AMAIZE MAG

Applying A Full Face Of Makeup Only To Take it Off Again: Glitter Edition.

Face masks may tighten and brighten, but glitter promotes immortality.

As a kid I was a jack of all hobbies. I spent hours pulling tacky necklaces apart and stringing them back together, giving my dolls undercuts (10 years too early) and hot gluing anything to anything, all while sporting the worst bangs of all time. The craft store was my second home. In between the stick-on gemstones and the sequins you could always find me in a trance, gazing at the glitter in awe. So many different colours and shapes, I could never pick just one!

I still have a magpie eye for all things bright and shiny, yet unfortunately, no time to glue tiny mirrors to every shirt I own! When I do have some spare time in the evenings though, there is one thing I love to do as a definitely-not-yet-almost-grown adult. Welcome to Applying A Full Face Of Makeup Only To Take If Off Again: Glitter Edition.

Step one: apply a base of pink eyeshadow to the entire perimeter of your eye. the messier, the better!

Step two: apply a layer of dark purple eyeshadow on your eyelid and lower lash line. this will make the glitter pop!

Step three: add glitter! I used colourpop's super shock shadows in the shades dare and frog because they are so cheap and easy to apply.

Step four: add finishing touches of mascara, contour (I used pink eyeshadow) and highlight.

Step five: apply a liberal coating of glittery lip gloss to anywhere and everywhere you think needs it.

and you are done! david bowie would be proud! there are no wrong or right ways to wear glitter, but the main goal is to be seen from space. <3

Thunderstorms in June

By Julie Fernandes.

We both knew the storm was either one or the other. Either really good or really bad. Lately I keep asking myself if I am in a good spot or a bad spot. Am I doing better or worse or somewhere in between? Either way it feels really, really magical. It’s strange how the weather does something to your psyche. I wonder if everyone feels it, or maybe everyone is affected by nature but not everyone makes the connection.

The feeling of magic feels so good. I haven’t felt it for so long and finally I feel it again. I guess if I had to describe it I would say that it’s the feeling that everything I am experiencing is fleeting. Every moment and memory is here and present and intense and then gone. When it’s gone I feel so dull and dead and lost and useless. It’s the magic that turns those feelings of loneliness and depression into beautiful emotion and lust for life.

For me nature has been such a fundamental part of my upbringing. It’s formed my personality and values and spirituality. Most of all it’s helped me understand the connection and fluidity of my emotions. I have always been a child of severe emotion, whether its bottled up or being expressed it is so severe and it feels deadly and bright and shining and terrible and extraordinary. Nature is exactly that, a balance between extremes. Often, one extreme wins over the other and thunder and lightning comes crashing down. It’s this similarity and comparison that makes me think to myself, is being a person of extremes healthy? Is it just a part of who I am? I feel connected to nature in this way. Controlled by itself and its own elements, and therefore having total control and no control over myself at the same time. It’s a very beautiful thing to find power in being powerless. You have to catapult yourself into it and throw yourself into everything you feel and think fully. I think that we owe it to ourselves to do that. If you're not then you’re denying the only truth of nature that there is, that no matter where are what or who or how we are we are here. We are present and we exist and we owe it to everything to do and be.

The storm took hold of my heart and shook it. Energy consumed and overwhelmed me like a swarm of shimmering light. A lot of stuff spilled out. It was water and salt and sweat and tears and it felt so good. The things you feel are natural and good. It’s all good. It all makes sense if you’re wise enough to just let it be. We can’t make sense of all things, nature works with mystery and we are microscopic in comparison. We are a part of nature, we have all power and no power. The storm reminded me that I am powerless, and every moment makes me fall in love even harder with being an element of nature.

Hello there! My name is Julie Fernandes. I like to talk about feelings, fashion, and a lot of other stuff too. You can take a peek at more of my work on my online multimedia journal. I hope to share experiences and spark thoughts by capturing the moments that make life feel magical. 

Xo. Julie

Remembrance

By Creed Peirce.

This poem was originally a response-poem for school, but I liked it so much that I ended up keeping it. I feel as though it resonates with me. For years i've only been asked by family "What will you do with your life?", and to tell them the truth, I honestly don't know. I've just graduated high school, and I really don't have a direction in life.

The picture on the TV is a picture of my friend and I's hands when I had went to visit her during the summer of 2017. I have those memories on a loop in my head, and if I could relive them, I would.

