CHERRY ISSUE 5

CONTRIBUTORS

Connie McDOnald

Beth Dunne

Sara Johnson

Lilly Vigna

Dani Germade

Aria Eastwood

Bethy Squires

Fauve Leonella

Nicolas Galifi

Bridgette Bolton

Anny Sasha

Christian Hey

WITH SUBMISSIONS FROM

Conner Lyons

Alice Rooke

Shar Shastri

Rosalind Duguid

Katie Soze

Giselle Noelle

Miranda Barnes

Takako Noel Nagai

Kani Anifowoshe

Lill-Veronica Skoglund

Katayoun Jalili

Natalia Orasanin

Dora Christiane Cohnen

Eleanor Weinel

It’s around this time that a lot of you start to re-

alise that the summer you thought would never

end, is eventually going to end—and probably

sooner than you’d like. The thought of going

back to school after months of freedom seems

daunting, so then you spend the last month of

your holiday worrying about getting the most

out of it instead of actually getting the most out

of it. Consider this issue of Cherry an ode to

those days filled with nothing, and the

knowledge that inevitably they will end. In-

stead of letting this ruin your precious time,

use it to cherish your remaining summer days.

I used to get caught up in this way of thinking,

where I thought that my life would be a series

of stress related crises happening one after the

other. I’d go to school, I’d go to university, I’d

go to work. No space for exceptions, no time to

relax, forever dreading Monday. Almost a year

and a half after prematurely leaving school, I’ve

realised that life doesn’t have to be set out that

way, I can set it out however I want. Now, in-

stead of looking at universities, I’m looking at

countries I could travel to, new and exciting

places I could work. I’ve found a freedom I nev-

er thought existed, I can go anywhere, I can do

anything—and so can you. In conclusion: enjoy

your summer instead of worrying about enjoy-

ing it, school doesn’t last forever, the world is

your oyster (or less slimy alternative). Go forth

and YOLO.

The Sunlit Youth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

A Beginners Guide to Finding Happiness in Little Things 5

Stuck In The Jam Jar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Shar Shastri . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Silver Lining. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Bridgette’s poem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Woodland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Advice Witch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Msriette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Untitled 23. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Human Nature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Freedom and Seashells. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Fish in the Sky. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

America. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Witchery Holidays. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53

That Song On That Drive. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Freedom Land of the Seventies. . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

Playlist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Scars in Summer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67

The Road is Where the Heart is . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

The Freedom in Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Summer Love. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77

Khaya Cohen. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82

Stella . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Spirit of Youth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87

Katayoun Jalili. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

1

5

STUCK IN THE JAM JAR

11

STUCK IN THE JAM JAR By Alice Rooke

By Shar Shastri 14

15

Away from you

I can finally breathe

And see the things

I could not see

The beautiful love

Surrounding me

My future’s

Not bleak

Poem by Bridgette, photo by Anny 23

Away from the

Negativity

That’s only use

Was blinding me

And now I feel

Oh so happy

Bumbling like

A bee

25

Okay so this is the last summer I have

with the boy I love before he moves to

another state for college, so I'm trying

to make the most of it. My best friend

and I had a good thing going, I would

"stay the night with her" and be with

him all night. Now, my mom hap-

pened to discover I smoked weed once

and went bat shit crazy and barely

lets me leave, and also takes out stress

on me from other personal problems

and won’t even talk to me unless it in-

volves screaming. What do I do?

Oh boy. This happened to a friend of mine in

high school. At the time, my advice was for

him to just run away from home. There were

genuinely plans to drive across the country

and abscond with him. I would not give this

advice now...probably. Don't run away from

home unless you can support yourself finan-

cially for at least five years. Probably even

then don’t run away.

Your approach depends on what your priori-

ties are. Is the ultimate goal to spend time

with your dude, or to work on fixing this rela-

tionship with your mother? For #1, you just

need to come up with a new cover story.

