ISSUE III

2 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 3
LETTER FROM
THE EDITORS
Dear Reader,
A year ago, our team was scrambling for our first issue’s release. We were in the heart of
quarantine, which meant the only way we had been designing our publication was through
FaceTime and the occasional Zoom. In fact, I still haven’t met most of our team in person.
Yet—and this may sound ridiculous since I know virtual interactions can hardly compare to
those in-person—the way I feel around and trust them is pretty special.
When Sienna Solstice first came to be, I identified it as only an intellectual endeavor—a way
to fill the time I had too much of. It isn’t. So while you read, dear Reader, I urge you to recognize
this issue as an exercise for both the mind and the heart.
—Rukan
The release of ISSUE III marks the one year anniversary of Sienna Solstice’s first publication.
We have cycled from the longest days of the year to the shortest and back again, and during
that time, we’ve explored AI art, human and computer-generated poetry, podcasts, films, watercolor,
graphic design, and so much more. We’ve also been fortunate enough to investigate
intention with Annie Finch, form and function with Safia Elhillo, and now the value of tailored
curiosity with Dr. Anjan Chatterjee.
When we first started building this journal, we focused on themes of renewal, connection,
and fluidity. As we approach our second Summer Solstice, we have found fluidity to be one
of the most vital ones—fluidity in the antidisciplinary sense, in which we perpetually open
ourselves to featuring new ideas and expressions of truth, but also fluidity in a more practical
sense. We began this journal ambitious with the intention of publishing on every solstice and
equinox, but after our first issue, we refocused to publishing biannually every solstice. This
adaptation was made to maintain the strength and quality of every issue we produce and to
allow us to stay fluid and flexible. Sienna Solstice started when we were in high school, and
now our team is composed entirely of college students; as we grow, the journal grows with
us, and as we learn, the journal does as well. We are eager to see where we are next summer,
and we hope you are there to witness our growth, too.
SPECIAL EDITION PODCAST
Listen to our Special Edition Podcast where we speak with two individuals who we feel
embody the idea of the antidisciplinary. Join us as we continue exploring the truths that
binds us all.
“The history of science is essentially the
history of knowledge.”
Dr. Paula Findlen is a professor of history
at Stanford University, studying the history
of science, especially in the context of the
Italian Renaissance, in which she describes
“take enormous pleasure in examining a
kind of scientific knowledge that did not
have an autonomous existence from other
kinds of creative endeavors, but emerged
in the context of humanistic approaches to
the world”.
In an exclusive interview with the Sienna
Solstice editors, Dr. Findlen explores the
Leonardo effect, great antisciplinary minds
in history (Kepler, Newton, etc.), Brad Pitt
and A River Runs Through It, pursuing
truth, and what it means to cultivate forms
of internal and external diversity.
“Every scientist is an artist, most of the
time.”
Ikumi Kayama, medical and scientific illustrator,
is the perfect manifestation of her
own statement, using art to communicate
or “filter” obscure scientific concepts. Having
earned degrees in Scientific Illustration
and Medical & Biology Illustration from the
University of Georgia and Johns Hopkins
University, she produces award-winning
work that can be found in textbooks, websites,
journals, and science exhibits.
Join us in conversation with Ikumi as she
walks us through her journey to her career,
starting from her second grade cat drawing
to her experiences in medical school
classrooms at Johns Hopkins.
ISSUE PLAYLIST
Also featured: the ISSUE III Playlist, curated by Editor Rukan.
We suggest you listen as you read.
Thank you for celebrating with us this Summer Solstice.
Warmly,
Kate, Lea, & Rukan

4 SIENNA SOLSTICE ISSUE III 5
TABLE OF CONTENTS
An Interview with
Dr. Anjan Chatterjee
The Editors
6
30
31
J.I. Kleinberg
Silvana Smith
But what of glaciers
Hold Tight
sweetdreams
A Classmate Uses a Word I’ve
Never Heard as a Poem Title
Christian Leon
Guerrero
Darnell “DeeSoul”
Carson
10
11
32
32
32
Hunter Anson
Andrea Chow
Aliza Li
Untitled Artwork
February Poppy
dentistry for grown-ups
Introspections
Phillipp Schmitt
12
33
Miranda Navarro
Untitled Artwork
Untitled Artwork Jisu “Jisutice” Kim 14
[The Earth Waltzes During
Rush Hour]
Hannah Villanueva
15
chaconne Sophie Mathieu 16
Cacophonies Casey Aimer 17
Untitled Photograph Kara Theart 17
Untitled Photograph Makino Kinjo 18
34
35
36
37
38
Julian Berger
Amelia Horney
Lauren Pan
Divya Mehrish
Sol Paz Kistler
Waves
Stasis and Liberation
bear vs. BEAR
The Body is a Memory
Undine
40
Jake Bailey
The Soft Glow of Ribs
Horror Vacui Yuan Changming 20
Country of the Moon Sebastian Petersen 21
41
Eoin O’Dowd
Saint Luke Drawing the
Virgin Reassembled
You Don’t Have to Take Orders
from the Moon
Jaina Cipriano
22
exhale Charlotte Cao 23
42
43
Makino Kinjo
Ofem Ubi
Untitled Photograph
Spiriting...
44
Ofem Ubi
Untitled Photograph
Darkness Will Fall Mileva Anastasiadou 25
The grand father Melnir
~
Ricardo General 26
46
Ricardo General
Three generations
Untitled Photograph Makino Kinjo 28
I Can’t Imagine Morning Heath Joseph Wooten29
48
All Authors
Biographies

