Making art is more than simple mark making. Art is the miraculous product of the treaty between eye, brain, and hand, made up of brilliant ashes. It is conscious, unconscious, and occasionally accidental. All of these ashes, ideas, and thoughts, expressed together and over time, produce a lens through which we perceive the world, and through which we express ourselves back into it. This lens focuses our passions, our priorities, our past, and our future, and allows us to make our mark, a mark like no one else makes, as unique as a fingerprint. This becomes art, art bearing the imprint of a lifetime of perspective, carrying with it the secret, surreptitious message of another human, meant to delight or distract, provoke or inspire, or maybe none of those. What moves us to make and make marks, also moves others, perhaps to make their own marks. And before long, we are all making, making marks, all different from one another, making art.

The universal art, of course, is storytelling. Telling stories is the way we have passed on the secrets of survival, existence, joy, loss, war, and triumph since human time began. It’s the ultimate collection of our human “marks,” but it’s an invisible one, requiring humans to be close enough to hear one another’s voice. Sisu Magazine is rooted in sharing our unique marks, our stories, through writing and art. Our collective voice has inspired the first marks of this issue, as you will see in the following pages.

The mouth is a symbol of our voice, which I define as our power to communicate. The mouth is the gateway for our breath, our life force we share with each inhale and exhale. For this inaugural issue of Sisu Magazine, my inspiration came from this symbol of voice. An open mouth: loudness, spilling forth, opinions, truth, presence. A closed mouth: patience, stoicism, permanence. The art you’ll see in these pages is a collection of my marks, showing the power of voice and its presence in our outdoors, our outside home, where we recreate, meditate, and congregate.

Through these marks, I share my voice with you. I look forward to hearing yours.