Church Lock-In? SAT Prep Course? Lacrosse

Away Game?

#2 involves honesty and lots of awkward and

potentially very painful conversations about

what you expect from her as a parent, and

what is reasonable to be expected of you as a

daughter. It involves reminding her that try-

ing to assert baseless authority without com-

passion, consistency, or communication is a

recipe for disaster. And Elderly Her dying

alone while Adult You parties with the money

you could have spent putting her in a good

retirement home.

Do you think your mother would respond

well to you being honest and real with her? Is

there another authority figure who would

take your side? A dad or grandma or aunt?

Follow up question: did your mom ever

smoke weed? A lot of parents who were fuck

ups as teens have huge trust issues with their

children. Whereas my parents were obedient

straight edge weirdos and always treated me

like I was capable of making my own choices.

When your mom yells at you, it’s entirely

possible that she’s really yelling at herself.

Which doesn’t make it OK, but maybe will

help you use an inside voice when speaking

to her.

Help! I need self esteem advice!

Like advice on how to develop one’s self es-

teem? This is definitely the topic on which I

29

am simultaneously most and least qualified to

give advice. One the one hand, any self esteem

I have has been purposefully cultivated. On

the other hand, dude I have like no self es-

teem 60% of the time. On the other OTHER

hand, that’s an increase from the 20% it used

to be.

Start by just telling everyone how great you

are. Pick a thing you think you’re moderately

competent at, and declare you’re the best at it.

The best in the world, and all should tremble

before your might. The Kanye Method, if you

will. Eventually your brain will accept the

“lie” (it’s not a lie, you are really great, but I’m

sure it sounds like a lie at first) and you will

truly believe you’re the best beekeeper alive,

or w/e. If you can, surround yourself with

people who like you and admire your steez.

In the book Mama Lola: A Vodou Priestess in

Brooklyn, Karen McCarthy Brown notes the

difference in attitude between Haitian and

their Western colonizers. The Haitians Brown

encountered were focused on doing; Western

culture is obsessed with questions of essence

and being. The West buys into the notion that

there’s such a thing as a “self” and it has cer-

tain intrinsic qualities that are good or bad. In

reality, people do things, and be lotsa shit at

lotsa different occasions. So hang your self es-

teem on your accomplishments. To para-

phrase something Yoda said, “Do or do not

do. There is no be.”

Dear Advice Witch, so there's a boy I

like at work, and we've been flirting

for a few months now and have dis-

cussed maybe hanging out but that

was a while ago. He told another co-

worker that he just wanted to hook up,

which is all I also want. I let him know

we were on the same page a while ago

but how do I initiate hooking up? I

don't want to do it at work but I'm

nervous about inviting him to hang

out again.

You’re gonna have to suck it up and ask again.

It’s totally justifiable that you’re nervous

about it, but you gotta do it. Be direct. Just

say, “Hey, you wanna get up on this? Let us

adjourn to a second location.” I agree that it’s

important not to hook up at work. It’s just not

a good look. Fortune favors the bold, my

friend!

If you need advice from our Advice

Witch, you can ask away at:

http://bsqu.tumblr.com/ask

Background photo by Giselle Morgan

31

untitled 23

“i’ve got a secret you know,” she tells me

her eyes are glassy and smooth and clear and full and when i look at her all i see

is the night sky

(or is that just a reflection of broken beer bottles decorating the floor like con-

fetti?)

this room is filled with lungs screaming for oxygen

but i can’t help reducing it all to white noise

so i nod silently

secluding myself with thoughts of home and safe-in-beds

there’s a pause

and then she says, “we’re getting out of here tonight”

“what are you talking about?” i ask,

my voice wavering

“well, today’s the last day of high school”

“yeah?”