6 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE I 7
An Interview With Dr. Anjan Chatterjee
This idea that you might ask questions about the nature of mind in terms of biology was regarded by
many as soft and fuzzy. There remain residual sentiments along these lines in some parts of
neuroscience.
I went on to do my neurology residency at the University of Chicago, and then I did two fellowships.
One was in dementia at Case Western Reserve and the other in behavioral and cognitive neurology at
the University of Florida.
In the early 90s, I began my academic career at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. At the time,
I was studying questions of spatial cognition, spatial attention, language, and how we communicate.
Then, in 1999, I was recruited to the University of Pennsylvania, where a center for cognitive neuroscience
was being created.
Dr. Chatterjee is a Professor of Neurology, Psychology, and Architecture at the University
of Pennsylvania and author of The Aesthetic Brain: How We Evolved to Desire Beauty and
Enjoy Art. The founding director of the Penn for Aesthetics, his research has focused on
questions about neuroaesthetics, neuroethics, spatial cognition and language.
DR. CHATTERJEE: We can start at the beginning.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your background.
I was a philosophy major as an undergrad, and I’ve never stopped reading philosophy. Questions from
philosophy remained of interest throughout my career. Similar to our conversation about the idea behind
Sienna Solstice, part of the issue was: how do you approach philosophical questions and remain
grounded? For me, grounding in those questions meant being tethered to empirical sciences. I’m not
saying that’s true for everybody; but for me, that grounding is necessary.
When I got to medical school, I found medicine—at least as a medical student—to not be very exciting.
Medical education is ingesting a bunch of facts. It’s conceptually light and factually dense. So, it never
fired my imagination until we got to the neuroscience section of the curriculum.
Just to give you some context, I graduated from college in 1980. In the late 70s, neuroscience was not
something that undergraduates were exposed to. I went into medical school without knowing anything
about neuroscience. So, encountering neuroscience was the first time I got excited about a biological
approach to the mind. I graduated medical school in 1985. At that time, cognitive neuroscience and
cognitive neurology was not a fashionable career choice. The idea was that if you wanted to be taken
seriously as a scientist, you should be studying protein chemistry, cellular biology, or immunology. That
period between 1981 and 1985 was when AIDS hit the scene. It was a completely novel and devastating
disease. So, immunology was a hot topic.
My move [to Pennsylvania] was a period of transition. I was hanging out with some friends in Birmingham,
and we were thinking about what we might do over the next 10 years — this idea actually came
out of a barroom conversation. One of my friends brought up the question: “Imagine yourself ten years
into the future. What would you regret not having done?” At the time, I thought that I had always been
interested in arts and aesthetics. While a lot of my work was in visual and spatial processing and communication,
I’d never really thought of incorporating aesthetics as a focus of inquiry. Growing up as a
child, I used to draw all the time. I’d carry a sketchbook with me. Later, I ended up doing much more
photography as an aesthetic practice. In pondering that question, I decided to study the biology of aesthetic
experiences.
Early in 1999, there was almost nothing written about the biology of aesthetics. Partly because this was
an academic transition period where I was reevaluating my plans, I thought I’d incorporate aesthetics
seriously as part of my research program.
Do you identify as an artist or a scientist exclusively, or do you feel that your identity is a fluidity of both
processes in both frameworks?
DR. CHATTERJEE: I think most people who end up studying empirical aesthetics or neuroaesthetics
tend to have an aesthetic practice. That’s often what drives them towards such investigations. It can
be music, it can be painting, it can be photography, it can be drawing, and some people write poetry. I
think there are some similar features to both endeavors—a kind of curiosity drives both and a willingness
to be vulnerable.
How do we appreciate the contributions of both art and science without oversimplifying either process?
DR. CHATTERJEE: I think the kinds of questions people ask or address can be similar and overlap. Scientists
can inform artists and artists can inform scientists.
I think it simplifies the process to say that artists are scientists, as some do, and denies what makes
these endeavors special. Both approaches abide by certain distinct rules. You could say that soccer
players could be good baseball players, and baseball players could be good soccer players, but it
doesn’t really make sense that a soccer player is a baseball player.

8 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 9
To make such broad statements undermines and denies the uniqueness of each sport, and by extension,
the different strengths that artists and scientists bring to bear on the questions they pursue.
In science, when we talk about experiments, and when people talk about artists experimenting, the
word “experiment” is used in very different ways, right?
In science, the general idea is that you usually have some kind of theory. You have a hypothesis to test,
and you design controlled experiments. Advances in science are incremental. The conclusions are
provisional, and subject to change. You put [the findings] out there for other people to either replicate or
disconfirm. The nice thing about that approach as a general model to advance knowledge is that the experiments
and the data determine how you think about the world. At the end of the day, the data drives
our thinking. Creativity for a scientist comes in figuring out the right question and then asking “How are
you going to design a decent experiment?”
So in my lab, one thing we repeat is, “The question is the question.” You can spend months figuring out
what [the question] is. Which question is worth asking? Once you have some sense of that, you start
trying to craft the best ways to address that question. There’s a lot of creativity that comes into those
stages.
Artists are not constrained by data. Their process, as I understand it, tends to be much more individual.
Once they put their artwork out there, the core aspects of how science advances through replication
and verification, don’t really apply—at least not in the same way.
So, I think the process of most artists’ work is pretty personal, even when embedded in an institutional
or cultural context. Experimental science doesn’t advance through individuals. It’s almost always
conducted in teams. To conflate the practice of art and science as the same— just denies the unique
strengths of each approach.
antidisciplinary
(adjective)
• • •
A rejection of the idea of the
“interdisciplinary,” as
disciplines are not only interconnected,
but interdependent.
Wherein no system of thought can contain the fullness of the human experience.
How do you continue asking novel questions and experimenting in the field of neuroaesthetics?
DR. CHATTERJEE: It’s really fun.
For an investigator, it’s a gift to be in a field where fascinating issues are wide open. There are so many
low hanging fruits to be addressed. I think if you’re a curious person, and your curiosity is a bit disciplined,
novel questions become apparent. Another important aspect for a principal investigator to stay
fresh—and this gets lost when people talk about how science advances—is to pick the right people
and then not get in their way. Young scientists animate my thinking as much as I mentor them. Having
young people who are excited about what they are doing at the start of their careers rejuvenates me.

