Dear Reader:
The student editors of The Prairie Light Review’s Fall 2007 issue, “Needless,” went through a blind-submission process when they juried artwork, poetry and prose submitted for publication during class time in English 2210. Each term, student editors have the opportunity to see the creative works being produced in District 502 by people of many ages, ethnicities, and life experiences. This process is a democratic one that is student-based, and students arrive at their content decisions through discussion and voting. This unique opportunity to select work for publication is one that the editors take very seriously, establishing criteria at the start of term with which they will judge what work they think will engage the magazine’s target audiences: students of College of DuPage and its community members in District 502.
When selecting work for issues’ covers, the student editors put all artwork that has been selected for publication in the magazine on the table, because they believe it is important not to censor any images or ideas suggested by the work. Discussion follows, and the editors discuss the quality, complexity, and themes each piece suggests, understanding that the cover is the magazine’s first impression on readers. For the issue “Needless”, whose title comes from the artwork itself, the student editors felt that each time they reviewed the piece, they saw new things that kept them looking, like the details of different food items in the background behind the woman’s frame; it displayed technical achievement in an interesting medium; and it engaged its viewers in emotionally powerful discussions about women’s body images and eating disorders.
After the artwork was selected for the cover, the editors were able to discuss the work with its artist. They would like to share Jason Retuta’s artist’s statement with you:
My primary motivation behind
[“Needless”] is to symbolize the horrors and tragedies of eating
disorders: the stitched mouth unwilling to eat food, the ominous void in place
of her stomach, and the saddened and pained expression in her eyes. All of these
visual elements are intended to provoke the viewer on an emotional level and
allow him or her to experience – on an illustrative sense – the
misery and uneasiness of eating disorders. On a personal level, my cousin had
long suffered from bulimia, and I wanted to express and emulate her emotional
distress by creating a graphic, yet provocative, picture.
--Jason Retuta
They were also pleased to learn that Mr. Retuta’s artwork was also selected by the student gallery, Wings, for inclusion in its “Feed” exhibit, on display from December 17 through February 7 in the Student Resource Center room SRC 1540.
The editors are proud to have produced a cover for the fall 2007 issue that has engaged so many of its audience members so passionately with its image and hope that their readers will reflect on their and America’s relationships with food. They were also pleased that other writings in the issue also dealt with these same themes, as “Deep Fried Twinkies” by William Vollrath on the cover page.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts with the editors. They appreciate your feedback and hope they will continue to receive and engage with your work in the future.
Liz Whiteacre
Adviser