“then we’re locked down and tied up; college, adulthood, life”, she says,

shaky, confused, almost afraid of her own words:

“this is our last night of freedom-

and i’m not wasting it on the floor of jackson carpenter’s basement”

as she pulls me out the door

(and i trip over myself trying to keep up with her

racing thoughts)

the cold wind kisses me on the cheek

39

and whispers in my ear-

but we’re moving too quickly to hear what it says

and before i can think, I’m thrust into the passenger’s seat by a chorus of

limbs

my chest is pounding in my throat (do you think she can hear it?)

then ever so stealthily, it drops to my stomach and i realize

that there is no room left over for butterflies

because she’s right-

the salty ocean wind (carries itself down from the beach three blocks away)

tastes of freedom and fear and heartsthatskipabeat

and for once in my life,

i'm not afraid to swim

Poem by Kani Anifowoshe. Illustration by Beth

By Nicolas

Modelled by Ariana and Natalie

HUMAN NATURE

41

http://nicolasxxgalifi.blogspot.co.uk/

The freedom of

posting whatever

you want on Insta-

gram can be taken

in various direc-

tions. The direc-

tion I chose for

my photos is to

express yourself

and not give a

damn. It is not

fair that others

can report your photo

just because it in-

trigues them. We should

have the freedom of

posting pictures that

we like and enjoy. Many

artists and people have

had their accounts and

photos deleted for many

issues, mostly very

dumb. If you’re offend-

ed by these photos, I’m

sorry because sadly you

can't report them.

Photos by Lilly

Modelled by Alessia Bacilieri 43

It’s a normal grey day. Mum and I

climb into a plain normal bus. We pay

the ridiculous fare and sit down onto

the ripped musty seats. As the bus

pulls out of the station it creaks

and rattles. It swings suddenly into

what looks like a huge car wash, and

we remember why we are here.

“Where shall we go?” Mum turns and

asks pleasantly.

“Let’s see Pirates!”

“This is Stourbridge” She sighed at

me.

“The 60’s?”

“Fine by me” She smiles.

We appear on the main road and we im-

mediately spot the difference. It’s

greener and the sky’s actually blue

and the cars are chunky and sharp

edged. We let it swing round into

Penfields and get off just after the

corner. There are fences, gardens,

and patches of green grass that

aren’t here today. We appear at the

end of the road, it’s gothic and we

realise we are ghosts. A few of the

houses have gothic statues of pixies

and angels stood outside. Mum points

at the cloud that looks like a drag-

ons head, he has veins and eyebrows

and steam from his nose but he looks

nice enough, just tired with the bags

under his eyes. Everything’s more

pure with less pollution.

“I wish we could live here”

“We do” Mum quips sarcastically, mak-

ing me smile

I look up and am amazed by what I

see. At eye level are the houses

across the street, beyond that more

houses, then the town. Then as I look

up, the sky goes into ruby reds and

innocent pinks, as the sun sets, then

beyond that I can see the sea, though

the nearest sea to us is Wales or

Weston-super-Mare. But everything’s

so clean and pure that I can see sil-

houettes of fish swimming in mountain

shapes in the sky, but it isn’t the

sky, it’s the horizon but it looks

like black 2D fish swimming in the

blue sky above the sunset. It feels

so real. It’s so beautiful I never

want to look away. I’m filled with

calm and happiness as I watch the

fish swim slowly across the sky.

I feel so free.

We float along happy as pie and ap-

pear in a young couple’s house. It’s

clean, cute and yellow, like in the

movies. I explore her wardrobe, jeal-

ousy filling me. The couple become

spooked, we must have knocked some-

thing, or must be giving off a

strange vibe, so we leave through the

bedroom window and float across end-

less green fields. It’s dark yet

light, time has no meaning.

It’s the canals, finally something

familiar, but even this isn’t right.

On either side are factories, new and

working, not the empty ruins of to-

day. I try to take photos on my old

camera but it doesn’t go right. It’s

just wrong though I don’t know why.

Maybe it’s the lighting that’s all

wrong. It’s frustrating. There’s this

tall square black building, alone,

framed by trees in the foreground.

