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9/27/2021 0 Comments Issue III Theme AnnouncementHey there Contrarium fam!
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 | Katya Walch is not only Contrarium's Visual Editor and Graphic Designer, but a Bay Area-based young creative with a passion for photography and dogs. Check out the full interview with Katya by clicking "read more" below and follow Katya on her Instagram. 1. Elevator pitch? I'm just a creative person figuring out how to live life and not hate my job. I make things on the computer or with my camera and people think it’s super easy (it’s not). 2. What is your favorite piece you’ve created to-date? I think I am most proud of some of my photography projects. My favorite ones are the ones with little planning and everything is a mess but somehow things turn out kinda great! 3. Where do you draw inspiration from? I draw inspiration from other talented people who are doing what I want to do, but who are also doing something with it. Art is such a powerful tool. Some of my favorite photographers are Tyler Mitchell and Carlota Guerrero. They tell powerful stories through their lenses. |
5/1/2021 0 Comments
Interview with Brittny Abad
From paper to skin, Brittny Abad uses space, color, and lines to create beautiful and thought-provoking pieces. Hot tip: you’re going to want to pause and take it all in. Check out the full interview with Brittny by clicking "read more" below and follow Brittny on her Instagram. A note: some images may be NSFW.
4/1/2021 0 Comments
Interview with Elizabeth Lai
Elizabeth Lai is an Asian-American illustrator and graphic & brand designer based in the UK, who draws inspiration from her Asian heritage (among other things) and really loves her dog. She was born in the year of the Rabbit and a Scorpio.
Read the full interview by by clicking "read more" below and follow Elizabeth on Instagram and check out her website.
Read the full interview by by clicking "read more" below and follow Elizabeth on Instagram and check out her website.
3/15/2021 2 Comments
Drawing Inspiration #1
When the day arrived to vote on the theme for Issue II, we had too many exceptional ideas to choose from. It was a close call, but when we tallied up the votes Rage // Serenity took first place and we all loved it like a firstborn child. As Maya touched on in our last blog post, our submission process is as painless as possible and we are looking forward to seeing everyone’s work. Seriously, the fact that we are already putting together our second issue is mind-blowing in the best way possible.
That being said, I recognize that putting yourself out there can be daunting. On top of that, submitting an original piece of work that fits a theme can be even more challenging. Answer the following probing 👽 questions for ideas that illicit rage or serenity and don’t forget to submit your work for Issue II Rage // Serenity.
Don’t forget, submissions close in one month from today!
3/1/2021 0 Comments
Interview with Angelo Giuriato
Angelo Giuriato is a multimedia artist from Denver, CO whose work plays with the aesthetics of drag culture in otherworldly — and underworldly — settings. His forays in 3-D digital art have gained him recognition, most recently as the art director of the music video “Popstyle” by Denver artist Machu Linea.
Read his full interview below by clicking "read more" and follow Angelo on Instagram and check out his website.
Read his full interview below by clicking "read more" and follow Angelo on Instagram and check out his website.
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2/15/2021 0 Comments
Submissions are now open!
Submissions for Issue II are finally open (through April 16), so I wanted to offer some transparency into our selection process. We made a lot of mistakes on our first go-around. Our submissions window was too short, and our submissions process was too unstructured. We allowed countless entries per submission and no page limit. Thankfully, since we didn’t put ourselves in a position to get a bunch of submissions, we actually had space for the longer pieces (and honestly, for The Scream and The, I would have made the room).
To be honest, in our first go-round, we probably were as inefficient as possible. Because people could submit multiple pieces in the same form, we didn’t have a neat and easy way to take the information from the Google form and turn it into a voting sheet. We ended up voting by email in a boring, disorganized fashion that I won’t bother delving into, but in the end it was easy enough to select the winning pieces. Pieces with a majority vote got in automatically, and we all had an opportunity to advocate for pieces that didn’t make it through.
There’s some playing around of course; for example if one piece maybe isn’t strong enough on its own but pairs well with someone else’s piece, it will probably get in. And because we strive for balance, we sometimes end up commissioning pieces with an opposing point of view if we have a strong but unmatched submission. Accepted pieces get moved into a separate folder, and then it’s onto layout.
To be honest, in our first go-round, we probably were as inefficient as possible. Because people could submit multiple pieces in the same form, we didn’t have a neat and easy way to take the information from the Google form and turn it into a voting sheet. We ended up voting by email in a boring, disorganized fashion that I won’t bother delving into, but in the end it was easy enough to select the winning pieces. Pieces with a majority vote got in automatically, and we all had an opportunity to advocate for pieces that didn’t make it through.
