What if we are not all doomed?

This thought was a turning point in our conversations about founding a magazine during a time of crisis. We asked ourselves what it meant to start a creative project amid the political, economic, ecological, and other challenges that confront us every day, some of which are explored in this issue. From record flooding driven by climate change to words that have been banned based on political ideology, these are only some of the many problems that need our attention, and urgently.

We also recognize a feeling of hopelessness that comes with this moment, a sense that our efforts will not make a difference or that the issues are so large and complex that there’s simply nothing we can do. Against this feeling of despair, we wanted to give form to something meaningful. Not something that solves all the problems we face today — what can? — but something that creates a space for wondering, that contemplates the world in a different way, and opens up new avenues when more and more possibilities seem foreclosed. There is power in making space, in the margins if not in the mainstream, as Ash Holland reminds us in her exploration of comics and the queer community.

As we consider this moment, it feels like an in-between time — not settled and certainly not stable, but also not yet finished — like the traces of light and memory that haunt the empty spaces in Kathleen Creighton’s photos in this issue. It is a time of transition, not just a space of possibility but also a space for movement — but movement towards what? Our essay on void moons suggests that there are times we might be freed from the forces that normally push and pull us and instead be left to pause, reflect, and look ahead.

Sometimes new ideas come from putting things together in unexpected ways, like this issue’s piece on heart memory, which places art and emotion in conversation with science and medicine, or our cover art, Immigrants by Lilli Muller, a series of chairs that have been cut in half and arranged in mismatched and precarious positions. A little space is left between each half, making the liminal almost tangible. Installed in Joshua Tree National Park in 2021, these chairs suggest both that we live in a fragmented world and also that we can build new connections, even from broken parts. For Muller, it speaks to a notion of home that is neither the country of her roots nor the one she lives in. In a political climate that is increasingly hostile to immigrants, her work highlights the importance of being seen within cultural landscapes that fail to reflect one’s own experience. Immigrants is included in the Amplification Project, a digital archive of art and cultural productions related to forced migration and refugeehood, which Kathy Carbone frames here as an act against erasure.

In starting a print magazine, we aimed to slow things down a bit and dwell within these ideas. Creativity, like hope, needs time to grow. Several of the pieces here think about the process of creation, from Rosa Chang’s work with indigo and dyeing techniques that connect to her cultural roots to Andrea Gough’s collection of recent books about traditional crafts and ways of making. A printed object is something that gets handled, passed along, read on the train, and carried to and from homes, bookstores, cafés, and all the places in between. With all of that physicality comes other people, and opportunities for new and unexpected interactions with those around us.

Part of what excites us about this project is being in community with contributors, readers, and everyone else involved in producing a magazine. To launch this effort, we’ve called on our networks of friends, family, colleagues, and neighbors to trust us with their work, offer advice, and lend their attention. We’ve talked with others who are starting their own print magazines and sustaining creative projects in these uncertain times. We’re getting to know our local booksellers and shop owners on a first-name basis. Across all of these interactions, we’ve encountered people who are trying to make a difference, create something beautiful, or simply imagine otherwise. Like them, we are making a little room to grow.

Welcome to the first issue of perhaps. 
We are so glad you are here.

Michael, Nancy, and Chris

On the Cover, Issue One
Lilli Muller, Immigrants, 2021.