`10
SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 11
A Classmate Uses a Word I’ve Never Heard as a Poem Title
Darnell “DeeSoul” Carson
Ophiocordyceps
Noun.
A genus of fungi containing about 140 species that grow on insects.
Ex:
ophiocordyceps unilateralis is known for its parasitic
relationship with ants, altering the host’s behaviors in order
to ensure its own propagation. Host widens mandibles to root
itself to the underside of a leaf. Host will stay there until
its inevitable death. I am unsure if it is even conscious of the choice,
or what it will soon bring. All that is left, days later, is a shell of what
was once was an ant, still attached to the leaf’s vein, and ophiocordyceps,
bursting
OR
the summer after my freshman year, a boy hijacks my prefrontal cortex
and I no longer make sense to myself. Every neuron rewires
to ensure the survival of our relationship. Soon, my body
reroutes to every place I think conditions are suitable enough
to sustain what isn’t there: Two hours beside the closest lake
Google maps could lead us to. A midnight-lit playground
the eve of his departure. I do not know how he hurt me
until five months after it has ended.
OR
It is a summer and a half later. On social media, I can see he has attached himself
to another. Every day, I try to save myself from the shell I’ve become by learning
to undo the damage. Most days, it works, always a lesson in forgiveness,
or mercy, though I’m not sure which one of us it is for. But some days,
I can see myself, still rooted where the boy left me, and all of the hollowness,
bursting
sweetdreams
Mixed Media on Hot Press Watercolor Paper
Christian Leon Guerrero

12 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 13
Introspections
Philipp Schmitt
Sending a blank canvas to a machine learning model meant
to process photos returns…a blank image. But repeat the
action over and over and the model starts to introduce its
own artifacts. It's subtle at first, but ultimately the model devours
the image, creating an abstract visualization of its own
inner state and architecture. An introspection made visible,
the piece materializes a glimpse into the opaque, high-dimensional
vector spaces in which AI makes its meaning.
Photography by Makino Kinjo

14 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 15
“I participated in a collaboration with a fashion
stylist, a photographer, and a model.
We wanted to create something vibrant and
colorful, so I painted on a giant cloth for the
background. I took this photo when they were
shooting and I loved it simply because the
model looks like a part of my painted cloth.”
— Jisu “Jisutice” Kim
[ The Earth Waltzes During Rush Hour ]
Hannah Villanueva
somewhere in the monotony of things we settle
besides emerald branches entrenched into
chalked prism colors on the pavement where
the jaywalker leaps—in the path parallel
a child recites sticky lyrics to a Mona Lisa while
the performance begins as the one-man-orchestra
harmonizes B notes—paints lavender adagio cymatics
on illuminated stucco the size of an ochre sun
a beat changes
neon dots halt the muffled engines
in the rearview grandeur vistas of multidimensional
cinematic plots—carrying the depth of expectations
nearby the waterfowls fox-trot into the dross
the crescendo ends
we step away from the synchronicity of this gallery pane
under the last light of the gold composed
our soles find the path for
solace
to recommence.
Photograph by Jisu “Jisutice” Kim

16 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 17
chaconne
for voice, flute, viola, cello, and piano
music by sophie mathieu
text by john mietus
Cacophonies
Casey Aimer
cacophonies of city cars represent
equally to me the leaving and
arrival of spirits. I envision lanes
of sunlight rupturing through
thunderclouds as the tunnels
for departing and returning souls.
yet being ghost among the living
is superior to living as umbra under
divinity. quickly the dead discover god
is either dead nor alive, simply
beneath their station.
Photograph by Kara Theart

18 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 19
Photography by Makino Kinjo
Photograph by Makino Kinjo

20 SIENNA SOLSTICE ISSUE III 21
Horror Vacui
Yuan Changming
Looking up to the darkish infinity of the outer space, I see how a
star has been growing only to die, in (holographic) parallel with a
cell within my body & come to know my protobeing & the cosmos
as one & the same: just as I is the cosmos, so the cosmos am I.
Even in this very moment
My mind is full
Of struggling presences
Such is
Always the case:
It is infused with
I stop to squeeze out
But it always returns
To occupy the vacated room
The moment its door opens
whims & wishes
Each bubbling perception
in a bloated form of wonder
Which has held part of me
Country of the Moon
Watercolor on paper 11”x17” - 2020
Sebastian Petersen
You long to become mindful
Of a spiritual vacuum
Yet it never allows for
The briefest moment
of emptiness

22 SIENNA SOLSTICE
You Don’t Have to Take Orders from the Moon
Jaina Cipriano
ISSUE III 23
exhale
Charlotte Cao
the rat gnaws
at my ribs
and when its
flattened head
rams itself against
the fat of
my underbelly
i pitch myself, forward,
hitch my lungs to
the hook that hangs
at the crest of my chest
and when
i can feel the bitter tip
crimp the muscle,
like a needle,
but there is no stitching, i
crumple
and press the air
out in the way
quicksand would engulf my every part:
slow as old honey then
rapid
rushing
as
my limbs jerk, convulse, quiver, and
i think an arrow has shot
down the narrow
pinprick
of my diaphragm,
because i am
clutching at air,
and the
wood splinters,
and years later,
i will still
be prying little
shards,
thin as breath,
out
and
my rat,
ravenous,
will gouge
its teeth into what
i have lost behind,
what has
yet to be
purged.

