Finding growth in our third issue of the Daróg digital zine

"Grow" became the theme for the third issue of Daróg as a way to both celebrate and challenge ourselves, artistically. Exploring what it means to "grow", as people, as artists, and as partners, made the work both Hayden and I contributed particularly special to each of us. My first piece, "Groundbreaking", was a fun exploration of using recycled packaging to add meaning to a close-up photo of pollinator plant seedlings.

"Groundbreaking" • multimedia collage

Square image depicts a tray of several northern Nevada wildflower seedlings in a tray, with cut out words and shapes digitally collaged and layered over top. The words, ‘grow’, ‘groundbreaking’, and ‘beauty’ are clustered together at the top lefthand corner, each word cut out from a different recycled packaging. Over to the upper right center, the words “never compromise” sit over a horizontal diamond shape with a white crescent moon, stars, and antlers surrounding the word “fresh”. The next cluster of words sits at the bottom center, reading “better the world”, with collaged black paper petals on either side.

The second piece I contributed were the first two tarot cards I've ever designed! I wanted to challenge myself to start illustrating tarot cards, using "grow" as a prompt for which cards to choose first. These two cards, the Seven of Pentacles and the Ace of Wands, stood out as the cards that brought the most meaning to the word. I modeled each of them after the legendary Rider-Waite deck, but decided to simplify things by focusing on emotively depicting what I believed to be the subject of the card.

"Where labor meets potential" • mixed-media illustration, watercolor and digital

Image depicts two tarot cards with digitally altered original watercolor illustrations. The card on the left, the seven of pentacles, features a squash plant fruiting gold coins with pentagrams in harsh mid-day heat. The plant lies on the left, with light green and yellow leaves, dark blue shadows and vines, with a blood orange halo of heat surrounding it. The card on the right, the ace of wands, features a cloud with a sun behind it presenting an upright, sprouting wand, made of a dark red tree. There are five sprouting branches off of the main wand, growing small green leaves, with two leaves floating around the wand. The bottom fourth of the card features red-brown soft mountains, cascading down from the left . A blue river lies on the bottom border, stretching from the left corner over to the right ridge of the mountains. The sky in between the mountains and the clouds is a light teal, washed out in the center.

The next piece I contributed was a gift for my best friend, MacKenzie. It was one of several finger-painted secondhand canvases I created in August, 2024, right before leaving Wisconsin for California. Being able to spend time with Kenz was one of the best parts about living there, and I needed to leave her with something that would remind her of me after I left. I'm glad I chose to depict a Pothos plant, because the one I gave her didn't last long (lol). At least I know this one won't die! 😂 Love you, Kenz!

"A gift for Kenz" • acrylic on canvas

Acrylic finger-painting on 14in square canvas featuring a creative rendering of a Pothos plant (philodendron), with eight green leaves and a dark stem over a light purple background, featuring dark purple, light green, and white accents. The plant is rooted at the bottom center of the canvas, branching up sort of crookedly jetting to the right to support more leaves. Leaves are a few inches thick, spade-like, and colored with light green, white, and dark purple for shading.

My last piece in the January 2025 zine was dedicated to depicting a burn scar from the Caldor Fire of 2021. The fire burned more than 220,000 acres of Sierra Nevada forest and over 1,000 structures in communities lying southwest of Lake Tahoe. Living near the corridor where the fire spread, it is humbling to recognize the delicate balance between healthy and vulnerable ecosystems. Being in California means living with wildfires and the consequences of the devastation. The slashing of budgets supporting environmental work here in the US is pretty terrifying, but I do have hope that people will continue to fight for the work that needs to be done. This photo is in honor of the slow, delicate, and mighty growth that recovery entails after a devastating event.

"Caldor: recovery" • digital photography

Landscape (medium format) digital photo depicting tall pine trees, both dead and alive, both in the foreground and far behind on a snow-dusted mountain. The sky above the ridge is pale blue and fades into a rich baby blue at the top of the image. The ridge in the center of the photo is lit up by the warm light of the sunrise, to the east. The rest of the snowy ridge reflects the same baby blue in the sky and features a majority of dead pines scattered all over the four undulating mountain slopes that cascade from the left, down to the right.

Our zine for February 2025, "Driftless", is going to be published later this week! It is an exciting issue because it's our first time accepting submissions from other artists. To get updated and receive each new edition in your inbox, you can subscribe here. Thank you for reading! 💚