lookingglass
Through the "Looking Glass," readers are invited to dig deeper into our issues as contributors share reflections on their work. Specifically, "Looking Glass" provides a sort of parlor where authors and artists reveal the genesis of their pieces, as well as provide meta-discursive insight into their textual and visual creative works. 
Issue 22 Reflections
Read on for reflections by select authors and artists
on the genesis and craft of their pieces in Glassworks
​and then read the full issue online!

Chelsea M. Carney
"False Starts"

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“False Starts” is an accumulation of all the first lines of essays I attempted to write in 2020 but was unsuccessful at finishing. Collected in a folder labeled “Failed Attempts,” it was only after a professor encouraged me to “find the thread” that I began slowly and sometimes painfully unraveling each sentence desperate to find where they connected. Like for many, 2020 was unexpected. Painful. Emotions ran high, and as it often does, my writing became a reflection of that, the lens in which I viewed the world (even if sometimes that wasn’t always clear to me). 
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My grandmother, my Lita, died of Covid this year. My uncle too. And sometimes, in all of those moments, all I had was a handful of words in me… a single sentence. A collection of single sentences that ultimately allowed me to tune into myself. Through the eight hour Zoom meetings day after day, walking the same small square of my apartment, the lack of human touch and interaction, and the missing of family and friends, I never lost my conviction. In exploring this piece and identifying that, for me, that one small thing became enough.

C. Christine Fair
​​COVID Lung Trilogy

The origins of COVID Lung Trilogy are straightforward: it is a timeline of my own frustration and malaise with this illness and the ways in which Americans, in particular, have responded to it.  While each of three images uses different techniques, the image of the damaged COVID-19 lung is common across the three and connects them thematically. 
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The first image, “Covid Lungs: The Beginning,” concentrates attention upon the origins of this very preventable disease, while the second image, “Covid Lungs: The Reckoning,” focuses upon the toxic individualism of those Americans who believe that wearing a mask to protect others is an infringement upon their body autonomy or other fundamental rights, which they ironically deny other Americans in other contexts. The third image, “Covid Lungs: The Renewal,” attempts to re-imagine a world when this disease has been vanquished through vaccination and wider, long-term acceptance of public health measures. 

Sharon Lee Snow
​"To the Old Man in the Walking Boot"

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My poem, “To the Old Man in the Walking Boot,” came to me after an interview for a job that I really wanted, to find the waiting room packed with younger, more qualified applicants, as well as an older, white-haired gentleman in a walking boot. It brought to mind my experience the year prior, where I had been living in Los Angeles and had ankle surgery while desperately searching for a job in a new, large, overwhelming city. I was in great pain for weeks but drove to interviews and scooted around LA on a knee scooter with a bulky walking boot. I managed to get an interview that went very well with the director, but the assistant kindly looked at my walking boot and remarked on how much up and down work would be involved. Even as I tried to convince them of the temporariness of my situation, I recall that feeling in the pit of my stomach as I watched them dismiss my capabilities, of how much I wanted and needed that job, of how infirmity and age are paired in a frightening, downward spiral in society and one’s mind. When I walked out of the interview into the lobby for the next job, healed of my wound, but knowing that I still had age against me, I felt all of this love and hope and fear for both this gentleman and myself as well a need to capture the beauty of the fragility in our shared human experience. 

Shannon Kernaghan
​"For Life," "A Murder," "I am a Crow"

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I am intrigued by crows. The similar appearance of these clever birds makes it tough to identify females from males and I empower my subjects with the same unassuming designs. Paint, draw, forage, destruct and reconstruct, in varied order. Creating visual art from Alberta, Canada, my narrative supports the concept that art can lead to a change in mindset and can heal through creating bridges.
 
“For Life” (2019. Acrylic, paper & pearls on board) is inspired by crows that mate for life, all brides – like crows – are beautiful in their skin . . . or feathers. This piece is built on a wedding dress pattern, layer after layer of hope and anticipation. 
 
​“A Murder” (2019. Acrylic, paper & metal on board). Agents of death? Crows are linked to the magic and mysteries of life. What does it mean when you keep seeing crows? Are you paying attention to the symbols and messages crows bring? Hopefully the only murder is the name given to a flock!
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There’s a whimsical myth that crows like to collect shiny objects. To continue the legend, I used shiny objects from my own collecting – an apt title for this ‘pica pica’ piece, “I Am Crow” (2019. Acrylic, paper & metal on board).

T. Dallas Saylor
​"Traverse Town"

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I was working on a poetic sequence where each poem was named after a street in Houston, TX, where I used to live. As the sequence progressed, I eventually ditched the street names, and the poems became more and more about my wife and me leaving Houston, an event which was pretty hard on both of us and on our relationship. This poem takes place on my birthday a few weeks before the move. I had a random urge to play mini golf, so we went to a place called Speedy’s Fast Track on Hempstead Road on the northwest side of Houston. It was mainly a go-kart place, but they had mini golf, too. 

That summer we were working through some tough spots in our relationship, and it was nice that evening to set it all aside and just enjoy the child-like fun of mini-golf. Regarding the poem’s title, I was inspired by the night’s general atmosphere of whimsy and bright lights which masked an undercurrent of loss and anxiety. In the Disney/Square Enix video game franchise Kingdom Hearts, Traverse Town is a recurring location where people end up when their world has been destroyed or fallen to darkness. It’s a sort of purgatory, per se, a temporary holding spot for people in a liminal space with nowhere to go. It’s always night time there, but the town is well-lit with street lamps, fountains, and shopfronts. The music is gentle and optimistic, and the Dream Drop Distance rendition of the theme is especially soothing. The overall atmosphere is so comforting that it’s easy to forget why you ended up there. ​