Ayris

24/06/2021

In his essay, “What Will My Son Remember of This Horrible Year,” poet and novelist Alejandro Zambra considers the role of the parent, the child, the nuances of that relationship and, most notably, the mechanism of memory: how it forms and how it is influenced.

Available via The New York Times

23/06/2021

Today's :

How do world events impact our youth? How do we make sense of both our awareness and ignorance of them? How much of that awareness is formed by implanted memory?

Submissions are open until July 1st! For more information on our YOUTH issue and how to submit, go to our website: ayris.org/submit.

22/06/2021

One of the US’ foremost authors and illustrators of children’s books, Jan Brett’s deep and detailed work has long been an important force in many young people’s forming interests in art and literature.

21/06/2021

Shel Silverstein’s notorious art and poetry perfectly combines whimsy, imagination, and a deep emotional core, offering joy and wisdom to children as well as nostalgia and warmth to older readers.

17/06/2021

In “The Monkey Garden,” Sandra Cisneros captures how the world appears to us as children, and how quickly those once wondrous qualities can be quickly washed away by the changing perspectives of aging.

16/06/2021

Beppe Giacobbe captures the often suffocating and incongruous environment of living and maturing in youth in this piece: “Depression in Adolescence.” ( on Instagram)

15/06/2021

We just accepted this piece from creative writing major Zeke Sturgeon for our upcoming YOUTH issue!

Submissions will remain open until July 1st. We cannot wait to see how you interprete the theme of youth in your own creative work!

For more information on the issue and how to submit, please go to our website: ayris.org/submit.

15/06/2021

Today's : what defines youth?

Where does it begin and where does it end?

How does this vary from person to person?

Submissions for the YOUTH issue are open until July 1st! For more information on the issue and how to submit, go to our website: ayris.org/submit.

10/06/2021

Omario Brunellechi’s illustrations beautifully capture the warmth and energy of childhood and the connections we form with our family, friends, and the natural world at that time in our lives.

A collection of these images can be found at https://www.demilked.com/childhood-illustrations-omario-brunelleschi/ and more of Omario’s work can be found on Instagram.

09/06/2021

Today's : When was the first time you heard the word "France"? What did you call dogs before you knew the word dog? What questions come to mind that an adult would never think to ask? Children are always learning and taking in information, but the connections they can make as they discover the world can be perplexing. Try to capture the spirit of a child learning about the world. What wires would get crossed in the process? What's a connection only a child could come up with?

Don't forget! Submissions for our YOUTH issue are open until July 1st! For more information on the issue and how to submit, go to our website: ayris.org/submit

19/05/2021

Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels, starting with “My Brilliant Friend,” is a sprawling coming-of-age story following the ever-shifting friendship between two girls, Lena and Lila, impacted by violent and startling family lives and social structures in their home on the outskirts of Naples, Italy.

The first two of these novels have also been adapted into a TV show by HBO, entitled “My Brilliant Friend.”

17/05/2021

This week's : Time moves differently when we are younger. Some of this has to do with perspective and how many responsibilities you had, while other studies claim that time literally passes by slower for you the younger that you are. Summers that once felt endless are now mere blips on our radars.

Think about the flow of time for a young person, whether how slow, fast, or obscured it is, and attempt to depict that.

For more information on our YOUTH issue and how to submit, go to our website: ayris.org/submit

13/05/2021

“The Awakening” is a celebration of the beauty of Black childhood and culture, and the delicate intricacies of protecting and raising a Black child in today’s world… For some time, I felt overtaken by feelings of anger and frustration continually coming across so much negativity fixated around black hair and hairstyles (in addition to the long list of atrocities that have happened and continue to happen globally). Mixed feelings of frustration, anger, and love urged me to refocus that energy into creating something to speak for me in response to it all.”
-Tawny Chatmon,

You can view this series at www.tawnychatmon.com/copy-of-indigo

11/05/2021

Today's : Memory is a complicated process of recall and reimagination. We tend to think of memory as something preserved and static, and our memories come to us passively, they are something we "lapse into". In truth, all of our memories are shaped each time we revisit them, and layered with the added context of all our experiences. This isn't to say our memory is inherently unreliable, only to say there's a natural haze and balancing act involved. Revisit a space from childhood, try to balance the "objective" space with the one you can recall. How would you see it now, versus how did you see it then?

