rant about the consequences of creative bravery. It’s a 24-page, full color booklet that includes a curated Spotify playlist for your listening pleasure.
INGREDIENTS: appropriation art, black-out poetry, collaged elements, color copies, colored markers, ephemera, hand-drawn fonts, ink jet copies, laser prints, vintage illustrations, watercolor paints, and “11 Cute Facts About Crickets.”
With THANKS to to the British Library Digital Library, Brené Brown, Leonard Cohen, Carlo Collodi, Francis Crick, Charles Dickens, Mary Elizabeth Mapes Dodge, Natalie Goldberg, Charles d. Orbigny, Pinocchio, George Selden, the Trustees of the British Museum, James Watson, and Margaret J. Wheatley.
Issue #4, Crickets 24-page, full-color 4.25 x 5.5, Cost: $6.00
If you are a dreamer, come in, If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer… If you’re a pretender, come sit by my fire For we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in! come in!
— Shel Silverstein
Indeed, if you are a dreamer, a wisher, a magic bean buyer…then you must visit THE SHOP at Guilford Art Center. It’s truly one of the most unique shopping destinations, offering a selection of contemporary American crafts and jewelry handmade by local artists and others from across the country. You’ll find works in glass, metal, ceramics, wood, fiber, paper, toys and much more.
Much more…like copies of MANIFEST (zine)!
I’m excited to say that MANIFEST (zine) can now be purchased at THE SHOP at Guilford Art Center, along with copies of my books and postcards. Check it out!
When I published my first book, LOOK UP! Musings on the Nature of Mindfulness, I imagined a complementary art installation: framed photos from the book, poems printed large and hung like tapestries, a CD of woodland sounds in the background.
I had other ideas, too. (I still do.)
A show at New Haven’s Kehler Liddell Gallery (2017) came close. “Random Acts of Writing: Common Ground” — featuring three of my poems and one photograph — was included in INAUGURATION NATION, an open forum exhibit that responded to the political and social climate of the time.
That same year, large framed photos from my second book, Evidence of Flossing: What We Leave Behind, were featured in the exhibit WHERE THE WHOLE UNIVERSE DWELLS at Perspectives, The Gallery at Whitney Center.
You might recognize the theme of my very first art installation effort. Random Acts of Writing: Pushing Time was included in the SHUFFLE & SHAKE exhibit at the Arts Council of Greater New Haven’s Sumner McKnight Crosby Jr. Gallery in 2016. Its three poems and wall clock all appear in MANIFEST (zine): It’s About Time.
You see, it turns out, a lot of my “other ideas” fit neatly into the format that is a zine. Zines, as explained on the Wikipedia page dedicated to this phenomenon, “cover broad topics including fanfiction, politics, poetry, art & design, ephemera, personal journals, social theory, intersectional feminism, single-topic obsession” and more. They have such cultural relevance, there are dedicated zine archives/libraries at Barnard College, the University of Iowa, Duke University, the Tate Museum, the British Library, Harvard University, and at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University.
So many publications, so many topics, so many ideas! Check it out yourself and stay tuned!
agazine has been supporting zine culture and independent creative action for more than 25 years. Published four times a year, each issue of Broken Pencil features reviews of hundreds of zines and small press books, plus comics, excerpts from the best of the underground press, interviews, original fiction and commentary on all aspects of the indie arts. From the hilarious to the perverse, Broken Pencil challenges conformity and demands attention.
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