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There are only 2 remaining copies and the price goes to fund the continued operation of Soft Lightning Studio. The funds provide website hosting, web store, shipping supplies, book materials, etc.

The Home We Know by Ben Willis is a forthcoming monograph about the residents of Columbus, Ohio. The work was made from 2017-2021. Ben describes the work as a love letter to his community and all that makes it move and thrive.

“My work is a labor of love, and the work much like life is held together by that kind of love and admiration for one another but also one’s self. When you walk around and interact in the city you’ve got to remember what you’re looking at is also you. I do that through street portraiture. I try and express love and relationship through my work.” -Ben Willis

These funds will make the publication possible and the profits will be given to the artist and production team.

This book is collected by the Contemporary Arts Center in Cincinnati, Ohio, Ohio State University, and has been featured in the Washington Post.

The Home We Know, 8”x10”, 88 pages, 72 plates, Duotone printing.

Introduction by Hanif Abdurraqib and afterword by Ben Willis.

Edition of 250

Design by Michelle Suttles.

Published by Soft Lightning Studio, 2021

Edited by Julie Rae Powers

“Between Mountains”  is a sensory journey informed by Celina Nader’s lived experiences as a Syrian, neurodivergent, queer person. This collection of prose and poetry explores the tension and pervasive uneasiness of being an immigrant in the United States, scratching at glass veneers of corrupt systems to make a living while tax dollars contribute to the violent erasure of Celina’s family and homeland.

The physical body serves as a map to guide the reader through the terrain of expected social norms and familial expectations, astounding joy and shrinking shame. A bold reckoning with the convoluted contracts of existence, this body of work allows words to linger between the cracks, to sink into the valleys of the story.

“Between Mountains” is Celina’s first published work, a collection of 23 pieces written throughout 2016-2024. 

Part of the proceeds will go to Columbus, OH based mutual aid “Heer to Serve”

https://heer2serve.org/

This is a pre-order. Estimated shipping will be JULY 2024.

5”X7”

38 pages

Deep Ruts, a triple entendre alluding to the deep roots of religion, a deer in rut, the ruts of the mind in which our ways of thinking and values carve into our daily lives, is a collection of photographs from Queer Appalachian photographer Julie Rae Powers who uses still images to represent their feeling of outsider status within their family and their own culture. A combination of portraits and landscapes set an isolating, longing stage using Appalachian iconography and self portraits to queer the standard notion of what being Appalachian is.

Deep Ruts is comprised of three inner portfolios: The Father, The Son, and The Holy Ghost.

Published by Platanus Editions 2024

A Photographic Monograph

Specs:

11.5” X 11.5”

165 plates

250 pages

Cloth bound, screen printed

Writing by Meredith McCarroll and Kelsey Sucena

Published by Platanus Editions

Spring 2024

5.5 pounds