Deanna Anderson is a San Francisco native, artist and writer. She attends CCSF for Studio Art, hoping to one day transfer to a school in NYC or abroad. In college undergrad, she performed improv comedy, stand up, and sketch, and founded an all female comedy group, and now she writes comedic scripts while continuing her art practice.
Angela Buen Alberto
Angela Buen Alberto is a graphic designer and illustrator from the Bay Area. She is currently studying graphic design at CCSF to obtain a certificate. She loves creating amusing, whimsical, sometimes melancholy work, and is heavily inspired by her childhood. You can find her work and more about her on her Instagram: angela.b.alberto
You will need
–A preying mantis rescued from a lawnmower
–Five ants rescued from a kitchen where
the balabosta was going to crush them.
–A wrapped piece of grocery cake
Hostess
or my new favorite that comes from Mexico
white cake covered in chocolate with some
spots of red jelly Gansito
–Your favorite pair of colored socks
–Your favorite pair of comfortable worn-out socks
–A book you’re been meaning to read
–Miscellaneous secret government files
–My mother Felice’s fountain pen with something
in her handwriting
–My father Eli’s thimble he used as a tailor
–One of my grandfather Wulf’s Hebrew Prayer Books
–Something my grandmother Rachel has sewn
–A short piece played on the piano by my
sister Ruth
–The smell of the beach of Riis Park on a
hot summer’s day
–A worn pair of my dance shoes
–The tights I started to knit and stopped at the
calf of the second leg and then forgot
how to knit altogether
–Photos of the local people who went to see
the last performance of Beach Blanket Babylon
closing after forty-five years including Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein
and Dick Blum
–Some of the DNA from elephants, lions,
giraffes, feral cats
–Some bit of giant Redwoods and Sequoias
–The wisps of laughter, puzzlements,
revelations
of my now gone family and friends
(Add all of yours)
Whoosh them all together
in a beautiful canyon someplace in
New Mexico
where they will create
a whirling–like a soft tornado
up to the horizon
and out to cover the world
And surely this will save the
human species in 2020.
Helen Dannenberg writes with the Older Writers Lab. She takes various arts-related classes and featured her assemblages in Open Studios 2019. She participates with San Francisco Recreation and Parks Cosmic Elders and has been a dancer and choreographer, and worked as an Activity Director and Social Services Coordinator in skilled nursing facilities.
A San Francisco based artist, Teresa Beatty has spent the last few years honing her skills in printmaking and drawing. Her interests span from scientific illustration to art therapy. In pursuit of bettering her craft she’s traveled across the globe. She uses art as a tool for healing, expression and connection.
Crimson bleeds
on her clean pink jumper,
blooming,
like Poppies in October,
the Plath poem
which has nothing to do with poppies,
the wounded woman’s
heart a watercolor seeping.
Fresh ruby drops
just as we were ready to go home,
declaring a reminder
that everything is not normal, everything
is not as it should be, but the portals are open
the veins are still alert,
dripping,
as the nurse removes the plastic tubing dangling from the crook of her arm,
a thief tapping into a pot of gold
striking it rich before her veins collapse.
I want to slide inside
a pair of Emily‘s flannel pajamas,
slip into my bed and pretend that everything
will be fine,
that she will be here
to create art with me in my retirement
in her little downstairs studio,
with gelli plates
squeezing tubes of fine gold acrylic
rolling, watching it smear and shine
translucent spreading
onto every inch of plain paper.
Snuggling beside her
in the hospital bed feeling her beating
heart, holding
her hand and we are laughing
at Jim Carrey impugning god in Bruce Almighty
when she asks me quietly,
Do you know whether you want to be cremated or what?
Emily who has organized everything
down to the intimate
notes she has kept for 20 years,
then carefully hand bound into a creative atlas
to celebrate a life,
has not prepared her burial plans.
She is leaving
that up to us to spread
her sifted bones.
Diana Feiger grew up in Sandwich, Kent, UK and moved to the Bay Area in 1986. She finds inspiration in nature and from the miraculous and mundane aspects of life. Small moments and phrases can capture the imagination.
Travis Yallup is a contemporary realist who lives and works in San Francisco. He has studied art at various colleges and universities over the past eleven years and has developed a preference for drawing and painting in a variety of mediums. His focus usually comes from life, photos, and collages and he often draws an inspiration from influences such as Andrew Wyeth and Vija Celmins.
I went for taro,
custard, and red bean
buns. Shrieks above
from an argument
broke my somnolence;
a gull defended the cross
it perched on from
a circling raven’s
assault. The vanquished
raven landed and
sulked. Do I call it
augury, score a win
for yang, or remember
Jeffers, who wrote, “it is bitter earnestness
that makes beauty; the mind
knows grown adult”?
Jason Syzdlik studied poetry at City College of San Francisco.
Joshua Yule has actively been producing artwork including print, screen printing, illustrations, and digital illustrations for the likes of many local Bay area bands for almost two decades.
Accessible Word Version_ Shy_Kayla_Wilton
Shy by Kayla Wilton
I received my English degree with a Spanish minor from CSU Stanislaus in Spring 2019, and I will complete my creative writing certificate at CCSF in Spring 2020. Writing is my passion, but I also dabble in drawing, painting, photography, and performance. My work has appeared in Penumbra Literary Magazine.
