Since January 2015, I have been filling any extra time I have with the Fix, Point Park University's fine art magazine. I've been acting as the founding co-editor with a variety of responsibilities - mostly fulfilling the requirements of a vacant Editor-in-Chief position. It's been a whirlwind of a year, sprinkled with chaotic moments, both blissful and stressful.
Over the past month, the Fix has been undergoing some exciting transitions, as each of our senior members stepped down, as planned, to focus their time and energy on their senior thesis projects. This non traditional timeline in a student organization is to ease the incoming staff into their first issue while the soon-to-be graduating seniors are able to mentor through the transition.
This process, the handing off of the torch if you will, got me thinking about the origins of the organization just one year ago..
Over winter break in 2014, Ryan Maine drove from Punxsutawney, PA to Indiana, PA to discuss this new, crazy idea he had (and catch up after my four months abroad). We got coffee and talked for hours about what we could possibly do with this vague concept of a magazine dedicated to publishing the work of Point Park's fine art photographers.
When we returned, we begged people, occasionally forcefully, to show up to our first meeting. A small group of people showed up, confused but enthusiastic, and we were ecstatic. We immediately began work on what would become the Portrait Issue.
Now, one year later, this organization has grown from a hopeful little magazine publication to a media entity, including a prolific podcast, a fine tuned website, a juried exhibition, and a multitude of social media accounts, and a magazine teamed by an enormous and hardworking staff. We calculated it out, and with each issue of the Fix, over 40 individuals are collaborating to make it a possibility.
Newly elected Senior Photo Editor Hannah Altman leads the group in the first pitch meeting of 2016
That's a big deal. That's a really big deal. Especially when you factor in that when we've graduated a total of just eighteen students in the last two years. We're a little program. We're a little school. But we've routinely gotten these students to pour their creative efforts and talents into this organization. So much so that they have outgrown the original idea. And that's so impressive.
I'm not really sure how to say goodbye to an organization that has meant so much to me over the past year.. But before I head out and say my final farewell to this incredible organization, I hope to give it a whirl and offer one last thought for the staff, which I shared just a few days ago on the Fix's website:
For the hours, for the tears, for racking your brain searching for commas, for navigating Google Drive, for re-reading sentences, for writing nonstop, for meeting deadlines, for laying out beautiful pieces, for recording and editing podcasts, for your efficiency and enthusiasm, for your creativity, your flexibility, your inclusion, your support, for your dedication to a vague idea, for your patience, I am grateful.
And as you head into this vast unknown, I have no doubts that what you will accomplish in the coming months and years will far surpass what we have accomplished this year. Continue to be patient with each other. Be loving and kind to your fellow creatives. It is only with each other that any of this can be accomplished.
Thank you for this past year.. What a ride it has been.
Ryan Maine, founding Editor-in-Chief (Jan 2015 - May 2015), and me on his windowsill - June 2014
Photograph by Hannah Jones
Me and Julianne Griffith, the Senior Layout Editor who has made this magazine look so pretty for so long, at the Conflict Issue's launch party
Me and Sean Eaton, the new Editor-in-Chief, with the catalogue at the first annual juried show
With warm affection and unending pride,
Hannah Harley
Former Co-Editor, Content Coordinator (January 2015 - January 2016)