Written by Emily L. Quint Freeman
Freeman considers gardening as the ultimate art by discussing the notable gardens of two famous, queer woman artists.
Gardens are both art and autobiography, a landscape of self-expression combined with a love for natural beauty. As the great artist and garden-maker, Claude Monet, once observed, “I perhaps owe becoming a painter to flowers. My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.”
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This is our first reading round-up! Hurray! And after the outpouring of support (and content!) from our community these last few months, we can’t think of a more fitting theme for our first collection of micro-reviews than LOVE.
In this month’s round-up, we’re sharing love stories — stories of queer love, brown and black love, parental love, self-love, love of home. These books teach us that love is sticky and uncertain. Sometimes, it is colored by bias and political violence. Sometimes, we don’t have the language for it. Sometimes, it is wrapped in a heavy blanket of grief. But no matter what shape love takes, the Drizzle team believes that love is valuable. Love stories are valuable. After all, as contributor Katie Centabar wrote in her review of Get a Life Chloe Brown: “In these tough times, we all need love.”
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Reviewed by Edmondson Cole
In Chana Porter’s debut novel, an alien life form known as the Seep doesn’t conquer the planet in a military sense –instead it infiltrates humankind via their drinking water, achieving the “softest invasion” (9) earth (or the sci-fi genre) has ever seen. The effect of this invasion is not what one might expect. Not mind-control or bodily harm, but instead a oneness with the world, the ability to touch objects and feel their past, present, and future. For those under the influence of the Seep, “it was impossible to feel anything except expansive joy, peace, tenderness, and love.” (11) So begins an unconventional take on a classic sci-fi premise, a novel about grief and identity and those hardships of the human condition that persist even in a world where death is an “opt-in procedure” (44) and humanity has been freed to live outside “the old scarcity paradigm.” (13)
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Review by Michael Quinn
Peter McGough and his partner (in business and romance) David McDermott rose to prominence in the 1980s New York art scene. Their paintings have a vintage feel with a contemporary twist (a still life of flowers has the blossoms arranged into the shape of a dollar sign). Their later photography has a much more mysterious feeling, truer to whatever periods they were aping. Mentored by Julian Schnabel, their work appeared in three Whitney Biennials and graced a 1986 cover of Artforum.
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