Happy 30th birthday to The Exhibitioner Art Magazine, born into being in May, 1993. It was a labor of love with my partner at the time, Douglas Craig. The beautiful artwork of my dear friend Renata Zednicek is on the cover. I did the layout, editorial, and Douglas and I both handled the selection of artists, printed pages, folded covers, and delivered them in person to galleries from Manhattan to the Hamptons. We met so many wonderful people during this time and we also curated shows for our artists at a local gallery in Sea Cliff, NY. Three prestigious libraries had standing order subscriptions for every issue - MoMA (NYC), Rhode Island School of Design, and C. W. Post/LIU Library. We thought that was really cool.
Since last year’s strokes and other losses, I am doing a lot of review of my life and sorting through milk crates of things I haven’t seen in years. Among them I found this proof copy of the very first issue, along with a photo that I had considered using on the editor's page. What a trip it was to look back in time and find this. Someplace there are copies of every issue but for now just seeing this one is making me feel nostalgic in a big way, especially since Douglas is gone and yet I am finding so many pieces of physical proof of our life together and of our many creative collaborations. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think of him and feel the grief hit me hard.
Aside from bringing back those memories, seeing this copy of the magazine reminds me of one of the things I did in my life that I consider to be a big achievement. For the years we published the magazine, I was an editor, publisher, and curator. There were so many talented artists I met through the magazine and some became friends I still know to this day. This post ties into my previous post about making your own parade. This magazine was created along those lines… although not so much to do my own thing, but to try to find a way to keep myself going after I had to stop working because of health issues. That vibrant young woman sitting on the trunk of that amazingly reliable ‘71 Chevy Nova had just received an unnecessary pacemaker by an incompetent doctor, dealt with ongoing heart arrhythmias, asthma attacks, and hospital visits. The magazine was a bright light. It reminded me of what was important to me and that there were certain things I did have control over, including how to spend my time whenever I felt well enough to dive into something. That magazine was something, and even though “zines” were big in the 90s, we didn’t think of this as a zine. It was an art magazine.
Here's to the 30th birthday of The Exhibitioner! May it have created some positive, funky, joyful ripples in the world.