Guess I’ll have to leave it.

Mum disappears. I’m no longer a ghost

and it’s the present day. I’m in

London with Sam exploring a huge

apartment we’re going to live in un-

til we get our own flat. I look up,

its tall and modern, all glass and

smooth edges. The inside has a spa-

FISH IN THE SKY Dreams from Fauve

45

cious bright office and

desk. We’re in the indoor

market that fills one of the

floors. It’s like the Bull-

ring, all different stalls

selling materials, fresh

food and jewellery. We’d

never need to leave this

building.

I feel so free. And happy.

Complete.

We walk over to some wooden

shelves housing cuddly toys.

I recognise that some are

like mine, there’s bigger

and smaller versions of a

brown bat I have. I’m hit

with nostalgia as I pick up

a red squirrel hand puppet.

“I used to have one just

like this. I have no idea

what happened to it. This

could even be it”

Sam smiles at me, but he is

distracted by a teddy bear.

He picks it up, it is small

with a pointy face, creamy

coloured and so very fluffy

and cute.

“I’ll buy it for you!”

“No no, it’s fine, really.”

But I’ve already walked off

with the

bear to find the owner of

the stall, but he is nowhere

in sight. Simply walking off

with it crosses my mind but

that seems wrong…

Then I wake up alone to the

dull sound of my alarm. As

I fall into consciousness I

can feel the chains of re-

ality twist, tighten and

lock in place around my

body and mind. Responsibly,

stress, obligations fill my

mind and create a dull ache

across my shoulders. I roll

over, squeezing my eyes

shut, but it’s no good; the

fish have left the sky.

FISH IN THE SKY

47

53

57

The Road Trip. Images of long highways

filter through the mind, arm dangling out

of the window, nothing for miles on either

side, the right song blasting in the back-

ground.

There is an intrinsic beauty in leaving

everything behind: all responsibilities

drift into the distance while the bonds ty-

ing you to the static mundane slowly dis-

appear as you drive off into the horizon.

This notion of cutting ties and moving

forward into new experiences is perhaps

what has ensured its long-term appeal;

the romantic idea of searching for fresh

adventures appeals on a quasi-spiritual

level.

For those with an insatiable wanderlust,

probably seeking some kind of enlighten-

ment, the road trip provides the perfect

escape. Dean Moriarty gives some sound

advice in Jack Kerouac’s hit 1957 novel

‘On The Road’, perhaps the definitive

piece of road trip literature:

“Sal, we gotta go and never stop going 'till we get there.' 'Where we going, man?' 'I don't know but we gotta go.”

Although at this point Sal and Dean’s des-

tination is undetermined, the road still

calls. The importance of the journey

largely overshadows the destination – it is

the unexpected and the new that will pro-

vide you with stories to last a lifetime. The

road is one to self-discovery too; the free-

dom to do anything you like can help es-

tablish what you really want (in the case

of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas that’s

drugs, lots of drugs, however I would err

on the side of caution there, for driving

safety if nothing else). There is knowledge

to be gained on the road, both of one’s self

and the world around us: again, to quote

Kerouac, “The best teacher is experience

and not through someone's distorted

point of view”.

As well as a fantastic source of knowledge

through experience, the road trip also

provides the opportunity for those spon-

taneous (or engineered) fantastic mo-

ments, however the likelihood of these oc-

curring is enhanced greatly through the

employment of a road trip mix-tape. The

road trip mix-tape is, in my view, a pre-

requisite for the perfect drive as it has the

power to influence your mood so pro-

foundly and ultimately, all the best mo-

ments have a soundtrack. Before travel-

ling to France last year, my friends and I

carefully curated two CDs of driving mu-

sic (featuring a huge variety of songs from

Friendly Fires’ Hawaiian Air to Kiss’ Rock

And Roll All Nite and Madonna’s 4

Minutes) that had us belting at the top of

our lungs in the car for the whole trip, en-

tirely appropriate for the occasion. The

mix-tape brings everyone in the car to-

gether: when the perfect song comes on

and everyone starts to lose inhibitions,

the shared emotions created through the

music begin to connect people.