There’s some playing around of course; for example if one piece maybe isn’t strong enough on its own but pairs well with someone else’s piece, it will probably get in. And because we strive for balance, we sometimes end up commissioning pieces with an opposing point of view if we have a strong but unmatched submission. Accepted pieces get moved into a separate folder, and then it’s onto layout.
Jessica Chan is the founder of Sowing Ground, an online studio shop where you can buy gorgeous stickers, stationery sets, prints, and so much more. Jessica (or JChan to those who knew her back in the day) was my [Maya's] freshman year RA. I'm not sure she knows this, but JChan helped to get me through the hardest year of my entire life. Jessica is full of brightness and positivity, and she is the embodiment of goodness and talent. Jessica has been one of our most fervent supporters since day one, and it is an honor to have her as our first interviewee! Enjoy our interview with her (click "read more" below or on the blog title), and remember to check out her shop and socials!!
1/29/2021 0 Comments
Welcome to the blog!
Welcome to the Contrarium Blog! Unlike the magazine, the blog will be less structured. There will be two posts a month: one artist interview, and one post about whatever we feel like! This month, we want to tell you the story of Contrarium and give you some insight into the submission process.
First of all, for those who don’t know, my name is Maya. I’m in my first year of graduate school for counseling psychology. I graduated undergrad with a degree in English back in 2015, and in the interim I have been working in Jewish non-profits planning community events, mostly for young adults. I was ready to leave that world behind when I applied for grad school, but I left it earlier than planned thanks to the pandemic.
I’ve told the origin story in the first issue and at the launch party, but allow me to recap: I have wanted to run my own literary arts magazine ever since I was on the editorial board of the Catalyst at UC Santa Barbara. I tried to make it a thing at my various jobs working in the Jewish community, but it never quite made sense. It doesn’t help that I have a habit of dreaming big and acting small; I don’t follow through with my ideas. So when the pandemic hit and the gyms closed and my social life died and I lost my job, I felt restless. I dreamed again of the magazine, but my boyfriend was unenthused by the idea because he had astutely caught on to my lack of follow through. Him thinking of me that way lit a fire under my ass, so I immediately got to work.
I made a post on Instagram and on Facebook and I reached out to some friends from college. In the end, I had four UCSB alums (Nicole, Janessa, Ashley, and Katya), and one of the two reasons that I never regretted my horrendous first big girl job (Shana) working with me to make this magazine come true. At that first meeting, I had no clue how big a gift I had received. All five of these people are tremendously talented in ways that I am not. They gave Contrarium a name, a gorgeous website, an even more gorgeous layout, diverse voices, a killer social media presence, and so much more. We started with my nebulous idea and ambitious goals and we fucking did it.
There was nothing easy or smooth about what we did. I am not a natural leader and I have never made something from scratch before. It took spreadsheets, detailed lists, ever-changing timelines, a lot of personal favors, too many Zoom meetings, and letting go of a few amazing ideas, but we did it. I wish I could turn this blog into a how-to for how to create a magazine, but I barely know how we did it. Maybe after Issue II we will be experts, but only time will tell.
However, I can give you an insight into two aspects of the magazine: picking a theme and picking submissions. There are a few ways to pick a theme, but I believe that an important first step is to choose a perspective. I had a few ideas before getting the team together. I thought about seasons. Maybe each magazine would have four sections, each one related to a season. Maybe each seasonal section would correspond to a certain age group of artists. Maybe we would publish four times a year, and each issue would be themed around a specific season. I thought about psychology. Maybe each issue would give a voice to a different mental illness. But ultimately, I chose opposites.
I am a firm believer in balance. I don’t think anything is inherently good or bad, but I think there is danger on the ends of a spectrum. I also believe in contradiction. Not that it’s good, necessarily, but that we are filled with them. Contradictions are a fact of life, and we need to learn how to live with them. And when it came time to pick a set of opposites, all I could think about was how my life was moving forward (graduate school, a changing body, moving into a new apartment, leaving behind my career in the Jewish community…) and at same time the whole world was on pause with the pandemic. It was 0 and 60 at the same time. I’ve never been a succinct person, but Nicole is and she took all of that and gave us our first theme.