For more information on the YOUTH issue and how to submit, please go to our website: https://www.ayris.org/submit. The deadline is July 1st!

07/05/2021

“The Tenth of December” by George Saunders is a dazzling story of adolescent whimsy: a bewildered imagination tinged with a great loneliness. When a boy named Robin goes out to play alone on a winter afternoon, his pretend rescue mission becomes suddenly lucid when he discovers an old man attempting to end his life in the cold, culminating in a story that serves as an aching reflection on life, the mind, and human connection.

This story is available online via The New Yorker

07/05/2021

“Wild & Precious brings together treasures from a series of road trips traveled with my eldest daughter to explore the natural world and get more in touch with the earth. I use these adventures to encourage a connection between my child and nature and to give her an education that I consider essential—one that develops appreciation, respect, conservation, and self-confidence. Together we document and collect objects from the routes we drive, the landscapes we discover, the creatures we encounter, even the roadside motels where we sleep. Wild & Precious reveals the fragile, complicated relationship that humans share with nature and attempts to strengthen those bonds.” -Jesse Burke

Available online at https://www.jesseburke.com/wildandprecious

07/05/2021

Keep an eye on this page!

Over summer break, Ayris is going to be sharing a series of creative prompts and inspiring works of art and literature in preparation for the YOUTH issue! These are all just for fun, meant to spark your imagination for your own potential submissions. We are very excited about this upcoming issue and hope you are too!

If you are feeling particularly inspired by one of our prompts and want to share your response on social media, please tag us so we can see!

For our first prompt: Oftentimes, we see our separation with childhood as being when we leave home, but it tends to be a more complex matter than that, with school, breaks, returning home for financial reasons, or now, with the pandemic. Returning to these spaces, there can be friction between the old ways of childhood and the new person you’ve become. This tension can also be seen when you get a new responsibility, such as a new job, or a pet, and suddenly the freedom of youth is threatened. Think about in what spaces and situations youth disappears or returns, and what that friction looks like.

And for more information on the YOUTH issue and how to submit, please go to our website: https://www.ayris.org/submit. The deadline is July 1st!

06/05/2021

To conclude the 2020-21 senior interview series, meet Stephanie Marion, an IAD fine arts major! 🌷

We want to offer a huge congratulations to all of NEC’s graduating seniors!

To honor their hard work these past four years, Ayris conducted a series of interviews with some of our Manchester seniors throughout the school year. We would really appreciate you giving them a read! They have graciously offered a lot of valuable insight into their creative processes and motivations when creating their senior projects, as well as helpful advice for underclassmen who will one day be seniors themselves! You can find all of their interviews on our website: https://www.ayris.org/seniors-2021

 An Interview with Stephanie Marion5/6/21by Clio Thayer  Tell me about your senior project.My senior project originally was going to be about a lot of other different things, but when it came down to it, it evolved into those I’ve lost in my life. During this semester, I lost my grandma. It was ...

05/05/2021

In our next installment of the senior interview series, meet Rebekah Reif, an IAD comic arts major! 🐈

 An Interview with Rebekah Reif5/5/21by Clio Thayer So tell me a little bit about your senior project.Originally we were just going to make a 100 page comic, but we changed that a bit because that’s not really doable, so we shortened it so we could do any story we wanted. Mine is gonna be 64 page...

04/05/2021

In our next installment of the senior interview series, meet Darby Bowen, an IAD fine arts major! 🖌

 An Interview with Darby Bowen5/4/21by Soap Asbury  Tell me about your senior project.My project is a series starting with Something Borrowed, which is a wedding dress made from approximately 8 balls of ivory yarn that my mother told me I was free to do what I wanted with. It was unraveled yarn fr...

04/05/2021

We once again want to give a huge thank you to our contributors for the SHADOW AND LIGHT issue, as well as to everyone who read the issue and shared it with friends! Thanks to you, SHADOW AND LIGHT is currently the most-viewed issue on our site! Ayris couldn’t exist without the support of each and every one of you.