It’s Not A Saltshaker by Travis Yallup
Travis Yallup is a contemporary realist who lives and works in San Francisco. He has studied art at various colleges and universities over the past eleven years and has developed a preference for drawing and painting in a variety of mediums. His focus usually comes from life, photos, and collages and he often draws an inspiration from influences such as Andrew Wyeth and Vija Celmins.
light from overhead fixtures
reflects off of your hallowed surface
like distant low beams
cutting through fog
cold and unyielding
though supple in places,
your smooth skin covers familiar topography
in reds and oranges so fine
hiding the vulnerable flesh within
nightshade sepal
that you wear as a crown
does it remind you of the flower
which commenced your only season?
your scent is strongest
at the point where you jettisoned the connection
to the vine of your birth
leaving behind countless brothers and sisters
to find your destiny before my eyes
thank you.
Written By: Steven Louis Ray
Steven Louis Ray is a multidisciplinary artist working in traditional film and darkroom processes, in addition to writing and recording experimental music and writing poetry. He’s currently slogging his way to a creative writing certificate and studying printmaking at City College of San Francisco. More of his photography can be viewed at stevenlouisray.com
Art Title: The Little People in our Plants
Artist: Bianca Joy Catolos
Bianca Joy Catolos is a graphic designer based in the Bay Area with a passion for drawing and illustration. She illustrates to document memories, stories, and assets of life in a quirky, abstract and colorful way to share and commentate how she sees people and world. Bianca is a digital artist with a traditional background in painting and often mixes the two to create endless worlds and scenes to fuel the imagination.
We were shooting marbles with our older brother
Arnulfo kneeling on a patch of dirt
Front of a mud brown apartment building
Clink as one marble collides into another
He won a ruby glass Cleary
Shiny marbles, shiny joy in our eyes
As he was 27 and playing with us kids
My little brother Herbie and me
Written By: Rocio Ramirez
Rocio Ramirez is a Counselor who works with families. She has a Masters in Counseling Psychology and a Certificate in Expressive arts therapies. She has been a Presenter for IVAT, Center for the Prevention of Abuse and Trauma, in La Jolla. She has recently presented on the use of Sandplay therapy and Collage with Domestic violence survivors. She is currently writing a book on sandplay therapy and art therapy with disenfranchised populations. She is always happiest when she is next to the sea.
Art Title: Canid I
Artist: Teresa Beatty
San Francisco based artist, Teresa Beatty, has spent the last few years honing her skills in printmaking and drawing. Her interests span from scientific illustration to art therapy. In pursuit of bettering her craft she’s traveled across the globe. She uses art as a tool for healing, expression and connection.
I need to pasture this plain
but have no water supply,
no aqueous piping to advance the drink
that last river to cross
in the bloodvein of bone-filled alleys
where bibles and knives
lay used and worn
hummingbirds careen in plein air,
flip, then flop,
land in a grove of latticed leaves
their journeys immense
a jigsaw of cracks
beneath my feet
show intricate veins on stones
that map the wandering mountains
a bony little fist of flowers
in a smoke of moon
ignite the petaled sky
whirlwinds tousle my hair,
over the barn weathervanes
spin like pinwheels
brooms lose straw
clouds crash together
in cool combo
the notes of chords
like embryonic drums
beat through the woods
bursts of raindrops
like marbles from a sack
soak undertow roots
the waters of floods
cyclone through the streets
the parched land
comes to an end
Written By: Gloria Keeley
I’m a graduate of San Francisco State University with a BA and MA in Creative Writing. My work has appeared in Spoon River Poetry Review, Slipstream, FORUM and other journals. I graduated from CCSF and I taught at CCSF for 34 years and was the editor of FORUM in 1969.
Art Title: Spring
Artist: Spitblossoms
CCSF student, Bay Area born and Tijuana-raised, Spitblossoms is a visual artist and successful musician who has always found joy and meaning in realizing his artistic visions and sharing with a community of artists. For Spitblossoms, art is a meditation, release, source of pride and sustenance that helps him perfect his vision, overcome hardship, and continue to push forward to achieve his goals and dreams.
Tense, blurry sight.
Status? Stagnant water
without the contemplation.
A deep-rooted
spinal itch,
trails like a trickle,
not cool,
not sweet,
up to my neck and down
to my tailbone.
Let me breathe myself
into the night air that drifts
and clings to my nose tip
ears, eyebrows, lips,
chest.
I want to melt
into the sticky pavement
because it sounds cool
and might smell like
woodsmoke,
carried on the rain.
But I am filled with string,
muffled and amassed like
cobwebs and candyfloss.
Tense-eyed, blurry sight and heated cheeks from stagnant
studying, still water but without the contemplation but instead a deep-
rooted spinal itch trailing like a trickle, not cool, not sweet, up to
my neck and down
to my tailbone.
Let me breathe
breathe myself into the night air that drifts so sweetly across, clings ever-so
slightly to my nose tip, ears, dry lips,
tongue, chest. And let me forget all the rest, that mass of muffled string filling
me so unproductively. Yes I know it’s me but how can I help myself when
I want to melt into the sticky pavement because it sounds cool and
might smell like woodsmoke floating on the rain. Bathe me in the white light that’s dulled
by the misted streets, let it seep into my pores and line my lungs so they fill.
I am filled with string, taught, but with too much of it, strung energy
with nowhere to project to.
Written By: Helen Halliwell
Originally from England, Helen is currently studying English Literature in the Bay Area, and hopes to one day move back to the UK to continue studying and pursue teaching. When not reading or writing, she tries to keep a keen eye out for things in people or nature to inspire her poetry, stories, and sketches.
Art Title: Canid IV
Artist: Teresa Beatty
San Francisco based artist, Teresa Beatty, has spent the last few years honing her skills in printmaking and drawing. Her interests span from scientific illustration to art therapy. In pursuit of bettering her craft she’s traveled across the globe. She uses art as a tool for healing, expression and connection.
Forum Literary Magazine 