The Maine Arts Journal recognizes that we are living in historic times that should be documented by sharing our work and observations about being artists in this changed and changing world.
We want to explore what has shaped your day-to-day lives during this time. Many have found gratitude for and an anchoring in the everyday world. But this quotidian world also feels altered, as if observed through a filter, and for some, it feels even like an altered state. Due to COVID disruptions, we are living in a “new normal” in which everything is the same but completely alien, in which schedules have shifted, and the outside world is placing different demands and new habits on us.
Artists have always looked at the world through their own unique filters and are adapted to capture the current moods and define an era’s Zeitgeist. Art, through an ever-evolving visual language, can help us come to terms with our fragilities in the face of the world’s changing events and uncertainties that we are individually and collectively experiencing.
We would like to hear from you, or from pairs of artists who interview each other, or artists who belong to or have joined groups, about how you are doing during this pandemic.
Has your work been affected, changed, or rethought by COVID?
Have you built a new visual language to help you understand what has occurred ?
Does the new normal mean that your studio practice exists in a bubble or have you reached out to form new connections?
Is a world of virtual realities adequate for dialogue, cross-pollination, and interaction?
How do you and your studio practice enter in a dialogue with these new life and work conditions?
Journal Submission guidelines for UMVA Members’ Showcase:
Deadline: March 1st, 2021
- We invite MAJ member artists (to become a member: click here) to submit up to 4 JPEG or png images (NO TIFF files), approximately 2800 pixels on width, resolution 72dpi.
- Include an image list and statement or brief essay in Word doc. format, NOT a PDF.
- Label each image file as follows: your last name_Number of Image_Title (with no spaces in the title). Please DO NOT put whole caption/credit in image file label, see image list/caption format below (if you are submitting for a group put your own last name in first).
- Label your document file names: Last Name_Title
- Image list/caption format: create a list that is numbered to match the number in your image file label that includes the following: Artist’s Name, Title of Work, medium, size (example: 9 x 12 in.), date (optional), photo credit (example: photo: Ansel Adams) if not included we assume it is courtesy of the artist. Example: Unknown Artist, Untitled, oil on canvas, 9 × 12 in., 2000 (photo: Ansel Adams).
- Please wait until all of your material is compiled to submit.
Put “The New Normal—A Dialogue” in the subject line and submit by email to umvalistings@gmail.com by the March 1st deadline. MAJ will limit the “Members’ Showcase” section to UMVA members who have not been published in the past year.
We are no longer able to accommodate artists’ pre-formatted visual essays. Our editors will lay-out text and images submitted using the new guidelines above.
It is the MAJ’s policy to request and then publish image credits. We will not publish images the submitter does not have the right to publish. However, it is to be assumed that any uncredited or unlabeled images are the author’s/submitter’s own images. By submitting to the MAJ, you are acknowledging respect for these policies.
Thank you,
MAJ Editorial Board
Natasha Mayers, Nora Tryon, Véronique Plesch, Kathy Weinberg, and Betsy Sholl (poetry editor)
Image at top: Jugglers with Knight Puppets, 19th-century copy after Herrad of Landsberg, Hortus Deliciarum, 1175–85.