Purchase the magazine for the Innately Human experience!

Letter From the Editors-in-Chief

Dear Reader,

Our staff is proud to present Aerie: Innately Human. Our goal was to explore unique concepts outside of what our magazine has previously done. We struggled initially to nail down a concrete idea because we wanted a concept representative of everyone. That’s when Innately Human was born

While most everyone goes through high school, very few have our generation’s experience. High School was greatly altered by the pandemic. This year our seniors, who started their time at Fairmont trapped at home learning through a screen, mark the beginning of the end of an in human experience. We’ve all been affected deeply by this shared experience. Despite it all, though, we are all beautiful, complex, and unique, and these human traits bring us together even in adversity. We hope that within Innately Human, you can find the parts of yourself that everyone shares — the human parts.

We are proud of our staff. Everyone has soared above and beyond to create something truly special. We are incredibly grateful for all the hours and all the love they’ve poured into our collaborative work. All of the crazy, stressful, exciting, and wonderful moments we’ve spent together creating something for our community are what make doing this magazine worth it.

To our wonderful Mrs. Bruzzese, what a year it’s been! We’d like to thank Mrs. Bruzzese personally for bolstering our staff and pushing us to work so well. Aerie wouldn’t be possible without such a thoughtful educator. Thank you for being our teacher.

And to you, our reader. You are so important and crucial. Thank you for reading this magazine, for appreciating art, for being human.

Sincerely,

Ruben Baker & Kingston Kendrick

Letter From the Web Team

Designing the website was so fun, trying new fonts and deciding what to put on the website for Aerie was great. I want to give thanks to everyone else on the web team for designing the website with me. This website really came together as a whole and fits Innately Human so well. I am proud of the hard work put into this website and magazine.

-Larkin Daley

Dear Aerie,

It was a pleasure being able to work and know everyone in Aerie throughout the school year. Even though I have only been in Aerie for a year, I have gotten to know many people from various backgrounds. Aerie has helped me understand better how much work it takes to get a magazine together and how teamwork is important to the process. This program will help me in the future to become a person who can communicate better with my coworkers. Aerie has made me a person who can ask while also giving help to people. I am delighted with the outcome of the magazine and I hope that next year Aerie staff will make a magazine that is even more spectacular.

-Addison Henderson

Aerie has given me an experience that I know is rare. While still being a school class, Aerie is far from the traditional classroom that I am used to. I am so grateful to be a part of this amazing group. I am also thankful to be a part of the web team. While also marketing and running our social media accounts (Follow us!), I learned how to put together a website. This website was only possible with the other members of the web team. I want to say a huge thank you to the editors of this year’s magazine. Ruben and Kingston have done so much for the magazine and have gotten us to this point. Thank you for never letting us fall behind. I also want to thank Mrs. Bruzzese. You are so much more than our advisor, thank you for always being there for whatever we need. Thank you to everyone who participated in the creation of the magazine. Please enjoy Innately Human.

-Olivia Cornish

The year that I got my invite to Aerie was coincidentally the same year that I published my first literary and art works. Having had Mrs. Bruzzese before, I decided to give it a chance. I'm glad I did.

Working on the magazine itself this year has been hectic. We had a lot of technical difficulties that had us wondering whether or not we were going to be on track, but through the help of everyone, we managed to create a magazine that we're all proud of. I want to thank Aerie's staff and Mrs. Bruzzese for helping bring this together. I had big plans for the magazine that initially had us all skeptical timeline-wise, but because of the trust that was put into my belief that we could grind out a lot of tedious work in time, we managed to pull it all off. Seeing the magazine transform from a blank slate into a publishable journal has been an incredible process, and I'm so grateful that I was given the privilege to be able to be a part of the process.

It's been a blast working with the staff of Aerie, and I'll miss everyone. Thanks for humoring my taste tests of how I believed certain pieces to taste when first viewing them.

Enjoy Aerie: Innately Human. I hope you enjoy your experience as a person. Remember that even though there's over eight billion people on this planet, there's only one of you, and your experience is completely unique.

-Asha Horton

This year, Aerie decided to put all of our pieces into the magazine. The pieces that were submitted were stunning and needed to have a page in the magazine. However, we also decided to utilize our website this year as well. The pieces on the website are also pictured in the physical copy of the magazine. We want to keep all of our pieces at the same resolution as they were submitted to us. Extend the Aerie Innately Human experience by purchasing the magazine.

Letter From the Advisor

Oh Aerie 2024! What an experience.

