Unshod Quills

Photography on the theme of Las Vegas

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Ginger Bruner - Binon's

Ginger Bruner - Las Vegas Neon Cocktails

Ginger Bruner - Slots

Ginger Bruner - Algiers

Ginger Bruner - Las Vegas Neon

Artist Biography

Ginger Bruner, a Las Vegas native, has been described as a musician/artist/cultural animator and credits her BA in Tuba performance as the reason for her many varied careers. Professionally, Ginger is a photographer in fine art, commercial art and graphics. She is also a writer, radio and music producer and engineer, and a musician with several popular bands, most notably, Killian’s Angels. After 20+ years in public radio, many recognize her voice as the “Voice of Public Radio”. In August of 2006 she was inducted into the Nevada Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Recent projects include being the inaugural photographer for “Our Las Vegas – at Night”, a public art project utilizing smartphones and new technology for the City of Las Vegas Public Art Commission.

Photography on the Theme of Democracy

Editor’s note:  These photos were solicited from pilot Scott Thomas by editor DRG after they met in Oregon. They depict some of his experiences over the past year as a bush pilot in Mongolia, except for the first image, which was taken in Moscow. Please click the images to view at higher resolution. Read more about Scott and his work below the images, in his bio.) 

A Russian flight attendant admiring Scott's plane on a stopover in Moscow en route from Switzerland to Mongolia.

Scott Thomas - Mongolia

Scott Thomas - Detail of 130 foot (40 meter) high statue of Genghis Khan, Mongolia

Scott Thomas - Nomads in the City, Mongolia

Scott Thomas, Mongolia

Scott Thomas - A Welcome Ceremony for Visitors Brought to the Countryside by Thomas Air, Mongolia

Scott Thomas - Welcome Ceremony, Mongolia

Scott Thomas - Nomads and Villagers Examine the Pilatus Porter, Mongolia. Scott sometimes flies his customers into villages so remote that the residents may have never seen a plane up close before his arrival.

Scott Thomas - Welcome Ceremony Concert, Mongolia

Scott Thomas, Mongolia

Scott Thomas - No Matches, No Molotov Cocktails, Mongolia

Artist Bio: Scott Thomas is an American pilot living and working in Mongolia. You can read more about him here: Thomas Air

Bjorn Wahlstrom on the Theme of Democracy

“The last butterfly in Shanghai just landed on my leg.”

Bjorn Wahlstrom on the theme of Democracy

Bjorn Wahlstrom on the theme of Democracy

Bjorn Wahlstrom on the theme of Democracy

Author Biography –

Bjorn Wahlstrom owns HAL Publishing, Shanghai’s independent English language press. He was born in Sweden. His photography appeared in the June 2011 issue of Unshod Quills and again in September.
www.haliterature.com

Ed Steele on the theme of David Lynch

Ed Steele on the theme of David Lynch

Ed Steele on the theme of David Lynch

Ed Steele on the theme of David Lynch

Ed Steele on the theme of Las Vegas

Ed Steele on the theme of Cheese

Ed Steele on the theme of Razor Dance

Artist Biography

Ed Steele is a writer, photographer and maker of short films. He works as a music photographer in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. When not photographing rock stars, Ed  volunteers with his wife at a feline rescue group.

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Jennifer Tomaloff on the theme of David Lynch

Jennifer Tomaloff on the theme of David Lynch

Jennifer Tomaloff on the theme of Democracy

Jennifer Tomaloff on the theme of Democracy

Jennifer Tomaloff on the theme of Las Vegas

Jennifer Tomaloff on the theme of Secret Life

Jennifer Tomaloff on the theme of Secret Life

Jennifer Tomaloff on the theme of Silent Movie

Jennifer Tomaloff on the theme of Silent Movie

Artist Biography

Jennifer L. Tomaloff is a treasury analyst. During off hours she attempts to find meaning within the largely ignored aspects of common existence through photography. Jennifer is the editor and publisher of Bending Light into Verse: bendinglightintoverse.com

photo: Ashley Bovan - Secret Life

on the theme of Razor Dance

Further Grid

you take your bag
and go you do not
stop you do not
sleep when
you called when
you asked when
you wrote and asked
what was it
for what did
the magic say you
dance you shake
dice you stir
tea bathe
in a coloured bath so
dark so
insular so
unbroken so
lost a song of light a
song flickers to shadow
diesel out and back
nightline

___________

on the theme of Secret Life

Untitled 

If you can’t sleep
and you get up
stand by the back door smoking
and it’s a clear night
with thousands of stars
thousands
and a breeze blows into the kitchen
tinkles the little bells on a cord
you bought from the hippy shop
a gentle ringing
and the stars

_______________

on the theme of Democracy

Untitled 

I hate toast
I would rather kill someone
than have them make me toast
I often wonder why they don’t get up early and leave
instead of hanging around and making breakfast
which means toast
but then I remember I’m at their place
and it should be me who’s getting up early and leaving

I keep some rose petals in my jacket pocket
ready for such occasions
to leave on the pillow
Sometimes I write a poem and leave it
but then I can’t remember the words when I get home
and it could have been really useful
like for winning a competition
something important

______________________

On the theme of Cheese

Untitled 

I am writing a poem with meter
– it’s about a gasman

Author Biography

Ashley Bovan lives in Cardiff, writes poetry and takes photographs. He has been published in many journals and recently finished writing up his MA thesis.

