{"id":20,"date":"2025-09-02T18:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-02T18:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/?page_id=20"},"modified":"2025-12-05T03:29:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T03:29:03","slug":"editors-choice","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/euphemism.illinoisstate.edu\/21-1\/editors-choice\/","title":{"rendered":"Editor’s Choice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
Arts\/Media<\/span><\/p>\n

Mario Loprete<\/span><\/p>\n

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Arts\/Media Piece:<\/span><\/p>\n

Untitled<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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About the Author:<\/span><\/p>\n

Painting for my is the first love. An important, pure love. Creating a painting, starting from the spasmodic research of a concept with which I want to send a message to transmit my message, it\u2019s the base of my painting. The sculpture is my lover, my artistic betrayal to the painting. That voluptous and sensual lover that gives me different emotions, that touches prohibited cords\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

My artistic project was immediately very well received, I am very satisfied with my work and happy that for over twenty years my artistic reading of Hip Hop has been exhibited in various public and institutional spaces in Holland, Germany, the U.K. and a lot in the U.S.A., attracting the attention of public and private collectors. In 2020 SNOOP DOGG published his portrait painted by me on his Instagram profile with over 50 million followers and since then many Italian and international rappers have wanted to paint a portrait of themselves, which made me very proud and made me known to the general public.<\/span><\/p>\n

For over 2 decades, I have been painting on the theme of hip hop and its role in our daily lives, regardless of latitude. However, I sensed that something was missing in my work, a spark that would detonate the conceptual bomb I carried inside. That special something was absent. Like a lightning bolt, the idea struck me: the only common element in every part of my artistic project was the substance that held everything together: concrete.<\/span><\/p>\n

So, I replaced the canvases with reinforced concrete supports to highlight even more realistically the connection with the urban style. The television footage of the survivors emerging from the Twin Towers,covered with a layer of concrete, together with the reappearance of my memory from a visit to the excavations of Pompeii, strongly pushed my transition to sculpture.<\/span><\/p>\n

For my Concrete Sculptures I use my personal clothing. Throughout some artistical process, in which I use plaster, resin and cement, I transform them in artworks to hang. My memory, my DNA, my memories remain concreted inside, transforming the person that looks at the artworks a type of post-modern archeologist that studies my work as they were urban artefacts.<\/span><\/p>\n

I like to think that those who look at my sculptures created in 2020 -2022 will be able to perceive the anguish, the vulnerability, the fear that each of us has felt in front of a planetary problem that was covid 19 … under a layer of cement there are my clothes with which I lived this nefarious period.<\/span><\/p>\n

Clothes that survived covid 19, very similar to what survived after the 2,000-year-old catastrophic eruption of Pompeii, capable of recounting man’s inability to face the tragedy of broken lives and destroyed economies.<\/span><\/p>\n

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About the Piece:<\/span><\/p>\n

In my artwork \u201cNOTORIUS B.I.G.\u201d, I wanted to pay tribute to a legendary figure of hip-hop culture whom I have always deeply admired. Through oil painting on TNT, I sought to capture the strength and vulnerability of the American rapper, whose voice and lyrics have marked entire generations. The material surface and rough texture reflect the toughness of his life and the intensity of his message. I chose black and white to enhance the drama and turn his face into a timeless icon. In Biggie\u2019s shadowed gaze, I see both the greatness of the artist and the fragility of the man. This piece is, for me, an act of respect \u2014 a dialogue between art and music, between memory and the present.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
Fiction<\/span><\/p>\n

Sam Goldsmith<\/span><\/p>\n

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Fiction Piece:<\/span><\/p>\n

Everything But the Story<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

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About the Author:<\/span><\/p>\n

I studied jazz composition and earned a music degree \u2014 imagine that \u2014 in New York. Since then, I lived for stints in Istanbul, Oregon, and the District of Columbia, before returning to my childhood hometown in California for good. All the while, I couldn\u2019t help but write weird stories, but I didn\u2019t get serious about putting my work out there until the fall of 2024. You can often find me hiking to waterfalls, photographing waterfalls, planning my next waterfall visit, browsing waterfall photography, dreaming of waterfalls, singing to waterfalls, trying to become a waterfall, etcetera. Never lacking for projects, I am currently working on a bunch of poetry and short fiction, as well as a couple of almost-finished full-length books: a novel entitled Self-ish in the form of a fictional blog to which characters contribute intertwining personal essays; and a nonfiction photography and prose book about a local park, which I call The Point Isabel Project. I have a few other novels in progress, but I\u2019m a bit shy about them, seeing as we\u2019ve only just met.<\/span><\/p>\n

