Dear Reader,
Welcome to GS&NS’s Spring 2015 Issue! In thinking about this issue’s theme, we were inspired by looking forward to the possibilities of 2015. By looking forward however, it
was impossible not to look backward to where
we had come from in 2014. It was in this act of
navigating between past and future that then
moved us to ask artists to revisit and reflect on
their past year in order to envision their future, and therein, the theme "Submerge/Unearth: Narratives of the End" was born. We asked artists to submerge, reclaim, unearth, and release aspects of 2014, and indeed they did, often in beautifully unexpected and painfully raw ways.
Likewise, our approach to the design of the magazine also paralleled the theme. In designing the titles, backgrounds, and collages, we used 2014 magazine advertisements targeting women and literally cut and paste the images and text onto various pages. We submerged the materialistic, body-shaming, and misogynist messages of the advertisement, and we unearthed new meanings designed to parallel the essence of the pieces featured in this issue.
This issue, from the design to the words on the page, share something real about the experiences of a girl in a sometimes painfully brutal, sometimes beautifully abundant world. We, as editors, could not be more proud of its honesty.
We hope that you, as readers, can appreciate
the Spring 2015 Issue in the same way.
With Love,
Pamela & Sarah
Co-Editors