Embroidered Collage

My eye was caught by the cover image - the spines of a row of spiral bound notebooks.  I looked inside and was taken by the collection of visual image and the complete lack of ads.  The issue's theme was the creative process.  I bought it.  This was last week and I've been working my way through Esopus magazine's sixth issue.

The mission statement on their webpage says that they intend for creative people and the public to connect in meaningful ways, partly by subsidizing the cost of the publication.  I paid $15 at Barnes and Noble, but a subscription of two issues would cost me $18.  You can find a list of the articles on their page, and a description of the music cd, which I haven't listed to yet.  I could rave about most of the content and the mix of different types of art, but here's two pieces that were highlights for me.

My favorite article was on Sylvia Plimack Mangolds's development of an etching from a watercolor painting.  They discussed why she went in that direction and showed multiple pictures of the process of developint the print.  The final touch was a large fold out section showing each of the six plates by itself and the step by step addition of each plate to form a final print.

Another article that really stuck with me was the development of the poem "Generation" by Suji Kwock Kim.  The pages were set up so that it was if you were flipping through her drafts contained in a manila envelope.  Even the ghosts of the writing on the other side were recorded.  You could watch the poem grow and see where she went back and made notations or pulled words forward into other locations.

This magazine was an experience worth having and I'm intending to subscribe before the next issue comes out.