Some days good. Some...not so good. More tech problems than ever before (grrrr, old computers in 121!). A few squirrely staff members (Jada, Savannah GET to WORK!). Big dreams for the magazine (Every title Asha?!). Some great opportunities for brand new staffers to step up (I'm looking at you Olivia, Claire Y., Kaden, Addie, Rayna, Kingston, Cheyenne).

Well, you pulled it off. You finished the book, and it is beautiful. Honestly, I never doubted you would (even on the days when I was convinced it would never come together). Perhaps your choice of "Innately Human" meant that we needed to experience the entire catalogue of human emotions as we created it. It certainly seems that way.

Congrats to some of my favorite humans on your creation!

Mrs. Bruzzese

Acknowledgments

A special thank you to these special pieces of humanity for always supporting and giving out helping hand

The Firebird English Department

For always supporting the advisor and students of Aerie

Mrs. Emily Bruzzese

For always being there and pushing us to be a better version of ourselves

Mr. Jared Parker

For always taking care that our art looks its best

MinuteMan Press

For always answering our layout questions and printing needs

Ms. Judy Costa & The Yearbook Staff

For always sharing their space with us during layout

All Fairmont Students

For always enabling us to make Aerie possible

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in Aerie are those of the authors and artists. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of Fairmont High School or the Aerie staff. The designations employed in this publication and the presentation of material therein do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Kettering City Schools. The structure within these works is as they were submitted to us.

Artists in Order of Appearance

Anna Gregory: Well-Oiled Machine

Seth Delgrosso: The Circle of Life

Ellie McCall: Changing Waters

Claire Youker

Rayna Allen

Addison Henderson

Ruben Baker: Valerie

Ruben Baker: Chicago

Madeline Maurice: Portal to Adventure

Emilie Rojas

Maxx Phillips: Look At Me

Joseph Brandt

Sarah Erskine: Invisible String

Larkin Daley

Well-Oiled Machine

Anna Gregory

Photography

I have always been interested in the way oil and water interact. The opportunity came up to capture the relationship between the two when I was at work. The oil from my coworkers cars interacted with the water from the rain that sat underneath their cars. I had found a few spots and thought they were really pretty and I decided I was going to play around with the photo settings. And voila.

The Circle Of Life

Seth Delgrosso

Photography

Changing Waters

Ellie McCall

Oil Paint on Canvas

The piece I selected to submit to Aerie Literary Magazine this year, named Changing Waters, is a vivid reflection of what innately human means within my life and previous experiences. The central figure, depicting myself, sits on a small rock, surrounded by flowing waters yet appears content and open to the water-- reaching toward it. The subject’s openness to the flowing waters symbolizes the acceptance of change, and movements in one’s life. The use of contrasting rich colors of the dress and the lighter, delicate colors of the water, accompanied by the Impressionistic style, places emphasis on the simultaneous difficulty yet beauty of such change. Changing Waters is a product of personal growth as I have developed resilience during times of adversity and change over the past four years of high school. Being afraid of change is innately human, but we all must undergo change-- be uncomfortable, step out of our comfort zone, and be brave-- in order to truly self-actualize and bloom into the best versions of ourselves.

-Ellie McCall

Claire Youker

Photography

I think my photographs represent the theme innately human because they show the natural wonders of our world. They show the things we can’t control because we are innately human. I was inspired to take these photos by seeing things that were naturally created things and hoping to capture some of the beauty and awe of the landscapes and nature around me. I think my photos show that sometimes even when life is chaotic, there are still beautiful things to see in the world.

Rayna Allen

Colored Pencil

Addison Henderson

Photography

Addison Henderson

Photography

Valerie

Ruben Baker

Digital Artwork

Chicago

Ruben Baker

Photography

Portal to Adventure

Madeline Maurice

Digital Artwork

Emilie Rojas

Photography

Look At Me

Maxx Phillips

Digital Art

Joseph Brandt

Photography

Invisible String

Sarah Erskine

Acrylic Paint/ Markers/ Pen

I think that my piece Invisible String represents the idea of Innately Human because of the emotion embedded in it. Emotion is something that every human has to deal with; I wanted to create something that resembled the ups and downs of life and those emotions. The different colors and lines in the piece represents the light, the good, the dark, the bad, and the chaos that we as humans experience during our lifetimes. The main idea of my piece is to show people that we all have good and bad times, but that through it all, you are loved and there are people that will hold you up when you need them to.

Larkin Daley

Photography

Report abuse