24 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 25
Darkness Will Fall
Mileva Anastasiadou
Morning light finds us at the diner, which is always busy, but we pretend there’s no one but us, we
pretend we like this place and coffee tastes like nectar, we hold the map in our hands, he takes a
look, I say, we’re here, not at the top yet, he says, but we’re close, we’re close, that’s how it starts,
the game of make believe.
Across our street there is a tiny hill we call the little mountain, and when we get there, we find
ourselves under a couple of tall trees that hide the sun and we call the place the little forest and
we pretend we’re lost in the woods, that we live in a fairy tale, we practice darkness, but then after
a couple of steps there are olive trees and vineyards and light and that’s mostly disappointing, but
also relieving.
There’s a cliff on the little mountain, and we pretend it’s a steep cliff, although if we went off and
jumped, we wouldn’t break a bone, but we pretend down lies the abyss, and when we get there
we hold hands, like we’ve finally made it, like we’re on the top of the world, we check the map, he
says, we’re here now, and I nod and we kiss for everyone to see, but no one’s watching, no one
cares.
We go to the creek we call the small river and we first check if anybody’s around but usually there
isn’t, because there’s no river but in our joint imagination, and then we sing, we sing loud, we sing
the River song, that song by Bruce Springsteen, only we change the lyrics to make it a happy song,
and we pretend it is, because we can’t stand sadness, it wears us out, so we sing and sing, like
we’re a pop band and we pretend we are, until we run out of breath.
When evening falls, we go home, turn on the lights and have deep conversations about the meaning
of life, we talk and talk, like we’re on a talk show and we pretend we are, we’re so important,
we’re heard, we’re wise, but then the shadows get thicker, we can’t escape darkness, but we pretend,
we pretend there’s still light, we’re so lucky we have each other, I say but then he says, I made
us dinner, so we stop talking and we eat.
At night, we hold on to each other, we grab each other, we make love, we call this place sacred,
our joint heaven but there comes this feeling, like darkness lightens an emptiness which remains
hidden by daylight, we check the map again, but that’s uncharted territory, we’re in the middle of
nowhere, we throw the map away, we know, we know darkness will fall, on us, on life, before we
reach the top, because there is no top, but we pretend there is, and we pretend we’re flowers, we
don’t grow old, instead we blossom, and we pretend we grow, but never, ever grow apart.

26 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 27
The grand father Meliñir
Photograph by Ricardo General

ISSUE III 29
I
I CAN’T IMAGINE MORNING
Heath Joseph Wooten
I have one thing to tell you: I need your breath to confirm
my existence like a fist. No, I’ll tell you now,
this is not
something that I wanted
to say. Again. My body catches the sun and returns
it as silence and morning was never
supposed to come. Do you ever think
about the skin of a fruit like that? I mean like my
skin? As silence? You’d be wrong. My body catches
like a thread. I’m thinking about you
getting dressed. You, a synonym for steam, in the bathroom
not thinking about my body but yours. You’re still
in bed. You’re gone. I haven’t decided
which is easier this time. You’re slicing
an apple for breakfast. A question: why
can’t daybreak dress us. Why silence.
II
I always start begging before I know
what I mean: pull me behind your eyelids
and let me find myself there. Give me
the brown washcloth you used to wash
your body and let me remember knowing
you. I’ve never said. My whole life spent
in pursuit of evidence of your existence.
Like a god. A question that no dream
could answer. I lose my words. I always
speak better to you in the language
of dreams. Tell me a story of you as a child
and let me eat an apple from your palm.
III
In this empty bed that smells like you,
I believe in the possibility of fruit. The flower
of a tongue upon my collar. I need
your breath to confirm. I need you
to describe the taste of my skin.
I need to give too much
of myself to you. I have one thing
to tell you though you already know: you are the pang
that realizes me as being alone
in being alive. And my body catches. When I open
my mouth to take a bite I’m supposed to be humble.
Do you ever think when you fall asleep that my skin
could be so quiet, could turn the day to night?
I’m really asking: please think of me. Please stay
inside me like a fire lives upon the snow.
Photograph by Makino Kinjo

30 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 31
Hold Tight
Silvana Smith
But what of glaciers
J.I. Kleinberg

32 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 33
February Poppy
Andrea Chow
the wind, short-tempered, howling,
fickler than her mother
between her gasps and shrieks
has crafted an accidental hurricane haven.
she threw tantrums through December
and spat rage through January.
and finally, she has sobbed out all her despair
wrung out from her misty body like a wet rag
leaving only a damp trickle
that wraps the mountains in a spilling sunrise light.
she has spent months screaming,
coaxing angry wrath across her breast,
coating the mountains in a thin ash blanket.
she has spent even more months weeping,
a child mourning the loss of her mother,
dusting coastal crags in a frigid powder.
she cannot be angry forever,
so, she collapses, exhausted, in February
as one does after expending all their energy
after a long day of grief.
and in the brief respite
a single poppy blooms
between the cracks on the sidewalk
miraculously dodging the heavy tread
and unrelenting assault of the tempest,
a delicate and solitary monk
vivid, radiant, effervescent –
exhaling softly against the February wind.
dentistry for grown-ups
Aliza Li
open mouth.
insert scalpel into gums
slice horizontally.
excavate the gold of a filling
until you hear the shriek of
someone’s mother.
a tooth is only lost at a certain age.
i receive a quarter
for each dissected tooth,
for all thirty two: an army
jackknife. a slipjoint, the
backspring inclining towards
open, closed--and nothing between.
slip the blade between two teeth.
wiggle back and forth and
detach every tooth from
its seat until white
is dyed red. girl
becomes woman.
Artwork by Miranda Navarro
Artwork by Hunter Anson

34 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 35
Stasis and Liberation
Amelia Horney
Waves
Julian Berger
“Producing this composition was a big undertaking as this was my first
time making a fully electronic piece. This project was made in Logic Pro
X, conducted using only looped sounds. I decided to experiment with
a whole variety of different sounds, some sampled from libraries, some
stock sounds in my DAW, and sounds from my synthesizer. I also sampled
my dad playing the shakuhachi, which is a Japanese flute that you first
hear around 0:50. This piece strives to create an ambient atmosphere
that experiments with a lot of bending and trippy sounds, while creating
a relaxing soundscape that would be good to listen to when you sleep.”