However Road trip mix-tapes are not re-

served for group driving only by any

means – they’re also an excellent vessel

for connecting with the self and venting

pent up emotions. Contained in a car

with no one but oneself for company, you

can turn the music up loud (and sing

louder) without bothering anybody, an

unsurprisingly cathartic, liberating expe-

rience.

The on-screen epitome of the driving

song for me comes during the tunnel

scenes of The Perks of Being a Wallflow-

er – a moment where the characters

seem to truly connect and, in Charlie’s

words, come within reach of the ‘infinite’.

Their shared sensation and momentary

freedom from the confines of high school

life encapsulates the strength of the

song/drive combination, and the repeti-

tion of the sequence at the end of the film

acts as a wonderful reminder of the pow-

er of the journey.

All of the above might seem ridiculously

clichéd – and to an extent it is – but I

reckon there’s still some magic to be

found out there on the road, clichés and

all. At the end of the day, people are still

road tripping because it’s great fun; and

certainly the benefits and experiences

there to be gained far outweigh any no-

tion that the road trip might be over-

done. Half the fun of the road trip is the

clichés anyway, those moments where

you feel part of the ever-wandering, en-

lightenment seeking tradition pioneered

by Kerouac and his peers. To return to

his words again, “The road must eventu-

ally lead to the whole world.”

A selection of unused (yet still fan-

tastic) Kerouac quotes that I didn’t

have the heart to delete:

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of

me, as is ever so on the road.”

“What is that feeling when you're driving

away from people and they recede on the

plain till you see their specks dispersing?

- it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and

it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the

next crazy venture beneath the skies.”

“I was surprised, as always, be how easy

the act of leaving was, and how good it

felt. The world was suddenly rich with

possibility.”

“Our battered suitcases were piled on the

sidewalk again; we had longer ways to

go. But no matter, the road is life”

“And so we picked up our bags, he the

trunk with his one good arm and I the

rest, and staggered to the cable-car stop;

in a moment rolled down the hill with

our legs dangling to the sidewalk from

the jiggling shelf, two broken-down he-

roes of the Western night.”

Words by Eleanor Weinel, photo by Beth

59

65

What’s not to love about summer? Months of

relaxation, abandoning all the stress that’s been

clogging up your head all year – how could any-

one not feel at ease? I used to dread the sum-

mer; the hot weather meaning the worst thing of

all – short sleeves.

When things get too much, some people run

away, some people change their eating habits,

some people hurt themselves. For the duration

of my depression, I fell into a cycle of addiction

to my own self destruction. It started when I

was 14, suddenly everything was too much. How

was I supposed to deal with all this? Where was

it supposed to go? What do I do now? My head

was clouded and I couldn’t see straight. I found

solace in a safety pin. Small, I know, but it was a

start. The next day I went to school with my

baggy jumper sleeves rolled down, panicking

every time they slinked past my wrists. I told

one close friend, but it wasn’t long before I

slipped up and some other friends saw, and I

was absolutely horrified. Filled with humilia-

tion, I kept my sleeves down and wore numer-

ous hairbands and ribbons on my wrists as dis-

guises. Within a year it escalated to bandages as

I came to the realisation I couldn’t tie ribbons

all the way up to my elbow, so hot days were

hell. As things calmed down over the summer

and so did I, my sleeve rules relaxed and I tried

SCARS IN SUMMER

67

to get myself back to ‘normal’. No major dam-

age was done in those months of safety pins

and smuggling blunt knives up to my room in

the waistband of my pyjamas, so I healed pretty

quickly.

