To celebrate the first issue of Art & Copy coming out tomorrow, we would like to introduce ourselves and answer the question at the heart of this newsletter: what is the relationship between Art and Copy?
Get to know us!
Anna grew up in a suburb of Boston (in the same house as Rachel, coincidentally) and fostered a love of visual arts from an early age. She enjoys making art of all sorts and has dabbled in many mediums from ceramics to crochet to traditional illustration. Anna attended Northwestern University for Film Production and Art, where she learned that though she loves filmmaking, she loves drawing even more. Currently, Anna works for the video game company One More Multiverse designing a library of vector icons, and she also draws the webcomic Pumpkin and the Patch. You can find more about her on Twitter, Instagram, or on her website.
Rachel is a two-time winner of the Sultan Short Story Contest, and recipient of the Virginia Mason Vaughan Prize. Her work has appeared in The Capra Review, The Next Chapter, and is forthcoming in Moon City Review. She has studied and taught in Boston, Bath, and Shanghai. A late-to-the-literary-party dyslexic, Rachel is a voracious reader eager to make up for lost time. Her favorite subjects include nature writing, mystery novels, and literary theory. She enjoys cooking, wearing warm socks, and watching the sun halo the cobweb spun on her skylight. Rachel fervently believes that, as Mikhail Bakhtin said, “A word is a bridge thrown between myself and another.” It goes without saying she believes in building bridges. You can find her on Twitter, on Instagram, or on her website.
From your perspective, what is the relationship between Art and Copy?
Anna
"There are some things better expressed in art than writing, and when words are no longer enough to capture an emotion, art can step in to fill that ethereal space. Conversely, words can create context and add depth to an image, and a cleverly composed work of prose can create a feeling of satisfaction that is unique to reading. A perfect example of art and copy working in harmony are comics, and some of my favorite illustrations I’ve done were for my webcomic. Comics constantly balance knowing when to use dialog and text to illustrate a scene, and when to let the art speak for itself."
Rachel
“I believe all art invites collaboration across mediums. When I look at a painting, I cannot resist the pull of narrative, the potential for a story. And when I read I am conversely drawn (pun intended) to the visual — imagining the world of the story as a living image. The strength of cross-medium collaboration is clear from the vast archive of interpreted and reimagined texts. Art speaks to us of course, but also to and amongst itself. The enduring conversation between visual art and narrative is almost as long as human existence — going back to cave paintings and the oral tradition — and it is one we hope to manifest and dramatize in this newsletter.”
If you want, feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you think about the relationship between art & copy, or just say hi. We look forward to sharing our first full issue with you all tomorrow!