36 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 37
bear vs BEAR
Lauren Pan
Who doesn’t love Paddington the bear? Or Fozzie from The Muppets? Or even the classic Winnie
the Pooh? I don’t know about you, but these lovable, good-natured bears have definitely
added value in my life. I learned compassion from Paddington. I laughed at Fozzie’s attempts
at humor. And honestly, Winnie the Pooh just has the cutest character animation. Even with all
these examples of fictional bears, we can add one more to the list, a very real one — the BEAR.
The Bridge-Enhanced ACL Repair (BEAR) is a new cutting-edge method that uses a sponge
scaffold to reconstruct a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL), an important ligament in the knee.
Among all sports injuries, tearing the ACL is not only one of the most common, but also one of
the most severe. Unlike an ankle sprain or a muscle pull, the ACL cannot heal on its own because
there is not enough blood supply. Normally sudden pivoting or twisting movements of the
knee joint cause ACL tears. Therefore, athletes who play high intensity sports, such as football
or basketball, are the most at risk population. Fortunately, there are a couple ways to fix/treat a
fully torn ACL.
Traditionally, orthopedic surgeons completely remove the torn ACL and replace it with a graft
harvested from the patient’s own hamstring. However, this procedure is relatively invasive since
it requires several incisions to insert cameras and other tools arthroscopically and harvest the
replacement ligament. While useful, these procedures start to add up when considering the
fragility of the human body. In addition, although harvesting a graft from the patient’s own body
lowers the chance of rejection, it also adds more burden onto the body when healing. Instead of
just one compromised area, there are now two (the ACL and the hamstring). Thankfully, BEAR
offers a potential solution to these problems.
Currently, BEAR uses a bridging scaffold, which is a sponge injected with the patient’s blood. The
sponge is then inserted between the broken ends of the ACL and sewn into place. This increases
the chances of a successful procedure and also means that there is no need for extra incisions
to harvest the graft. Additionally, instead of completely removing the torn ACL, BEAR preserves
the remaining ACL tissue.
Headed by Martha Murray, MD at Boston Children’s Hospital, the clinical trials of this study
are still in its early stages. After being split into two groups with 10 patients in each, subjects
in one group received the BEAR operation and subjects in the other received the traditional
ACL reconstruction with the hamstring graft. The physical examination findings, patient-reported
outcomes, and adverse events were similar for both groups. The experiment documented
knee laxity (the looseness of the joint) and functional results, including hop testing, extension
and flexion, and others. While the data showed slightly higher/better results for BEAR than the
hamstring ACL method, the difference in results were not significant enough to conclude that
BEAR is definitively better.
While more testing is needed in order to be able to conclusively say that BEAR is the superior
surgical method, I personally see no contest between BEAR and our beloved, but fictional bears.
Works Cited
“ACL TEAR: SYMPTOMS, RECOVERY TIME AND TREATMENT.” PeerWell.
“Bridge-Enhanced ACL Repair Clinical Trial: Boston Children’s Hospital.” Boston Childrens Hospital.
Murray, Martha M, et al. “Bridge-Enhanced Anterior Cruciate Ligament Repair: Two-Year Results of a First-in-Human
Study.” Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine, SAGE Publications, 22 Mar. 2019.
The Body is a Memory
Divya Mehrish
What if I told you the spine
is oblong like a domino,
that the body is a memory
that loses itself and keeps
losing itself like a ripple
that echoes across a glassy
mirror of water until the sun
blinds its shrinking radius
into silence? What if I told
you that you have only been
taught the shape of your hips,
that what you see in the hum
of your reflection is not what
you are but what you could have
been? What if I told you the pelvis
is a planet and your torso is orbiting
a sun it cannot find? What if I told
you the human skeleton knows not
how to forget pain, that it touches
itself gingerly, as if its entire life
has been permanently bruised?
What if I told you reminiscence
exists as a light year—the star
exploded centuries ago, but from
where you sit, its serrated frame
flames into the swollen center
of your fickle vision? What if
I told you Mother Earth is yours
and yours alone—she is your
daughter, and your own breast
is the universe: the raw milk
of your fertile land sustains
all of humanity. What if I told
you, softly, that you are enough?
You are enough. What then?

38 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 39
When our mother went to be with
God, I am told my sister did not hesitate
to be the one to replace my polyisobutylene
pacifier when it would slip from
my mouth. Her grieving for Mother was
overtaken by her captivation with me.
That little petrochemical nipple provided
what nourishment it had to offer us both.
My first memories are of following
her around the backyard barefoot, polycarbonate
sippy cup in hand —a thermoplastic
containing, no doubt, the precursor
monomer bisphenol A. She kept our
baby dolls under a tree, sisters like us,
made with additive plasticizers to soften
their polyvinyl chloride bodies. She
would brush their nylon hair and place
them side by side to “sleep” under a blanket
of biodegrading leaves. This is how I
thought of her: I thought my sister had
the power to infuse life into otherwise
passive matter. She served this vitality
to me from our high-impact polystyrene
tea set.
I am aware that my memories might
be selective looking back under these
circumstances. For example, it seems
possibly too symbolic that the polyester
comforter we pulled over our heads
at night was printed in a lovely, replicative,
baroque pattern of invertebrates
and Carboniferous ferns. Or that the only
children’s book of ours that I can recall
with any detail featured sorrowful woolly
mammoths, their trunks raised, unable
to lift their knees in pools of tar. I know
now that this image is merely a simplification
for children, and that the much
truer story of petroleum is composed of
microorganisms; of phytoplankton, zooplankton
and algae. But this is harder to
Undine
Sol Paz Kistler
depict.
At the time, I had taken a ballpoint
pen (polystyrene and polypropylene)
to the book’s pages and scribbled blue
tears falling from their eyes and forming
lakes around them. My sister drew ladders
for the woolly mammoths to ascend.
My sister stole for pleasure. I
would be on the lookout at the market
as she hid a can of peaches under her
clothes. She would place the can on top
of the fence and make us wait until the
fruit had warmed in the sun, corn syrup
mixing with BPA, until we would scoop
out the syrupy half-moons and eat them
with our hands.
She drank straight from the polyethylene
gallon milk jug, wiping her
mouth dramatically afterwards. She was
also a true redhead, like Mother. Each
strand of her hair seemed to be a various
shade of gold or copper. I watched
her braid this hair with a nylon bristled
brush, securing each plait with an elastomer
band.
Every time we would get into the
car, my sister would turn and quickly
buckle my polyethylene terephthalate
seat belt for me before I had the chance.
She would never outgrow this game.
When I fell, she would gingerly apply
nylon polymer bandages to my knees. I
think of these gestures as the links between
us —as long polymer chains of
hydrogen and carbon.
When the time came, my sister
warned me that the sodium polyacrylate
sanitary pads would feel like wearing a
diaper. She showed me, before I had to
ask, how inserting a low-density polyethylene
tampon applicator was easier
and more comfortable to do while standing
up with one foot on the sink.
Side by side at the sink, we
scrubbed our faces with an exfoliating
cleanser made of micro-fine polyethylene
granules. These tiny beads have
since sailed down, spilled out, and propelled
themselves away into currents
where they have passed into ever-increasing
bodies of water; first a river,
then a sea, until finally they reached the
ocean where they are forever suspended
into what could now be described as a
large soup of materials that cannot die a
natural death.
She remembers our mother, while
I can not. I think this is why my sister is
the type of person that claims the belief
that her spirit will never fully depart,
but will only change form. Why she can
look up at the stars and say that she
feels “at home in the universe.” Like most
redheads, she has a baptism of freckles
across her face indicating stardust. I
thought her beauty would mean she was
stable and nearly-eternal.
I chose to become a chemist in an
effort to learn how to transform waste
into worth. I wanted to understand intimately
how, say: through the cumene
process, where phenol is made from oil,
a capsule of aspirin can be produced.
And the expanse of geologic time can be
held in the palm of your hand and administered
to someone with a fever. In
chemistry, things become more similar
than they are different. DNA and nylon,
for example, are both polymers. Simply
put, they are long chains of repeating
molecules. It’s the small changes in the
type of molecules being bonded and
how, that create different compositions.
There is a memory I have, thinking this, as
I watched my sister wearing lipstick (petrolatum)
and biting into an apple coated
in paraffin wax. I wanted to make sense of
the way that death can imitate life.
My sister and I, we are together everyday
now. Grown old from other kinds
of love that failed and disappointed. I am
holding her hand, and this is the truce between
our two dichotomies: we’ve agreed
that her polyvinyl chloride IV is her etheric
cord tethering her to this plane of energies.
As she lays in her hospital bed
breathing shallowly, I look into her eyes
and see —what else? Nurdles, those resinous
microplastics swirling in retinas the
color of two great water columns.
At her side, I am aware that I am incessantly
lecturing that her current state
of failing health is likely the result of a consumerism
that we’ve both been immersed
in. That all of these short-term pleasures
have assembled in her body, mimicking
life and disrupting her endocrine system
until she has become frail from the organic
eternity that is constant change. I find
myself angry at a solidified material that is
hard to pull apart, passive, yet performing
invisible tasks. Fulminating that we were
so desirous for a world that could always
be future tense, we created an abundance
of things made only for immediate consumption.
At this, my sister’s eyes widen and
her voice is propelled forward with that
incalculable impetus, not the imitation of
life, but the real thing: “Imagine how the
ocean feels!”

