Author: Erika Bell

One of the luxuries of living in an Internet-driven era, where information can be transferred from one home to the next within seconds, is the fact that we have front-row seats to some of the greatest art in the world.

I happened upon Golish’s work through an art website. Lots of artists on the rise have allowed their work to circulate the web in hopes of getting it seen and critiqued by the general public. Golish is a visual artist from Toronto, Canada who specializes in figurative and portrait drawing and painting. I was drawn to her work because of its mystique and its subjects: ethnic people with interesting facial features, jewelry, clothing, hair, and overall aspects of untraditional beauty.

“Oyin” drawing by Sarah Golish

“Oyin,” with its deep browns swirling together, and its detail to shading and fading, appealed to me. Charcoal and conte was used for this image on toned paper, and it has already been sold.

“Celestial Rhythms” Moondust series by Sarah Golish

This piece is a part of Golish’s recent Moondust series, a series that captures “an ode to Afrofuturism.” The images entail a lot of simulated symmetry with a mix of tradition and new-age styles. “Celestial Rhythms” has an almost perfect symmetrical placement, and the woman in the image could be an archetype for any woman with features that are striking and relatable at the same time.

“Mandela” by Sarah Golish

“Mandela” is a rendition of a widely known image of Nelson Mandela. Her utilization of acrylic, oil, and gold leaf on the canvas, enhances the great detail put into the image, every part of Mandela’s figure appearing home-made but in the good way.

“With a song in my heart” painting by Sarah Golish

This image outlines the toned body of a woman cloaked with a white sheet across her back. The strength, the tiny detailing of the gold bangles and gold-feather earrings, the way the sun shines intricately upon the white sheet and through the back of the woman, all make this image extraordinary.

If you are interested in any more of Sarah Golish’s work, check out her website www.sarahgolish.com

Let’s go back in time, where laying down in a comfy chair with a hot cup of tea and hours upon hours were allotted to your favorite pastime. Yes, those were the good days where you had a new novel smelling of refined ink and all the time in the world to get lost in it. But of course, life likes to smack us all in the face a couple times and tell us that our fantasies are over when it comes to reading for fun. All of our obligations come first and foremost, and with the time we have left to enjoy ourselves it should really be spent either eating or sleeping. I am here to impress upon you all of the reasons and ways that will allow the relaxing activity of reading your favorite novel with a cup of tea in a comfy chair, to take place without any feelings of guilt.

Tip 1: Take the time out of your day to do it, trust me it’s worth it. If it’s twenty minutes, or an hour, there is always some chunk of time that could be put to your entertainment. Suppress the Netflix, or the quick nap, and utilize your me-time with a favorite book.

Tip 2: Find a place that gets you excited to read. Whether it be a coffee shop, a library, a museum, or a restaurant, grab something that you’ve been itching to read and do it in a calm and comfy setting.

Tip 3: Let your reading be your reward for the day. If you’ve put in a lot of work all day long, let your reading be the time where you can unwind and relax, you deserve it!

Whether it be walking past a store, or looking through magazines, I have found that I am beginning to feel a little too content. Not with the joys that make up the wonders of life, no, I am feeling a little too content with the approaching Valentine’s Day. Of course this never happens, there’s always a scrunch of the face, a roll of the eyes, and a smack of the lips as I walk by the blood red and bubblegum pink colors displayed in a store window or through magazine advertisements. But this year something is different.

So when I began scrolling through my Netflix feed, searching through every category for a good film to procrastinate my time with, I noticed that there aren’t any recent, emotionally-ripping, heart-wrenching, throw-your-popcorn-at-the-screen-as-you-scream-muffled-teary-words-of-disgust, romance movies out on the market.

What has happened? The Notebook has been the long-standing, sappy, movie we hate to love, that we’ve gone to whenever in need of a little cry. If you haven’t seen the film, there’s a lot of love, pain, Ryan Gosling with a beard—just watch it you won’t regret it.  But, my point is, where is my modern sappy romance? The Notebook was released in 2004, so it has been awhile, and a few feeble attempts, since that annoyingly beautiful, sappy love has crossed our movie screens.

I think it is time we viewers set up some criteria for what we are looking for in a sappy romance:

Let’s have a movie with two leading actors that are kind of known, but not so popular that it becomes hard to decipher the actor from the celebrity. Let these actors have the best chemistry known to man.

Then,  let’s make one movie. One amazingly, emotional movie, and let’s leave it there. No sequels, prequels, fourquels, fivequels—none of that. Just one movie that will leave us longing for more until the point where we have to watch the film 178 times to feel sufficed.

After that is established, let’s make a storyline that is relatable! Give us a context that we could put ourselves in as viewers, we’ve done out-of-this-world, let’s give us humans something to be hopeful for please.

The last, and possibly most important component, is to let the couple be together in the end. I don’t care how messy the road is to get there, but after all our emotions have to go through, let the couple have the love that we want them to have.

With these vital components, I think a good sappy romance will be on its way to winning us over, and I can go back to rolling my eyes at red and pink hearts again.

 

Head hits pillow after a long day,

eyes seal shut,

in sweeps the sound of simple silence.

I drift off into my dream,

silence hugs around me

like a second blanket

like a shield.

Doctoring me as I rush though the day

working, running, cooking, cleaning, screaming,

it seeps into my mind disintegrating the chaos into smoke.

It is a newly cleaned cardigan

lingering of sweetened Downy

refreshing me

reminding me of who I am.

 

Head hits pillow after another long day,

I reflect on life,

I hear no one,

I feel nothing.

Silence becomes a load of bricks

falling down upon

my legs,

neck,

head,

suffocating me until I fall asleep.

The movement of my day rushes by

no missed calls,

working late tonight,

reservation for 1.

Reminding me of who I am.