As I returned to what I thought was normal, I

got through less than 2 months of college with-

out snapping. But when I finally did snap, I

broke down completely and reached dangerous

new levels. The worst of it happened in winter,

so hiding bandages under long sleeves was a

relatively easy task. But slip ups still happen

and weather inevitably gets warmer. I was

trapped. Trapped in this seemingly endless cy-

cle of self-harm which then trapped me in my

long sleeves.

I got therapy and I got medication – I got so

much help from other people, but ultimately it

was up to me to break the cycle. As I started to

get better, I stopped finding that comfort in my

addiction, and the spaces between indulgences

got bigger and bigger. Relapses happen though,

and it’s important to understand that and re-

covery is not a straight line. The amount of guilt

I felt after each of my relapses was enough to

make me think twice about doing it again, and

it was also enough to keep my sleeves down.

Even weeks after, when there were no new

wounds to show, I kept my arms covered.

One summer day, Lauren and I were walking to

meet some friends by the river, about a mile

away. Rapidly overheating, I started to think

about the ‘what ifs’ of taking my cardigan off.

What if everyone stares? What if everyone

looks and it’s really awkward? What if some-

one says something? With encouragement

from Lauren and courage from myself, I took it

off. I was terrified. I was exposing all that I’d

been hiding for so long.

At the end of the day I was proud of myself. I

wasn’t being held back anymore and I felt more

like myself than I had done in a very long time.

The scars are still there but fading, sometimes I

think people are staring, but I’m not too both-

ered anymore. I stopped trying to cover them

up or get rid of them and just accepted them.

I’m not proud of what I did but I’m proud of

what I got through. My scars remind me that I

survived.

Side note: If you see someone with scars, it’s

best not to ask them about it - they’ll bring it up

if they want to.

SCARS IN SUMMER

Words by Beth, illustrations by Christian

69

Ever since I can remember I’ve been doodling. I

even have physical proof with my old little Barbie and

Tinkerbelle notebooks I had when I was 4 in which I

evidently had a spectacular time drawing stick people,

suns with sunglasses, and flowers with incredibly hap-

py faces. As I got older, the habit (or more so hobby)

never really died down- that is up until the sixth grade.

At that point I had already been exposed to art at

school. In school I was being to taught how to draw

what I see, and evaluated on how good I was at this

particular technique. During those years, I spent my

time doodling eyes on my pages in graphite, along with

noses, lips, and spunky hairstyles. However, when I

was finished with my sketches I always felt as though

something didn’t look right. There was always some-

thing missing, ESPECIALLY when I looked at the draw-

ing as a whole and realized it looked absolutely nothing

like an actual human face and more like the face of a

distorted alien-looking dude. That started giving me

the idea that art maybe wasn’t my thing, and that I

should begin to focus on things that I’m actually good

at.

Up until last September, things had continued this

way for four years. I still decided to take an art class,

but I never really felt confident on the things I handed

in. I always just put myself down because I’d compare

my assignments to the assignments I saw done by my

classmates or even by artists I found online. Things be-

came especially difficult once I saw other people draw

things that looked absolutely picture perfect and there I

was STILL not being able to draw a decent eye sketch

that looked even remotely realistic. At this point it just

seemed like I had gone from a little kid that could draw

suns with sunglasses on a piece of paper, to a big kid

that can draw suns with sunglasses on a piece of paper.

When September came along and the new school

year had begun, I had notebooks as always and would

doodle in them during lessons, (much to many teachers

disdain). I began to draw things that didn’t necessarily

look like they were drawn by some hyper realistic artist,

and surprisingly I liked them. I started making dumb

little comics with weird characters I made up. Suddenly

the idea of me not being able to draw a realistic portrait

of somebody, or a picture perfect landscape slipped

away to the back of my mind, and I was more fascinat-

ed by distorted figures, shapes, and drawings in black

pen. This was also inspired by an even bigger exposure

to the art world, in which I realized that so many artists

had a different way in interpreting the world around

them; sometimes many just create their own. It was

pretty cool not having to worry about things looking

incredibly realistic and just being able to let loose and

draw random things that made me happy. That in itself

helped me realize that there is a lot more freedom in

art, and a lot fewer boundaries than I ever thought it

had before. I used to think that everything had to look a

certain way- that even something such as abstract re-

quired some crucial skill that I would never be able to

develop, or that I simply just wasn’t born with. I always

enjoyed looking at these things, however making them

myself caused me a lot of trouble.

