Spindrift, SCC’s arts and literary journal, will be releasing its 2017 edition with a celebration on May 23.

The journal, released annually, is the culmination of several months of work by the small group of SCC students who staff the Spindrift.

This year, the journal clocks in at 152 pages chock-full of art, from poetry to paintings to pieces of music embedded via QR code. Each piece of art was selected by process of an open jury selection, which took place this past February, after which the staff made final determinations based on in-staff voting and whether the piece was able to pair with another, among other things. But with the sheer volume of submissions (and a growing page count), it wasn’t easy to make decisions.

“We eliminated so many good pieces — it was heartbreaking,” Art Assistant Midori Vance said.

They had received around 230 images this year, but were only able to include 152 because of the cost associated with increasing the page count, which in past years, rarely went over 120 pages.

“We can’t print (the journal) over a certain number of pages otherwise it’ll just get too expensive for students,” Vance said.

The new high in page count also came with a new submission policy, in which they now only accept digital submissions.

“We used to have staff keep office hours and people would bring in their art and they’d have to come pick it up afterwards,” adviser Chuck Schultz said. “We decided to streamline the process.”

The digital-only policy has allowed for students to hold on to their work instead of having to leave it with the Spindrift staff, something that came as a relief to many, the staff included.

“I still have art in the Spindrift office from the ‘90s and the 2000s because people never pick their stuff up,” Managing Editor Julie Hiebert said.

It was a learning process for many students, Hiebert said, because some didn’t know how to properly submit their work digitally, an important skill for artists if they plan on submitting their work to other publications. During the submission period, members of the VCT Club were available to help students with formatting their work, one of the many collaborations that allowed Spindrift to happen.

“When I first started, I made a point to talk to as many people as I could … and I got so much help unexpectedly all along the way,” Hiebert said. “It was really amazing that people — and this whole campus, in my experience — really want you to succeed and they’ll do whatever they can to help you succeed.”

In a sense, collaboration is what Spindrift is all about, with every single page having been carefully curated so that each work of art would be complemented by another. Meanwhile, the staff had to grow into their own collaboration with most of the members being new to the journal.

“Learning to tune into each other and learning how to communicate in different styles with different people according to their personalities … I think we did a really good job of that,” Art Editor Lee Eliza Owenz said.

The group may have also been helped along by a common understanding of art and its importance.

“In today’s world, art is very important in every aspect of life,” Owenz said. “Everyone has logos, everyone has illustrations in ads — I mean, on the web, there’s always a visual along with text.”

“Art is everywhere,” Hiebert agreed. “It’s part of our DNA, it’s part of our culture, it’s part of who we are … it’s kind of like an extension of you.”

Ultimately, the staff hopes the journal manages to evoke some emotion from the community, and maybe even inspire people — both artists and non-artists alike — to submit their own work for next year.

“One of the best things that students get out of it is getting the chance to be published in a nationally award-winning journal,” Owenz said.

But, first things first, they want students to attend the Spindrift release celebration, where copies of the journal will be sold.

“This is a really spectacular issue,” Hiebert said. “It’s really colorful, it’s really diverse and I think it’s really something to be celebrated.

“This is what people who go to this school produce, so why wouldn’t you come?”

The Spindrift release celebration will be from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on May 23 in the Visual Arts Center.

-Areeya Tipyasothi
Photo by Martin Musialczyk