My name is Creed, I just turned 18 in June, I have a guinea pig named Jimin (named after the BTS member haha). I'm an artist, and I mainly do original works or BTS fanart, although sometimes I also dabble in other art mediums as well such as photography and edits!

Being Emo :-(

By Dina Baxevanakis.

Hey Amaize!! I doodled something about growing up being emo and how much amazing nostalgia it brings me today!!!

with luv,

Dina 

By Frida Cerna .

We’re sleeping through all our days together 

Not eating so we can get drunk off each other 

Yea bite your lips like this babe 

Fever dreams of Brampton always I want to kiss you in the islands 

But back at my place we’re getting warmer 

Let’s just thaw out this winter And keep us secret

hoping to figure it all out.

By Sophia Kent.

Since I started art college in September I have been growing along with my camera as an extension of me. I am just trying to capture me and my friends as we go through this weird 20's age, not kids, not adults. We are trying to make our space while struggling with emotional, financial and 'adult' issues like who the fuck knows what to do with cheques or how to pay electricity bills and making sure I get cheap groceries with enough fiber in them, does anyone srsly know what fiber is cause hit a gal up!! Anyway, we are all just fucking around hoping to figure it all out. 

- Sofia 

Youth Chameleons

By Julie Fernandes.

I’ve played dress up more as a young adult person than when I was a little kid. The roles we play and people we aim to be are just as important as the people we have always been at heart. I think for girls especially, we all chameleon our way through the years. It’s important to reflect on the details of each transition. I’ll always keep that close to heart.

Hello there! My name is Julie Fernandes. I like to talk about feelings, fashion, and a lot of other stuff too. You can take a peek at more of my work on my online multimedia journal. I hope to share experiences and spark thoughts by capturing the moments that make life feel magical.

Xo. Julie

august forever.

By Fern Oshea.

And I tell her it could be august forever

If only to drip down the drainpipe

If only for earthworms in damp sand

If only for pavement at sundown

May 27th, 2018 My Highschool Library 2nd Floor

To the multiverse me who’s still in high school,

Hey it’s Frida. I never really liked my name. I always wanted it to be something easier to pronounce, something easier on the eyes, like Jessica. I thought Jessica was such a perfect name growing up. In my head, Jessica was a white girl who oozed beauty and who could easily capture you under her trance at a café or at a bus stop.

On the other hand, Frida was a strange name.

It was weird and lonely, because no one else shared it in Toronto, Land of the Multicultural. My name sounds like a small foreign girl who feeds pigeons by herself during recess. Well, at least the all-girls Catholic high school you’re in doesn’t have recess so you can’t feed the pigeons by yourself anymore. Maybe that’s a good thing, because now your new friends feed you from their lunches in the school library. A little bit of spaghetti here, a little bit of spring rolls there, and your self-made sandwiches mixed into your own taste palette. Your new friends call your name when they wanna gush over boys with eyeliner and to warn you when the librarian is coming by so you can hide your food.

My parents decided to name me after one of the most talented Mexican artists, Frida Kahlo, when I was born. Despite this great honor, I’ve still had such an awkward relationship with my name. Frida Kahlo painted beautiful self-portraits after her tragic bus accident, and she was a badass bisexual who wore suits and smoked and wrote poetry for her lover, Diego Riviera.

In my multiverse here, I was none of these things in high school. I didn’t drink nor smoke nor explore my sexuality in the small bubble of my all-girls Catholic high school. I didn’t like having my name called out for attendance.

And it’s taken me a such a long time to grow into my name, to begin liking how it rolls off the tongues of my friends. Occasionally, my name sounds so weird to me and I can’t picture anyone saying it without cringing. Frida Frida Frida.

Why do you have such a Mexican name when you don’t even “look” Mexican?

Why do you tell new people that they can just call you by Friday instead because it’s easier to pronounce? Why has that been your nickname and Gmail for so long?

By now, I’ve stopped telling people to call me by everyone’s favourite weekday. I think it’s part of growing up and becoming more serious about yourself as a result. I’ve always liked my two last names though, “Cerna Neri”. It made me feel different from the other kids with their single last names. Like I was special in some ridiculous way, you know.