Over the past (almost) year however, I’ve realized

more and more that we all have our different styles,

and that we all can do whatever we want with them.

Believing that there are any types of boundaries regard-

ing art is only going to make you explode on the inside

because you are not expressing yourself due to the fear

of it “not looking good” or because it doesn’t look

“real.”

At this point my style of drawing has changed

drastically and will continue to change, however I’ve

decided to just go with it. I used to like a lot of black

and white stuff, but now I’m enjoying experimenting

with different colours as well. Even working with mixed

media has been a blast. Every once in a while, I will at-

tempt a portrait, and I think my skills regarding por-

traiture may be getting better. As oppose to beating

myself up for them not looking exactly like the subject

of the portrait, I add my own spin to these portraits in-

stead. I don’t think I’ll ever stop with my art, simply

because I enjoy it, and it’s a way for me to cope with

stress, anxiety, and every other emotion a human being

is able to bear. There are many other artistic styles that

are all fantastic, and I feel like as long as making art is

enjoyable for you, by all means go for it! Stop creating

limits for yourself based on the things that stereotypi-

cally define art, (although these things are wonderful

too). Very often we worry that things we draw/make/

paint/etc, can be perceived as ugly, messy, or sloppy,

but as long as you are happy with it, who cares about

what other people think? It can take a long time to real-

ize that self expression really doesn’t have any rules on

how it has to look- but once you do, it will make things

a hell of a lot easier for you, and a lot more fun too.

THE FREEDOM IN ART Words and art by Natalia Orasanin

75

THE FREEDOM IN ART

77

SUMMER

LOVE

BY LILL-VERONICA SKOGLUND

82

85

87

wanted to be free as a bird

to fly to learn to love

to cry to known to try

but i died

five thousand times

everytime you wont look me in the

eyes

still wondering around the house

covered with pillows and tears

no one tries and they wont even

know

how it feels to be the women and

know

sometimes my sky can be blue

sometimes my eyes go blue too

sometimes all people see in me is

lust

and at night i look at

they mirror with no trust

all the wrong all the curses

gathered around my love

And my lovers turned into dust

No eyes

No heart

An evil monster

93

wanted to be free as a bird

to fly to learn to love

to cry to known to try

everytime you wont look me in the

still wondering around the house

covered with pillows and tears

no one tries and they wont even

how it feels to be the women and

sometimes my sky can be blue

sometimes my eyes go blue too

sometimes all people see in me is

and at night i look at

mirror with no trust

all the wrong all the curses

gathered around my love

And my lovers turned into dust

KA

TAY

OU

N JA

LILI

We all fly around was a clus-

ter

As a child and as an adult

bird

All the wings we have are bro-

ken in vein

Trees hated us when we were

born

They're tall and proud

They judge us all

We breathe in the love we

don't deserve

We kill each other with closed

eyes in our hell

All the dizziness and the ink

Will be dissolved and washed

out one day

And after all the hope in the

world is gone

There'll be birds again

And trees will fly high

We all fly around was a clus-

As a child and as an adult

All the wings we have are bro-

Trees hated us when we were

They're tall and proud

They judge us all

We breathe in the love we

We kill each other with closed

All the dizziness and the ink

Will be dissolved and washed

out one day

And after all the hope in the

world is gone

There'll be birds again

And trees will fly high

WE HOPE YOU ENJOYED READING THIS ISSUE OF CHERRY!

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