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About the Piece:<\/span><\/p>\n

I am floored and grateful that Euphemism selected \u201cEverything But the Story\u201d for the honor of Editor\u2019s Choice. I have to laugh: I am now giving meta-commentary on a story I wrote about an author commenting on their writing. A fascinating aspect of contemporary art-making is how often artists directly interface with their audiences through mean other than their art. Today\u2019s audiences expect and demand to have nearly unfettered access not just to the product, but personal information about the artist, information that artists often choose to share themselves. Thinking about the decreasing boundary between artist and art, I set out to write a story in the extreme, in which the creative product was entirely absent and only the extra materials remained. I did not share my narrator\u2019s stressful writing circumstances while I worked on \u201cEverything But the Story.\u201d I wrote the first of many drafts at a local cafe, my writing friends chuckling over the eight pencils I always line up next to my notebook (in case seven of their tips break). These friends were my first readers for this story, and they provided stellar feedback, so I feel an acknowledgment is in order here.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
Non-Fiction<\/span><\/p>\n

Matthew Evans Chelf<\/span><\/p>\n

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Non-Fiction Piece:<\/span><\/p>\n

Didn’t Mean Nothing By It<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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About the Author:<\/span><\/p>\n

I hated growing up in rural Kentucky, I left for good when I was 27\u2014headed west to Portland, Oregon, where I live, love, and work\u2014and I haven\u2019t stopped missing home since. I\u2019m 36 now. I teach writing at two colleges, I collect vinyl records, mostly jazz, and I\u2019m an avid film photographer (taught myself analog photography). My favorite place on earth, and I consider myself decently traveled, is the Oregon Coast because it is misty, mysterious, chaotic, and vast. I take care of two stray cats, Archibald and One-Eared Sally. I started writing when I was 19.<\/span><\/p>\n

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About the Piece:<\/span><\/p>\n

The day I received the acceptance letter from Euphemism for \u201cDidn\u2019t Mean Nothing By It,\u201d I happened to go out for food and drinks with two dear friends (my wife out of town). When one of my friends asked what my story was about, I said, \u201cA time I was sexually assaulted on the school bus going home one day.\u201d My friend recoiled, then gave a laugh, a quizzical grin. \u201cThat\u2019s an intimate thing to share,\u201d he said. I grinned, nodded in agreement. Cheers. Stories, at least the stories I want to write, should be intimate. I wrote the story to bear witness to an experience I was meant to forget. I shared the story because I hoped others might do the same.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
Poetry<\/span><\/p>\n

Sam Hendrian<\/span><\/p>\n

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Poetry Piece:<\/span><\/p>\n

Etch-a-Sketch Eyes<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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About the Author:<\/span><\/p>\n

My name is Sam Hendrian, and I am a late-twenties independent filmmaker and poet striving to foster empathy through art. Originally from the Chicago suburbs, I now reside in Los Angeles, where I make at least one short film per month, write personalized poems for strangers outside a bookstore every Sunday, and work with neurodivergent kids as a Developmental Interventionist. I like to call myself an \u201cArtist of the Exceptions;\u201d I love writing about social outcasts and the emotional limitations of the status quo, and it is my goal to help people feel seen and loved. My films can be found on YouTube under my name, and my poems on Instagram at @samhendrian143.<\/span><\/p>\n

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About the Piece:<\/span><\/p>\n

My poem \u201cEtch-a-Sketch Eyes\u201d was initially inspired by awkward forays into dating apps on lonely evenings, and the empathy I suddenly felt for the three-dimensional human beings on the other side of the profile pictures. I realized how easy it became to project my own desires upon another person\u2019s face, and how hypocritical this ultimately was, as I myself have always longed to find someone who wants all of me rather than just the traits that are most appealing to them. In writing this poem, I hoped to raise awareness of the ways we use and discard each other even without realizing it, and therefore foster a more holistic sense of compassion on the dating scene and beyond.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

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\nArts\/Media Mario Loprete   Arts\/Media Piece: Untitled   About the Author: Painting for my is the first love. An important,…\n<\/div>\n
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