Elsbeth Riverspell
your Editor-in-Chief
I still remember the first showing of The Tales of Beedle the Bard that my parents took me to when I was 7 years old. Magic had always been a part of the household, as both my parents had attended Hogwarts (my mother a pureblood and my father a halfblood). I marveled at the all the ways that my mother could creatively charm our household into working for us and my father created the most precious special effects to our bedtime stories. Yet magic was always simply a part of our world--it was normal and simply how life progressed through the day.
But on that stage, magic took on a life of its own: composed of beauty, surprise and mystique. Though I had already known the stories and could most likely recite them by rote, the majesty of the magical arts showed through the amazing talent of the actors, stagehands and producers. The Tale of the Three Brothers dazzled my eyes, but no story stood out to me more than The Tale of Babbity Rabbit. The artistry of telling such a simple story struck my young mind with the impression that this is what magic is for: to impart beauty in the everyday. (If you’d like to take your little one to the theatre or revisit the tales of your youth, check out the advert on page 8.)
As this issue focuses on the wizarding arts, we have plenty of articles to pique your interest in cultivating your own magical creativity. Yet in our interviews with artists, performers and the art itself, we only seemed to create more ideas for a future issue! We began to wonder: can we crack the secret of magical portrait painting? A secret that has been held within a small guild of artists for centuries?
On page 5, we investigate the emerging magical art of potion-ink tattooing, its elegant new use of magical properties alongside its dangerous preparation. In learning more about this, we wondered what other magical arts are emerging on the, dare we say, avant garde scene? Even our own digital magic design of our online magazine begs more exploration into the digital design scene of witches and wizards out there.
Most of all, we want to hear your ideas and questions for us! Whether you want to submit a question to Molly Weasley, suggest an article for an upcoming month, tell us about a fantastic Witch or Muggle to profile in an issue, or just send us any old comment, e-owl us at [email protected] or use the submission form below.
Editor's Letter
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We LOVE hearing from our readers!
“OMG! Free issues to my email! This is SO FAB!!” - Summerald
- Thanks for reminding people of the email subscription feature on Joomag.com. In addition to having issues sent directly to your mailbox, we enchant the pages on joomag with extra charms that tumblr doesn’t support! For those of you reading on tumblr, check out our Muggle of the Month page on joomag to hear Dame Shirley Bassey first hand.
“I can’t tell you how much I love this. Fans never stop impressing me with their creativity and imagination” - Karatine
“Just spectacular” - hocuspocusabracadabra
“This is amazing! It's so wonderfully well done! Perfection, I say--complete perfection!!” - Maddy Mew
- Thank you so much for the kind comments Maddy! While we can’t claim perfection, we’re always proud of the work that we put out.
Elsbeth Riverspell