40 SIENNA SOLSTICE
ISSUE III 41
Saint Luke Drawing the Virgin Reassembled
Paper Collage (Source image: Rogier der Weyden) 21.20cm
Eoin O’Dowd
The Soft Glow of Ribs
Jake Bailey
Astonishment delayed,
radioactive hoofsteps
evaporating into the emptiness
of a bowl that once held
palms on either side.
Now, it collects dust
deeper than this world.
Remember the birth of this
idea, instrument of the given
and the soft glow of ribs
picked clean. Nothing lies
blooded on the table, being
becomes a syntax of water.
Somewhere in-between
erasure and dream
imagines a veil,
a place of nectar pooling
in candles lit midscene to reveal
a face carved out of broken glass.
There is little difference between
the shape of a church and its body.
Stained glass often reflects the interior
of a surface before the surface itself.
Let the light come in the room.
Let the moon become one
with the sun as if lovers beneath
cotton sheets in the midst of December,
soft chill pulling bodies
toward each other like the opposite
of empty, bowl filling itself
with smoke, cascading ghosts
of shadows erased as
cave made star.
A man in the desert
tracing footsteps back
to the promise of a hand.

ISSUE III 43
Spiriting...
Ofem Ubi
Photograph by Makino Kinjo

Photograph by Ofem Ubi

46 SIENNA SOLSTICE ISSUE III 47
Three generations
Grandmother, mother and daughter share
the time in the little home to avoid the cold
weather outside. This was the last time
that I saw them together because sadly, the
grandmother named Ofelia passed away
because of COVID-19.
Photograph by Ricardo General

author & artist
BIOGRAPHIES
Casey Aimer holds an MFA in poetry from
Texas State and a bachelor’s in prose from
Texas A&M University. For over a decade he
has performed nationwide with spoken word
and page poetry. He is a former non-profit
writing director and the blog editor for the
Porter House Review. Aimer has previously
been published in Ars Medica, The Fictional
Café, Toyon Literary Magazine, Inwood Indiana
Press, and more.
Mileva Anastasiadou is a neurologist, from
Athens, Greece. A Pushcart, Best of the Net,
Best Microfiction and Best Small Fictions
nominated writer, her work can be found in
many journals, such as Litro, Jellyfish Review,
HAD, Ruminate, Lost Balloon, X-R-A-Y
and others.
Hunter Anson is an artist from Perth, Australia
who primarily focuses on graphic design,
mainly consisting of apparel design
and album artwork. Although, he also really
enjoy playing around with digital textures
and colours to create detailed pieces.
Jake Bailey is a schiZotypal experientialist
and host of Poetry and Pot. He has published
or forthcoming work in Abstract Magazine,
The American Journal of Poetry, Constellations,
Diode Poetry Journal, Frontier
Poetry, Guesthouse, Mid-American Review,
Palette Poetry, PANK Magazine, Passages
North, Storm Cellar, TAB: The Journal of Poetry
& Poetics, Tar River Poetry, and elsewhere.
Jake received his MA from Northwest
Missouri State University and his MFA from
Antioch University, Los Angeles. He is a former
editor for Lunch Ticket, current reader
for Grist: A Journal of the Literary Arts, and
lives in Illinois with his wife and their three
dogs. You can find him on Twitter and Instagram
(@SaintJakeowitz) and at saintjakeowitz.xyz.
Julian Berger is a LA-based multimedia
composer who is currently studying music
composition and minoring in film music at
Chapman University in Orange County. Coming
from a classically trained background as
a pianist, Julian has begun to branch out and
now experiments with producing and blending
electronic sounds and acoustic samples
to create a vast variety of music. Find out
about Julian’s most recent works on his youtube
channel, www.youtube.com/c/Julianbergermusic
Charlotte Cao is a current junior at Portola
High School in Irvine, California. An avid
reader and writer, she draws her inspiration
from the likes of Sylvia Plath, Celeste Ng, and
Ocean Vuong. As the daughter of Vietnamese
immigrants, she is especially drawn to
narratives that explore culture, family values,
and the beauty of domesticity. Though she
has yet to decide what she will pursue in the
future, she is especially drawn to literature
and the social sciences, believing that both
provide a snapshot into the human experience.
When she’s not writing poetry, she can
often be found drinking excessive amounts
of Thai tea boba and fawning over her dog
Hershey.
Darnell “DeeSoul” Carson (He/They) is a
Black queer poet, performer, and educator
from San Diego, CA, and Editorial Assistant
at The Adroit Journal. A 2020 TWH Writing
Workshop Fellow and two-time CUPSI finalist,
his work has been featured on Button
Poetry, in The Adroit Journal, Between My
Body and The Air (A Youth Speaks Poetry
Anthology), and elsewhere. He is graduating
with a degree in Cultural/Social Psychology
and a minor in Creative Writing from Stanford
University and will be a Writer in the
Public Schools Fellow in the NYU M.F.A program
in Fall 2021.
Yuan Changming started to learn the English
alphabet at age nineteen and authored
monographs on translation before leaving
China. Currently, Yuan edits Poetry Pacif-