The story of our second theme is quite different. During one of our meetings, we all shouted out a set of opposites that we thought sounded cool, and ended up with a list of about 17 sets of opposites. A couple of months later, everyone got three votes, and the winning pair was one inspired by a line in an X-Men movie. Inspiration can come from anywhere.
The fact that there is a second theme at all, that my friends and I are still dedicating so much of ourselves to this project, is so much more than I expected when I mentioned this idea to my boyfriend off-handedly that one fateful day. It is definitely a lot of work, but somehow building the momentum that got us here was easy. Branching out with this blog, the newsletter, and who knows what else, I am even more astounded at how much can be accomplished once you manage to take a first step. So if you have the time and the idea, pursue it. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
First of all, for those who don’t know, my name is Maya. I’m in my first year of graduate school for counseling psychology. I graduated undergrad with a degree in English back in 2015, and in the interim I have been working in Jewish non-profits planning community events, mostly for young adults. I was ready to leave that world behind when I applied for grad school, but I left it earlier than planned thanks to the pandemic.
I’ve told the origin story in the first issue and at the launch party, but allow me to recap: I have wanted to run my own literary arts magazine ever since I was on the editorial board of the Catalyst at UC Santa Barbara. I tried to make it a thing at my various jobs working in the Jewish community, but it never quite made sense. It doesn’t help that I have a habit of dreaming big and acting small; I don’t follow through with my ideas. So when the pandemic hit and the gyms closed and my social life died and I lost my job, I felt restless. I dreamed again of the magazine, but my boyfriend was unenthused by the idea because he had astutely caught on to my lack of follow through. Him thinking of me that way lit a fire under my ass, so I immediately got to work.
I made a post on Instagram and on Facebook and I reached out to some friends from college. In the end, I had four UCSB alums (Nicole, Janessa, Ashley, and Katya), and one of the two reasons that I never regretted my horrendous first big girl job (Shana) working with me to make this magazine come true. At that first meeting, I had no clue how big a gift I had received. All five of these people are tremendously talented in ways that I am not. They gave Contrarium a name, a gorgeous website, an even more gorgeous layout, diverse voices, a killer social media presence, and so much more. We started with my nebulous idea and ambitious goals and we fucking did it.
There was nothing easy or smooth about what we did. I am not a natural leader and I have never made something from scratch before. It took spreadsheets, detailed lists, ever-changing timelines, a lot of personal favors, too many Zoom meetings, and letting go of a few amazing ideas, but we did it. I wish I could turn this blog into a how-to for how to create a magazine, but I barely know how we did it. Maybe after Issue II we will be experts, but only time will tell.
However, I can give you an insight into two aspects of the magazine: picking a theme and picking submissions. There are a few ways to pick a theme, but I believe that an important first step is to choose a perspective. I had a few ideas before getting the team together. I thought about seasons. Maybe each magazine would have four sections, each one related to a season. Maybe each seasonal section would correspond to a certain age group of artists. Maybe we would publish four times a year, and each issue would be themed around a specific season. I thought about psychology. Maybe each issue would give a voice to a different mental illness. But ultimately, I chose opposites.
I am a firm believer in balance. I don’t think anything is inherently good or bad, but I think there is danger on the ends of a spectrum. I also believe in contradiction. Not that it’s good, necessarily, but that we are filled with them. Contradictions are a fact of life, and we need to learn how to live with them. And when it came time to pick a set of opposites, all I could think about was how my life was moving forward (graduate school, a changing body, moving into a new apartment, leaving behind my career in the Jewish community…) and at same time the whole world was on pause with the pandemic. It was 0 and 60 at the same time. I’ve never been a succinct person, but Nicole is and she took all of that and gave us our first theme.
The story of our second theme is quite different. During one of our meetings, we all shouted out a set of opposites that we thought sounded cool, and ended up with a list of about 17 sets of opposites. A couple of months later, everyone got three votes, and the winning pair was one inspired by a line in an X-Men movie. Inspiration can come from anywhere.
The fact that there is a second theme at all, that my friends and I are still dedicating so much of ourselves to this project, is so much more than I expected when I mentioned this idea to my boyfriend off-handedly that one fateful day. It is definitely a lot of work, but somehow building the momentum that got us here was easy. Branching out with this blog, the newsletter, and who knows what else, I am even more astounded at how much can be accomplished once you manage to take a first step. So if you have the time and the idea, pursue it. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!
The Contrarium Team
This blog is run by Maya Jacobson and Shana Azani, but you'll be seeing posts from our whole team!
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