#phags 2

[phag-azine]

PHAGS ISSUE #2: Headspace

Part of our artistic process of creating “Headspace” included taking a closer look at our own bedrooms—how they can function as a physical representation of what goes on inside our heads, what it means to decorate a space that is fully ours, how to balance aesthetics with comfort and functionality, how to find ourselves within a space and find a space within ourselves, etc.

Take a look with us and read and ponder and create with the launch of “Headspace” digital edition. 

[phag-azine]

Guest PHAG #1: Apollo Chastain

Apollo Chastain (ze/hir, he/him) is a trans faggot who writes poetry about demon twinks, airports, and being willing to do anything for his friends, among other things. Ze lived in Rochester for undergrad, but is now pursuing research work and grad schools in a lot of other places (like the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery and Washington University in St Louis!) to work with poetry, history, and trans archives. The recipient of the 2021 Academy of American Poets College Prize for hir university and PEN America’s 2023 Free Expression Fellowship, Apollo’s work appears or is forthcoming in journals including Poets.org, a PEN America fellowship publication, the Michigan Quarterly Review, and Diode Poetry Journal, among others. Pay hir a visit at apollopoet.wordpress.com, or on Instagram @apollo.chastain.

[phag-azine]

Sisters In Art - Erika

Two things I’ve come to love are drag and bodybuilding. To me, they are not as inseparable as one might think; both focus on aesthetics, creating an over-the-top form to grace the stage with beauty and wondrousness. As someone who spends hours in the gym, trying to build a strong and feminine physique, I’m incredibly drawn to the art of drag and the expressions of gender, body, and aesthetics it holds. I think of bodybuilders and drag queens as sisters in my world. 

[phag-azine]

Body Builder Brains n' Beauty

Where’s my mind? I may be too ‘cerebral’ to truly tell you, but there are signs and symbols of my soul all around me. 

I love both the hyperfeminine and the scholastic; they are inseparable for me. There is a new book in my old vintage bag and there is reason why I buy certain leathers over others. I interweave my aesthetic eye with the narratives of scholars and writers. I’m thinking about Foucault and then I’m thinking about drag and then the panopticon of fame. I enjoy thinking about celebrities because they are entrepreneurs of fashion but also because they display fascinating implications about how society functions at the anthropological level. I’m wearing Alien by Thierry Mugler while pondering the House’s impact on silhouettes, the class dynamics of appearance, and what Nietzche would think of it all.  I hold multiple truths in the palm of my hand at once, and am inspecting them in the same way that I pick out my outfit for the day. 

-Erika

[phag-azine]

moving towards a horizon line that won’t be there when i arrive and accepting that’s how it was intended to be - Nathan

[phag-azine]

i've been learning how to let things die (winter) - Nathan

This collection of scanned collages from my sketchbook is a reflection of my findings in the past year since graduating college and what I describe as the mythos of young adulthood. Everything is new, everything is different. Everything is the same. Everything is changing. I often find solace in introspection and release in translating those thoughts into something physical outside of myself. I constantly return to collage as a medium because of its ability to encompass so many meanings through the use of compiled imagery. It’s scrappy and it’s personal which is the voice I like to bring to a lot of my work. 

[phag-azine]

i've been learning how to let things die (fall) - Nathan

This collection of scanned collages from my sketchbook is a reflection of my findings in the past year since graduating college and what I describe as the mythos of young adulthood. Everything is new, everything is different. Everything is the same. Everything is changing. I often find solace in introspection and release in translating those thoughts into something physical outside of myself. I constantly return to collage as a medium because of its ability to encompass so many meanings through the use of compiled imagery. It’s scrappy and it’s personal which is the voice I like to bring to a lot of my work. 

[phag-azine]

i've been learning how to let things die (summer) - Nathan

This collection of scanned collages from my sketchbook is a reflection of my findings in the past year since graduating college and what I describe as the mythos of young adulthood. Everything is new, everything is different. Everything is the same. Everything is changing. I often find solace in introspection and release in translating those thoughts into something physical outside of myself. I constantly return to collage as a medium because of its ability to encompass so many meanings through the use of compiled imagery. It’s scrappy and it’s personal which is the voice I like to bring to a lot of my work.