Transcendental Interstate
Artist’s Statement: In this work that travels in, through, and between infinite possible universes, we are led to a distortion of our world where buildings melt, passageways collide, and foreign forms scream at whoever is there to witness.
No monotonous monorail, these elevated railways crisscross lifelines, dip into the infinite, traversing transcendental possibilities that blur past at faster- than lightning speed traps. Meanwhile, you stare out the window, round-trip-it to the sun, firework-it to constellations, then I’ve-got-a-ticket-to-ride-it toward all the rails of now, then, and in between. True, you’re a front-row witness to society’s manic meltdown and catastrophic collapse of conscience. But Hey! Hey! Hey! who’s going to slow down the intersecting trains of thought but you? Time to brake the spellbound pattern of traffic, dim the neon rails of continuous intersecting collisions. Time to remove the gold- colored glasses as cracked as this high- speed chase twisting into one alternate reality after another and another, this inner state of who we are—driving and driven— speeding us all the way toward destination’s shattered end.
King Street
Artist’s Statement: King Street displays a distorted view from the artist’s studio, a combination of interior and exterior spaces.
In/out, up/down any city/ town tacked to the frame of a window with someone not you looking out/ looking in. What is the point of point of view? The apple on the tree or the counter? The apple of my eye slicing the view into juicy sections while the downtown tilts this way or that and the who who sees it all devours or nibbles between lines that could be sun or paint or poem or street or icicle melting, or mind meandering here or there, now or now.
Professor of English at Lock Haven University, Marjorie Maddox has published 13 collections of poetry— including Transplant, Transport, Transubstantiation, Begin with a Question (Paraclete 2022), and the ekphrastic collaboration with Karen Elias Heart Speaks, Is Spoken For (Shanti Arts 2022)—the story collection What She Was Saying (Fomite), four children’s/YA books. In the Museum of My Daughter’s Mind, based on her daughter’s paintings, is forthcoming in 2023 (Shanti Arts). Please see www.marjoriemaddox.com
Anna Lee Hafer is a studio artist based in the Philadelphia area who graduated from Roberts Wesleyan College in Rochester, NY in 2019. Previous experience in the art field includes studio exhibitions at Davison art gallery and Rochester contemporary art center in Rochester, NY, as well as published or forthcoming work in Still Point Arts Quarterly, The MacGuffin, The Penn Review, and The Ekphrastic Review. Please see www.hafer.work
The Pine Cone Review 