Listen, Frida is a good name for you because there’s always a light note to it, a hopeful piece of gossamer attached to the tail of the last letter “a”. Rejoice in your name kid, because it’s as optimistic about the future as you and it continues the legacy of the coolest Mexican artist.

You are Mexican enough for your name.

I’m reaching the death of my teenagehood as I write you this letter. I’m already swimming to the isle of adulthood, which is going to be whole new universe for me to explore. Imagine all the tastes, all the people, all the experiences I’ll get to live through.

In two weeks, I’ll turn twenty. I know, I can’t believe someone let me live this long. But I’m really glad I’m here, still making a mess of things, still loving with all of my big heart, still writing and reading. My friends, the same ones who shared their food with you in high school, tell me that adulthood doesn’t hurt and that I won’t feel any different. Personally, I’m ready to move on from the melodrama of my teen years. By the time you read this lil Frida, I’ll be singing my head off to Lorde at my karaoke party. I’ll be in the company of the friends I adore, and I’ll be happily buzzed from cider.

If there’s one thing you must know before I go then it’s this: that I love you and your name forever, to the moon that you worship and back. Love your name, it’s beautiful and no one else you know has it so keep it safe in your heart.

I await you on the other side,

Frida Cerna Neri

p.s there’s wifi here and the password is: welcome

Human Habitats

Human Habitats is a series of observational and constructed photographs that explore ideas around people and what we surround ourselves with. Our changing Environs as we change as people are represented largely through colour in my work, as I am always drawn to colour in art. There is a definite underlying message here about changing and progressing in our lives. I have used some of my closest friends and even myself to model which is really important because we are all in our late teens, using different mediums to express ourselves and work towards bigger things in our lives.

No Presto Tap Needed.

i've never really submitted anything to anywhere before—other than my resume to places that'll inevitably send me a canned rejection email three months later. these two photo collages were inspired in part by the feeling of the end of summer. the feeling of being nine and playing outside with your friends in sweltering early september heat, knowing school starts again tomorrow, trying to get as much as possible out of that last day. 

One of those september days, you did that for the last time and didn't know it. summer stopped being as much of a free reign and started to be a time to complete obligations without school getting in the way. now those friends you'd play outside with might have jobs, summer classes. they might have moved. if you're anything like me, there's a good chance you drifted apart. i'm not saying you can't get that same summer sun feeling back ever again. i've definitely felt it a lot this summer. it's not quite the same though, when you and your friends have to spend an hour figuring out when you're all off work so you can go to the park. in catching the reflection of summer skies in the windows of big corporate buildings, i hoped to convey that "summer but not-quite" feeling i've been feeling a lot lately. a certain nostalgia for the days when i could wake up, call a friend, and walk to their house—no presto tap needed.

To my younger & future self

Samantha is a 17 year old who loves art! she loves photography/taking pics, graphic designing, and painting. Samantha lives in California and has 14 pets ( 5 dogs, 2 cats, and 7 birds)!! She’s an introvert and a Capricorn. She also loves Disneyland!!

Take It: An Existential Journal

By Julie Fernandes.

This spring I feel grateful. Wrestling with self-doubt and frustration painted my entire year, but this week it’s finally all coming to light. I think that a lot of us , the “youth”, are way too obsessed with faking it till we make it. I say screw that. I don’t want to fake anything. I say that it’s time to own it all, the good and the bad. The picture perfect stuff and the stuff you’d rather forget all together are both equally important and beautiful.

Pessimism during the “time of your life”

Look, it’s hard! It’s really damn hard to not be hopeless and upset, especially when you have a boatload of demons dancing on your back. Those are the same demons that convince you to drink that whiskey sour even though you KNOW it will make you puke but you decide that maybe it will also make life seem more exciting. It’s hard to see that your lowest points are aligning in perfect symmetry with your highest, but I say with full confidence that they are. Humans are dumb and can’t see that, sometimes I think that I’m blinded to another dimension that actually is hopeful and nice and fulfilling. I think a lot of us are at times when things seem really really really sh*tty.

Sometimes crying is very important. I am very biased because personally I love crying. Even though vulnerability is not my strong suit (at all) I love a good cry. Happy tears included. I think the reason why I like it so much is because it is a physical manifestation of something inside of you becoming real. It’s reassurance that what you’re feeling is real, has substance, and eventually will all come into perspective once you dry your tears and your runny nose on the depression sweater you’ve been wearing for the past 2 weeks.