ic with Allen Yuan in Vancouver. Credits
include eleven Pushcart nominations, ten
chapbooks and appearances in the Best
Canadian Poetry & BestNewPoemsOnline,
among others across 46 countries. Recently,
Yuan served on the Jury for Canada’s 44th
National Magazine Awards (poetry category)
and published a Chinese poetry collection.
Andrea Chow (she/her) is a Chicana/Central
American writer from Southern California
and a student at Yale. Her work has
been honored by the Ventura County Poetry
Project. In her free time, you can find her
performing slam poetry at her local library
or going for long hikes in the Santa Monica
Mountains. She also has her own blog, andreasarea.weebly.com.
You can find more of
her poetry in Changing Womxn Collective,
MixedLife Media, Periphery Journal, and antifragile
zine. Reach her on Instagram @andrea.chow
or by email andrea.nicole.chow@
gmail.com
Jaina Cipriano is a Boston based artist
working with photography, film and installation.
Her work explores the emotional toll of
religious and romantic entrapment through
immersive sets and emotional performances
that mirror the subconscious.
Eoin O’Dowd is an artist from Dublin, living
and working in Helsinki. The following two
works submitted to Sienna Solstice, are from
an ongoing body of work titled Emotional Illiteracy.
Each hand cut collage is an image of
itself re-imagined. Thematically, Eoin’s work
references violent personal experiences and
employs a volatile and frenetic kind of energy.
The work concerns that emotional illiteracy
, taught, and ubiquitous in a masculinity
that is aggressive and reactionary.
Ricardo General is a photographer, documentary
maker, who began his career in
2010, recording social movements in Chile.
In his career he has explored areas of registration
in performing arts, cultural heritage
and diverse cultures around the world with
publications in various Chilean and Latin
American magazines such as National Geographic
in Spanish. In 2018, he held the exhibition
Shades de Thailand, which would
later be transformed into a book produced
by the Royal Thai Embassy describing the
most important aspects of Thai culture. His
photography has always been linked to unraveling
the intimate aspects of each cultural
manifestation as well as the environment
within the daily life in the places he visits.
Photography must be a journey.
Christian Leon Guerrero is an Asian American/Pacific
Islander freelance illustrator
and fine artist based in San Francisco, California.
Born and raised in the Bay Area and
Los Angeles, Christian earned his Bachelor
of Arts degree from California College of the
Arts. His choice of medium is a diverse range
of traditional materials. He strives to depict
dreamy and nostalgic imagery through color,
shape, and form. He currently creates work
for editorial magazines as well as galleries
throughout the U.S.
Amelia Horney (b. 2001) is a New York and
Los Angeles based composer whose work
has always been very emotionally and visually
driven. She is deeply inspired by collaboration,
other art-forms, the human condition
and subconscious, and her natural
surroundings. Recently, she has been specifically
fascinated by expansive and surreal
imagery, from both paintings and from her
own dreams. Through her music, Horney
seeks to share her inner emotional experience
and create spaces that spark curiosity
and reflection within the listener. Horney
has participated in summer festivals such as
Curtis Summerfest Young Artist’s Summer
Program for Composition, Boston University’s
Tanglewood Institute Young Artist Composition
Program, and the Lake George Music
Festival Composer Institute, where she
has had several works premiered by faculty
and peers. Horney is currently pursuing
a Bachelor of Music in Composition at the
University of Southern California, Thornton
School of Music, and has studied privately
with notable composers such as Saad
Haddad, Alyssa Weinberg, Andrew Norman,
Veronika Krausas, and Ted Hearne. When
she is not composing, you can find Amelia
creating light installations and playing with
her adorable Labrador Retriever, Percy.
Jisu “Jisutice” Kim is a painter based in
Seoul, South Korea. She finds it very unusual
to write about herself in the third person,
but will give it her best effort. She graduated
from the college of Fine Arts at Kyunghee
University, but has since developed her own
painting style by purposefully un-learning
what she learned in school. She would say
that what really taught her the most about
art was a moment when she found little wild
flowers which look very fragile, but have an
instinctual tenacity and passion for life. She
believes that such qualities are necessary
for a healthy society to exist, and so those
flowers, without saying a word, provided her
with the realization of what she wants to do
with her painting.She is making a conscious
effort to do her part in inspiring others to feel
passionately grateful for being alive by creating
paintings and sharing her everyday life
on social media, and existing quietly, similarly
to the wild, natural world. You can always
feel free reach out, connect, and get inspired
by finding her on instagram; @Jisutice
Makino Kinjo grew up in a small island of
Japan, Okinawa. She majored in American
Literature in Bunkyo university. While she
was in Canada as an exchange student, she
became interested in photography by borrowing
her friend’s camera. Then she started
talking photos as her hobby. Her photography
has no specific genre, but mainly focuses
on realistic and well composed moment
happens in ordinal life. She respects Japanese
photographer Kishin Shinoyama.
Sol Paz Kistler is interested in exploring
how the culture of military imperialism specific
to the U.S. infuses and informs civilian
life, values, identities and desires through
their writing. While they are primarily a visual
artist, they write short stories to supplement
and expand on an image. They have
not lived long, but they have lived in all four
corners of the continental United States and
currently reside in Kealakekua, HI.
J.I. Kleinberg, in the unrelenting battle
against doggerel and sloth, wields recycle-bin
magazines, x-acto knife, and glue.
Her visual poems, which explore the accidental
syntax of unintentional phrases, have
been published in print and online journals
worldwide. An artist, poet, freelance writer,
and three-time Pushcart and Best of the Net
nominee, she lives in Bellingham, Washington,
USA, and on Instagram @jikleinberg.
Aliza Li is a freshman at Johns Hopkins University,
studying writing and cognitive science.
Her work has been recognized by Aerie
International, Canvas Teen Literary, and
the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. She
spends most of her free time glued to a computer
screen or hanging out with friends at
her local boba shop. Her favorite album to
listen to while writing is Takatoshi Naitoh’s
“In The Forest”.
Sophie Mathieu has won numerous awards
for her work writing music for diverse mediums.
Her music explores concepts of vastness,
timelessness, and ethereality. Collaboration
is a key facet of her artistic practice.
Sophie is a first year masters student at the
University of Texas at Austin. She completed
her undergraduate at the University of
Southern California, earning the distinction
of “Outstanding Graduate in Composition”
when she finished her studies. In addition
to composing, Sophie plays cello, frequently
performing her own works and those of her