On Childhood

Nick Who Became Max - by Terry Faust - on the theme of Childhood

Artist Statement/Biography

My son Nicholas posed for this photo illustration that was for an article about the connection between music and math. He later decided he liked his middle name, Maxwell (Max for short), and changed it. Thus, Nick Who Became Max.

Photography by Eva Steil on the topic of America. 

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You and the Navy, Full Speed Ahead - self portrait - Eva Steil - on America

Minda and Wulea Pino, Christmas - Eva Steil - On America

Doors Music - Eva Steil - On America

Artist Biography

Eva Steil is a Las Vegas photographer. She wants her work in your gallery. She can be found on Facebook. Eva was the featured artist in the first issue of Unshod Quills (June 2011)

Rosemary Lombard - Original Photography - on Red Shoes

Rosemary Lombard on the theme of “Red Shoes.”

Red Shoes

Once I read—it must have been from a magazine in a waiting room—that the color red was the new neutral. I didn’t believe it then, and I don’t believe it now. Of all colors, red seems to carry the most symbolic and emotional baggage. What is the color of fire? of blood? of danger? of the heart and its Valentine? the color that makes the heart beat faster? If red is neutral, why is the coquette Musetta of La Bohème traditionally costumed in red or its close neighbor on the color wheel and the shy seamstress Mimi (the heroine, after all) given a muted color edging on drab? Why do the red shoes of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairytale represent the overblown vanity of a girl, taking on their own life and forcing her to dance until she begs for her feet—and the red shoes—to be amputated?
The eyes tend to track toward red shoes. Mine are nothing sexy: no towering heels or even open toes, just a pair of old granny boots and a pair of red and white flats; but almost every time I wear them, a pair of eyes drifts down to the shoes and I get comments. “I love your red shoes.” “Can I have the red shoes when you’re done with them?” I have never heard comments loving any of my true neutral collection, the black or brown or gray ones. I have, in fact, heard no comments at all.
In terrestrial turtles there are more color cones in the eye sensitive to red than those sensitive to other colors. The turtles in my behavioral lab seem to favor red objects, a characteristic most likely adaptive: They notice a strawberry, a hibiscus flower, the red eye of a male box turtle, my red shoes.

Neutral

Eyes drift down
and focus on my feet.
Where did I read . . .
Who was it said
that red
was the new
neutral?

Some waiting-room rag
for women (or sheep)
exploiting, perchance
inventing a trend.
What bull!

If red is so neutral,
why then do they costume
Musetta in red, Musetta the shameless coquette,
while shy seamstress Mimi
(the heroine, you know)
wears colors so drab and so muted?
And why do I
love all my red shoes?

Now I don’t dress at the height—
or the foot height—of fashion.
Foot fetish? Not that.

Perhaps it is vanity?
like the girl whose red shoes,
fast to her feet, made her dance—
and danced her off to desperation?
No, but it might be a little of that.

Why, I don’t buy things new,
and who has ever said
to me effusive ohs,
I do so love your jet black shoes . . .
your mud-tinted shoes . . .
your sweet dirty gray shoes!

But red? That’s another story.

Take my old flat granny boots
all laced up in their fire-truck red:
“Oh, I love . . . ” or “May I have
those shoes—so red!— when you are through?”
(Not when life is through with me,
but when I am through with them—the boots,
if that’s what she meant by the rave—
and that not long before the day
when my stockings stick through the soles
and pad over the pavement’s rough rocks.)

What is it, then, about color?
its emotional symbols, its signs?
For red, the color of fire, of danger, of blood,
of the heart and of its Valentine,
our senses and neurons
construct the connections.
How the links make the blood run the river!

Perhaps we mimic a bale of box turtles,
given extra color cones for sensing red,
whose choices—neither pale nor neutral,
but to turtles presumably useful—
elect the reddest, ripest berry,
the brightest bloom of Hibiscus sinensis,
the red-pepper eyes of a box turtle male, and
my
red
shoes.

Author Biography

Animal behaviorist and turtle cognition specialist Rosemary Lombard has one foot in the arts and humanities, the other in science. Her nonfiction story “Diode,” adapted from her WIP, Diode’s Experiment: A Box Turtle Investigates the Human World, just won the first place Kay Snow Award in the nonfiction division. Reading: Blackbird Wine Shop, Feb. 1.

Bjorn Wahlstrom shares the digitally captured poetry of his home, Shanghai, and of other locations around the PRC.

on Somewhere Never Traveled, Gladly Beyond

Bjorn Wahlstrom, "You Are Here" (Pudong International Airport, Shanghai)

"I Am Here," Jinxian Lu, Shanghai

"We Built You a New House, Mom." Burnt down house, Jiaozhou Lu, Shanghai

"Quagmire Factory Bathroom," in Suzhou

"Escape Hatch," at home in Shanghai

"Living Out of My Suitcase," at home, Shanghai

"Neighbor's Pet Roosters," Yongjia Lu, Shanghai

"Rapture," Jiulong Lake

"The Jesus Church," abandoned village near Ningbo.

"Truck Driver's Bed," Shilong, Dongguan

"Instruction - Three Only," Kangding Lu bar, Shanghai

"Shakespeare Before the Typhoon: Last Message to the World," Huaihai Lu, Shanghai

"Chai, Slotted for Demolition," Changle Lu, Shanghai

"Uighyr Noodle Man," Pujiang Town, Shanghai

"Cell Phone Numbers for Sale, Shaanxi Nan Lu, Shanghai

Artist Biography

Born in Sweden, Bjorn Wahlstrom is a writer and publisher living in Shanghai where he works, writes and prays. www.haliterature.com