Whatever is holding you back; be it fear or comparison or just pure laziness, stomp on it with your most recently bought (as a last resort of retail therapy) shoes. You have to get out there and just do something. You don’t even have to know what it is you’re doing. Just do it. And then sit back and think, “Okay, I did that.”

It’s scary to see the world moving around you while you feel like you’re sinking into the sand. It feels like everyone else is way ahead of you and there’s nothing you can do about it. If you need to talk, seek that out and talk. If you need to use a (prescribed) happy pill, there is no shame in that. Be proud of the fact that you DID something for yourself. You are a part of the living and moving universe and if you ignore the cosmic elements of your life you are doing yourself a huge disservice. Letting go and trusting and doing something is all you can control.

I hope that the longer days and shorter nights benefit you this season.

I wish nothing but the best for us all. I hope you get up and do that thing that you want to do but are too scared to do. I hope you cry really hard and then realize life’s good and then cry more that very reason. We cannot control the course of life, but we can accept it and try to better ourselves and others in the meantime. Take it! Make it.

Hello there! My name is Julie Fernandes. I like to talk about feelings, fashion, and a lot of other stuff too. You can take a peak at more of my work on my online multimedia journal. I hope to share experiences and spark thoughts by capturing the moments that make life feel magical.

Xo. Julie

Sent from my iPod

By Brooke Grant.

After exploring the depths of my old e-mail from my years in elementary and middle school, I relived many heartwarming and cringe-worthy memories. I am glad that I can now share these posts with others who have had relatable experiences. Rather than hide from my embarrassing moments, it’s important to laugh at them.

Suburbs of Paris.

By Sophia Kent.

As just about every teenager does once finishing secondary school I wondered who I was and what would I do with my life? In search of these answers I found myself in a studio apartment in the suburbs of Paris. It was there in that tiny room with shit wifi and no one I knew from home that I began the journey into becoming me I guess. Now I'm no longer in Paris I continue to look back on it with the most rose tinted of all glasses. Surrounded by wonderful people from all over the world in one of the most spectacular places in the world I documented everything with my cheap little film camera. Here’s a look into my photos from when my biggest problem was trying to decide should I spend my last few euros on a new roll of film or a fresh baguette.

I'm Older Than You Were At My Age

By Holly Davies.

I made this video in the last year of secondary school as part of an art project based on the intersection between the teenage experience and its portrayal in Hollywood cinema. I don't know if this is a common experience but my final year of school was my favourite. Even though my friendships were all over the place and I was stressed and under immense pressure about work and the future almost constantly, it still managed to be the year when I felt like I'd finally become comfortable in that phase of my life. The problem with that is that it was ending and pretty soon it wouldn't matter anymore and I'd have to start all over again at university in that weird space between being a kid and the real world. As a result, I think this video subconsciously ended up reflecting those feelings I had and the kind of mindset I was in. As personal as this experience can feel I know that it is universal and so a lot of the clips used are a mish-mash of the stuff that was being fed to me by the media and also stuff that would have been surrounding my mom when she was at a similar point in her life. 

xxx

Lost In Translation

By: Jordin Smith.

Lost In Translation is a self portrait series I had to do for my college photography class. We were asked to shoot painfully personal self portraits in a creative way. The photos themselves are a representation of what I wish my world was. Ever since I was a freshman in High School, I’ve felt an excruciating nostalgia for a time period I wasn’t alive for. The longing I feel to be a part of the experience of the  1970’s or the 1980’s is a constant ache I carry in my heart. From the disco ball to the vintage makeup cases, I was able to create a space that fed my hunger, even if it was for just 30 minutes. The title “Lost In Translation” comes from the fact that stories and physical possessions become lost with the passage of time. Yes, I can buy vintage clothes and antiques knowing they lived 30+ years ago, but it’s the fact I hold this item today never really knowing what it was but only knowing what it is. These are whole-heartedly my whole being explained in a picture.

This playlist is another wave of nostalgia. It encompasses the feeling of an early 2000s preteen sleepover full of sparkly lip gloss and matching Limited Too pajamas. It’s jam-packed with forgotten Y2K girl groups as well as a few boybands because who can honestly resist. The playlist ranges from pop to r&b and hits all the feels. It’s the start of the millennium, get on board biotch!

Jordin Smith // 20, photographer and lover of bread