colleagues. Outside of music, she loves to
cook, watch psychological horror films, and
play Sid Meier’s Civilization V.
Divya Mehrish is a writer and student at
Stanford University. Her work has been recognized
by the National Poetry Competition,
the Foyle Young Poets of the Year Award, the
Scholastic Writing Awards, and the Columbia
College Chicago’s Young Authors Writing
Competition. Her writing has been published
in or is forthcoming from Sojourners, PANK,
Coastal Shelf, Prairie Margins, Broken Pencil,
Roadrunner Review, Blue Marble Review,
Polyphony Lit, Tulane Review, and Amtrak’s
magazine The National, among others.
Miranda Navarro is a 20-year-old artist
from Argentina. She’s studying to be an ESL
teacher, but in her free time she likes to draw
and paint. Miranda is interested in different
forms of art-making, such as drawing, making
music, cooking, building, creating, writing,
digital painting, etc. She had been working
as a digital artist on Instagram during the
pandemic until she decided to take a break.
Besides studying, Miranda currently makes
hand-made paintings on clothes with acrylics.
Lauren Pan, from Dallas, TX, is a part of the
class of 2024 at Johns Hopkins University,
majoring in Biomedical Engineering and
potential minoring in Applied Mathematics
and Statistics. On campus, she’s involved in
Hippocrates Med Review, Engineering without
Borders, TEDxJHU, Phi Mu Sorority, and
a few others organizations. In her free time,
she loves to play ice hockey, waste time on
TikTok, and play WordHunt on GamePigeon.
Sebastian Petersen enjoys creating abstract
sculptures and illustrations as a form
of relaxation between working on highly
symbolic illustrations about his culture, and
family history. This piece is no exception and
speaks to a place inhabited by strange fishlike
beasts at the edge of consciousness. Sebastian
lives in San Francisco with his dog
and partner, where he beach combs and
thrifts during his off hours to fire supplies for
art projects.
Philipp Schmitt (he/him; b. 1993, Germany)
is an artist, designer, and researcher
based in Brooklyn, USA. His creative practice
engages with the philosophical, poetic,
and political dimensions of computation.
Philipp’s works include installations, artist
books, websites, photography, and sound.
His current work addresses opacity and
imagination in artificial intelligence research
and its history.
Silvana Smith is a visual artist and writer
born in Sicily and raised in Florida. She
recently graduated from The University of
North Florida with a degree in fine arts. She
pursues sculpture, photography, illustration,
printmaking and any other practice that can
help convey ideas. Her creations typically
focus on linework, longing and language.
Her art and poetry have been published in
Folio Weekly, Backslash Literary, Honeyfire
Literary Magazine, The Giving Room Review,
Baby Teeth Journal and The Luna Collective.
You can find more of her baking , art making,
poetry and quarantine activities through Instagram
@eggexplorer.
Kara Theart creates physical images of
loneliness with the space itself having an effect
on the subjects within.
Ofem Ubi is a Poet, Photographer and Film
maker from Nigeria. He was shortlisted for
and also published in the Deep Dreams
Anthology of the Nigerian Students Poetry
Prize, 2018 and has been published in the
Inkwell Journal. He seeks to fuse art genres
into documentation. Presently using film,
poetry, photography to tell time, archive the
present and explore the nuance that exists
in memory, the divine and Nigeria generally.
His works are displayed in his social media
handles as well as his YouTube channel.
Hannah Villanueva is an emerging writer
and photographer from Palmer, Alaska. Living
with a mental illness for her whole life,
her work is focused on observing the earth
as a source of healing for the mind, body,
and soul. She values the art of stillness as
a daily cultivating practice. Currently she is
pursuing a degree in film and media studies.
In navigating her identity as a multiracial,
Latinx, Asian-American woman, she hopes
to portray wholeness in her creating.
Heath Joseph Wooten (he/him) is an MFA
candidate at Northern Michigan University.
He is an associate poetry editor at Passages
North, an upcoming guest reader at perhappened
mag, and was recently nominated for
inclusion in the Best New Poets 2021 Anthology.
He is an avid collector of cassettes and
other obsolescences, and you can find his
work in or forthcoming from mutiny!, Dear,
perhappened, and others.
Kate Hayashi
Editor
Rukan Saif
Editor
Lea Wang-Tomic
Editor
Yumnaa Aboosally
Design
Esther Suyoung Moon
Design
Audrey Pham
Design
Jisoo Hope Yoon
Poetry Reader