New Magazine "Martha's Vineyard Arts & Ideas" Hits the Stands This Week

This week there'll be a new magazine on the Island. It's not another Martha's Vineyard lifestyle magazine, or a wedding magazine, or even a food magazine. It's an arts and culture magazine, focused on—you guessed it— arts and culture. But not arts and culture of the standard kind; this is arts and culture of the Island kind, of our kind.

You don't have to go far on this Island before you meet a painter, a photographer, a writer or even a sculptor. So, a magazine for those involved in the arts and interested in the arts and ideas of this Island makes quite a bit of sense. "Martha's Vineyard Arts & Ideas" seeks to be an arts and culture magazine for everyone. It is filled from cover to cover with thoughts, stories and beautiful art—written and created by Island artists. (There's even a piece in there written by yours truly.) There is fiction, including a piece by Ward Just and poetry by Fanny Howe and Justen Ahern. On top of all that, it's free.

The magazine was conceived and pulled together by Patrick Phillips, who found his way to the Island nearly six years ago, when he married the love of his life. For Phillips, who is also a poet, graphic designer, teacher, photographer and executive director of Vineyard Voice, creating the magazine has been a "humbling, demanding and extremely rewarding experience."

Now that the first issue is safely on its way to press and Phillips is  finally getting more than four hours of sleep each night —at least until he starts working on the next issue—we were able to catch up with him to find out more about the Island's newest rag.

Tell us about how the idea for the magazine came about?

"Martha’s Vineyard Arts & Ideas" (A&I) has been around since about a year ago as a web-oriented idea that focused on and supported artists on the Island using Vineyard Voice. That has transformed into A&I because, well, people love print here.

What is the mission of the magazine?

I think a key philosophy is to be able use the magazine at every turn to provide a threshold of insight: to use arts to get to issues and use the culture of the Island to get to the arts. Every article provides visual, social, emotional, insight of some kind.

Artists, gallery owners and merchants can all benefit from the magazine. This issue has a supplement with a guide to the 30 different artists featured inside and how to connect to those artists.

What kind of social media component are you including?

Facebook will take pieces of content and push them out. That is also a platform for local artists who can post their own content. The magazine is a mashup that looks to engage a community of readers, who can then later log-in and see what's happening—and where artist’s can create conversation. The website will have all of the magazine’s content in an interactive format, so you can click a link to purchase a book from Bunch of Grapes or go directly to an artists site. It’s a real crossfeeding strategy of web, print and social media. So please “like” us at www.facebook.com/artsandideas.

 What do you expect to include in every issue?

There will be three articles that more or less deal with issues that the Island faces. There will also be fiction, poetry, at least one profile and a photo contest. There is an advertising index that is another way to get in touch with people in the arts.

How many times a year will you be coming out?

There will be two this year and four next year.

Why do you think people respond to print here?

On this island there are 120,000 sets of eyeballs of people who come here and want to know, want to be a part of what’s going on. We want to provide that in as many medias as possible, to spread information as broadly as possible. A magazine in your beach bag means you don’t have to turn something on to be engaged, and also grounds it to our very important community here.

Where will people be able to find A&I?

We’re hoping to be all over the island—in food stores, specialty shops, cafes, galleries. It will be the featured as Cape Air in-flight magazine and we’ll be giving them out at various events. So, if you don’t find us, we’ll find you.

What was the most challenging thing about this first issue?

The arts are so deep here and so rich and have been here for so long, that listening and being attentive to that story being told has been humbling. Aside from the 15, 16, 18 -hour days of bringing it all together, the editing is so much fun. And the story just scratches the surface. I’m definitely a different person now than I was when I said, OK, that sounds like a good idea.

What kind of responses have you had so far?

They've said, "Wow, that’s great!" Everybody has been phenomenal. The businesses have been very open and willing to explore this. The artists, everyone who I show it to or ask for stories from, have been really receptive and open with their enthusiasm and excitement.

Look for the inaugural issue of "Martha's Vineyard Arts & Ideas" in locations all across the Island starting this Friday, June 22, or go to www.facebook.com/artsandideas for more information.