Back in the spring of my freshman year, one of my roommates, Olivia Williams, came home bustling with a new idea. She wanted to create a visual arts magazine at BU — created by students, for students. To me, it sounded like an incredible idea, but I didn’t realize the amount of hard work and dedication it would take over the next few months for the “Squinch” team (Williams, Sofija Chroneos, Kabita Das, Rachel Kubrick) to bring their magazine to fruition.
I decided to take a look into the magazine — obviously supporting my roommates, but also wanting to get to know the student contributors behind the first issue’s art. What did CFA, and the general BU population, think about the creation of the first visual arts magazine on BU’s campus? I talked to a few of the participants — Nina Miller, Kim Zak, and Elianna Dryer — as they told me their reasoning for sharing their art with Squinch, and what they think the creation of Squinch means for BU.
Nina Miller:
Nina decided to submit several art pieces from her freshman year at CFA, the collection entitled “Abstract City” — commenting on being “inspired” by living in the city of Boston. To her, Squinch Magazine holds the key to connecting to students of other majors and showing them what the artists at CFA are all about, going on to say, “CFA has insanely talented people and everyone on campus should see and be exposed to great art.” She believes that, “sharing art is really important” and hopes that Squinch will “change BU students’ attitudes on visual arts”. Miller states that the magazine will shed new light on BU’s art school, as she “hopes that students outside of CFA will appreciate how hard we work and start to understand what we really do.”
Kim Zak:
Kim echoed Nina’s sentiments in the importance of having a student-run visual arts magazine for the BU community. Kim believes that Squinch facilitates the tough conversations through art, saying, “Art today, in my opinion, necessitates dialogue and engagement, and Squinch gives people the opportunity to participate in these conversations.” Furthermore, Kim hopes that Squinch can connect the small program of the School of Visual Arts to other programs at BU, believing that the magazine’s creation will “kindle in other members of the BU community a broader knowledge of and more active interest in art.”
Elianna Dryer:
Elianna’s contribution to Squinch was motivated by not only supporting her friends, but also to showcase a little bit of her culture. As other artists said prior, Squinch Magazine allows BU student to connect over not only art, but also various world issues. Elianna also stated that Squinch being student-run is really special it to her, as, “It’s not some editor choosing what goes in the magazine — it’s your friends, and they get to control the message which is really unique.” Like Nina and Kim, Elianna hopes that Squinch will take away from the slight “mystique” of Visual Arts at BU, and open up a dialogue with students from other schools.