We just opened the call for submissions for the summer issue, YOUTH! Submissions will be open until July 1st, 2021. For more information on the theme and how to submit, visit our website https://www.ayris.org/submit.

We’re also currently putting together an issue, called Ayris: Rising Voices, filled with art and writing created by high school artists! If you know a high school student who is passionate about art or writing, please share this with them! For more information, visit our website https://www.ayris.org/rising-voices.

Please keep an eye on this page, as we have a lot of fun things planned for the summer and want you to share in the excitement!

It’s been a rough school year, and a lot of us have felt very creatively drained during this time. And yet, we’ve kept moving forward. We hope you’ll stick around and continue to support Ayris in all our future endeavors!

(image titled "Chaste" by Kylie Cropper)

30/04/2021

In our next installment of the senior interview series, meet Soap Asbury, an IAD comic arts major! 🖊

https://www.ayris.org/seniors-2021/soap-asbury-comic-arts-42921

 An Interview with Soap Asbury4/29/21by Clio Thayer  Tell me a little about your senior project.I’m really excited about this project because it’s been a story of mine for about three years now. I started it my freshman year. It’s called The Girl with the Red Headphones. It’s a one-shot h...

29/04/2021

In our next installment of the senior interview series, meet Erol Pierce, an IAD printmaking major! 🏠

 An Interview with Erol Pierce4/28/21by Clio Thayer  Tell me about your senior project.My senior project is the essence of my storytelling and my way of describing how my family interacts with each other. I come from a very large family where I’m just surrounded by people all the time. I like to...

27/04/2021

In our next installment of the senior interview series, meet Aviva Lilith, an NEC creative writing major! 🍎

 An Interview with Aviva Lilith4/27/21by Clio Thayer Tell me a little about your senior project.My senior project is the concept of what happened in The Garden of Eden, my surreal adaptation of that. It goes into a lot of different mediums and outlooks. We see a lot of different perspectives from e...

23/04/2021

In our next installment of the senior interview series, meet Leo Carbonneau, an IAD graphic design major! 🍃

 An Interview with Leo Carbonneau4/22/21by Clio Thayer  Tell me about your senior project.I’m creating a sustainable makeup brand. I’m trying to create a brand that’s still stylish and appealing — branded well, marketed well — but is also environmentally sustainable, because makeup and c...

23/04/2021

A huge thank you to everyone who came to the SHADOW AND LIGHT Happening last night! We had a blast and hope you did too.

If you haven't checked out the new issue yet, we urge you to do so! There are some very talented artists and writers featured and we would really appreciate you showing support and submitting your own creative work to future issues!

https://www.ayris.org/shadow-and-light-issue

("Grip the Raven, mixed media piece by Robbie Cook)

22/04/2021

The SHADOW AND LIGHT Happening is TONIGHT! Come hang out with us on zoom at 7pm EST and hear from some of our fantastic Ayris contributors!

Being featured tonight include Kayla Padilla, Alexandra Buciak, Robbie Cook, Ryo Shaw, Jon Hughen, and Dani Schmit!

There's also the opportunity during the second half of the event to share some of your own creative work, open-mic style!

You won't want to miss out!

https://nec.zoom.us/j/97235755527

("Rhodocrose", acrylic and colored pencil piece by Alexandra Buciak)

21/04/2021

In our next installment of the senior interview series, meet Beatrice Moss, an IAD fine arts major! 🖼

 An Interview with Beatrice Moss4/20/21by Clio Thayer  Tell me about your senior project.My project is based on how we experience the world and how we don’t. It’s about boundaries and borders, the invisible and unknown. It came about as kind of a self-discovery for my own blockages. There wer...

20/04/2021

The SHADOW AND LIGHT issue is now live! We want to give a huge thanks to all our amazing contributors, as we are extremely proud of how this issue turned out!

Stay tuned for information about submitting to our next issue!

https://www.ayris.org/shadow-and-light-issue

("Moon Song", digital collage by Kayla Padilla)