A prefatory note

Dear readers,

Our summer issue, "Fledglings," bridges the realms of folktale, dialogue, short story, prose poetry, ekphrastic poetry, and traditional lyric under the many permutations of its theme: baby birds hazarding the leap to adulthood and flight, as hopefully the ducklings in and around the Iowa City waterways will soon successfully do; and things in a nascent state, as are so many national literatures newly freed from the grip of colonialism. Particularly poignant are Mostafa Nissabouri's poem "Mannaboula" and Ahmed Shafie's four-poem sequence, which grapple directly with issues of racial conflict and cultural appropriation. But all ten pieces here—some for children, others for neighbors and travelers, all for artists—explore beginnings, endings as beginnings, and the relative smallness of man against the inexorable cycles of nature and history.

Third in our Iowa artists series, “Fledglings” features a yellow and rose silkscreen by Anna Haglin, an MFA student in printmaking and book arts at the university. Learn more about her and her work below, and visit her website to explore other corners of her multimedia.

Finally, extra special thanks to our web designer and all-around tech guru Dustin Quam and his team of whiz kids over at Student Life Marketing + Design for going above and beyond the call to bring you the beautiful new Exchanges layout.
 

In gratitude for your yearlong readership, spreading our wings into summer break,

The editors

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Cover:

How to get from my log cabin to yours
Silkscreen, type furniture monoprint
24" x 24"
2013

I use familiarity, nostalgia, and humor in my work to make people feel safe and warm. I simultaneously call those feelings of security into question. Can objects make us feel better? Can a place? My work makes us think about the friends we have in memory, whether personal or collective. 

How to get from my log cabin to yours is part of a series called “Bed,” in which I use sleep imagery to evoke memory. The "log cabin" is an oft-used quilt pattern. In these prints, pieces of the quilt are printed from small wooden blocks called “furniture” that normally hold movable type on a printing press bed. The resulting work explores how art and pattern can remind us of home.
 

http://annamariehaglin.tumblr.com/

Anna Haglin is a multimedia artist and writer currently based in Iowa City. She grew up in Minnesota and attended Smith College in Massachusetts. She has completed a two-year apprenticeship in bookbinding at the Arion Press in San Francisco and a studio assistantship at the Women’s Studio Workshop in upstate New York. Anna was a 2012 National Endowment for the Arts artist-in-residence at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts, a finalist for the NYC Center for the Book Fellows Program, and a 2014 artist-in-residence at Art Farm in Nebraska. She is currently enrolled in the University of Iowa’s graduate printmaking and book arts program.