“Summer, summer, summer. It’s like a merry-go-round.” Really, it’s not, but I like the idea of that old Cars tune; sexy beach boys and girls getting’ together under the moonlight, love darting in their eyes. It’s a nice idea. But, ultimately the song is about flings gone wrong because one of the flingers involved doesn’t get he’s been flung at the end of the summer.

Speaking of summer flings: here we are again half way through and launching our seasonal edition. You see, here at NAICA we like to let our readership get used to the climate change. Get all hot and bothered, practically sunstroke, and then we lay it on you.

You’ll notice the format has changed? Refreshed? No? Well we’ve gone back to our HTML roots, which allows for a wider audience to access the site. That’s a refreshing idea! We also decided it was totally selfish of us to limit access to those with slow-ass internet connections and/or low bandwidth. See? Summer makes people happy and unselfish. Seriously, we shouldn’t keep the greater (non flash enabled) public from all the talent we’ve discovered and covered over the year or so we’ve been online.

So in the spirit of stripping bare and the “oh oh it’s magic!” of summer we feature artist and educator Kimowan McLain who created a piece specifically for his tenure as our Artist-in-Residence titled The Moth Collection. NAICA is honored to have Kimowan be a part of our magazine and community. He is a talented photographer and painter whose work shares an affinity with Chuck Close, another fine photographer that we admire greatly even if he’s not indigenous (or is he?). To see more of his work visit his studioblog at www.kimowan.com.

The Word features an essay from newest contributing writer Rokan Verde who comes to us fresh from the shores of Nikunau in the South Pacific. He relates Lori Blondeau and Shelley Niro’s Requickening Project to the interventionist art movement with surprising results while Renee Gick, working over-time, chats it up with wordsmith, Charlie Leduff; Cindy Benitez plays skater-journalist to long-time actor Cody Lightning; while NAICA’s New York associate, Sonny Grant, get’s Older Than America with Georgina Lightning (yes, Cody’s mama) in People, Places, Things.

Torry Mendoza and Renee Gick Spotlight two native media organizations making strides in film production and media skills training for youngsters, Big Soul Productions out of Canada and The Superfly Filmmaking workshop realized by Native Lens out of Seattle, Washington.

You see? We haven’t been lazin’ about all summer long making magical love to summer studs.

No way.

We work and what you see here truly is magic.