Premiere Issue of Zeitgeist has finally arrived! Pick up the May 2009 issue, today!
Zeitgeist is a new monthly magazine geared towards to high school students. To receive issues, teachers can request a subscription for an entire school year. For $9.99, classrooms will get 10 issues of Zeitgeist, which will be scheduled to arrive the first week of each month.
Dear Art Teachers and Students:
It is with great pleasure that I bring you Zeitgeist. For years, public schools have been supplied with glossy, thin magazines to distribute to students and use as a teaching device. From personal experience, they were either too confusing or the administration failed to distribute them during the appropriate month. It was such an unfortunate occurrence that such learning materials were considered trivial and not properly planned into a students’ curriculum.
Having spent Kindergarten through senior year of high school in public schools focused on the arts, I had the privilege of receiving supplementary magazines focusing on the arts every month. Although this sounds like an improvement compared to my academic classes, several flaws still sneaked their way into my art classes. First, the magazines were written using vocabulary most students never heard. Even when a article looked fascinating, it would take way past the allotted class time to fully understand the thesis. Second, newer issues of the art magazines were almost impossible to find in classrooms. Teachers constantly reused the same October and Art in America issues from the 1980s. Although they were interesting, when I could understand them, it was frustrating that I could not read a magazine focusing on the art of my time. Having such little exposure to current art trends, I focused most of my art on traditional and classical examples since they were much easier to come across in books and magazines. Post-modern and contemporary art were almost foreign topics to me when I graduated high school.
It was not until college that I realized I knew almost nothing about mod-late 20th century art. This is when I got the idea to create Zeitgeist. This monthly magazine was to be distributed monthly to teachers of art classes of Junior High and High School levels. The narrow audience I am reaching is purposely done to lower costs, thus allowing me to provide the magazines free of charge. Articles and columns will be written with vocabulary consistent with the students reading levels. Nothing will be convoluted. I want the students to completely understand the message of the article instead of getting sidetracked by the confusing language.
Monthly columns will include a question and answer section for both teachers and students. It will be refreshing for students to hear answers to questions they may have themselves been pondering. The articles will be focused on current exhibitions and artists of contemporary art. Also, to facilitate better understanding, I am including a glossary after each article to define terms that may be too difficult.
My personal favorite section of the magazine has to be the Do It Yourself pages. As artists, these students can try a modified version of an artists’ work and get a first-hand experience on contemporary art. I believe that only through experimentation can one truly understand something. Students and teachers will be allowed to submit stories of how their projects worked as well as feedback and questions concerning the activity.
I want this magazine to be an interactive tool for art students to gain a better understanding of the art of their time. This is how the name Zeitgeist came into play. Defined literally as “spirit” and “time”, the word exemplifies the purpose of my magazine. It will address the “spirit” or art of “our” or students time.
Zeitgeist is a new monthly magazine geared towards to high school students. To receive issues, teachers can request a subscription for an entire school year. For $9.99, classrooms will get 10 issues of Zeitgeist, which will be scheduled to arrive the first week of each month.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents (1pg)
Q&A column (2pg)
Exhibition review (5pg)
Interview with a new teen artist (3pg)
Review of an interactive museum exhibition for students (2pg)
Monthly glossary of contemporary art terms (1pg)
Profile of an art teacher (1pg)
Monthly art events (2-3pg)
Art project you can do at home (2pg)
Games and puzzles (1pg)
Table of Contents (1pg)
Q&A column (2pg)
Exhibition review (5pg)
Interview with a new teen artist (3pg)
Review of an interactive museum exhibition for students (2pg)
Monthly glossary of contemporary art terms (1pg)
Profile of an art teacher (1pg)
Monthly art events (2-3pg)
Art project you can do at home (2pg)
Games and puzzles (1pg)
Letter from the Editor
Dear Art Teachers and Students:
It is with great pleasure that I bring you Zeitgeist. For years, public schools have been supplied with glossy, thin magazines to distribute to students and use as a teaching device. From personal experience, they were either too confusing or the administration failed to distribute them during the appropriate month. It was such an unfortunate occurrence that such learning materials were considered trivial and not properly planned into a students’ curriculum.
Having spent Kindergarten through senior year of high school in public schools focused on the arts, I had the privilege of receiving supplementary magazines focusing on the arts every month. Although this sounds like an improvement compared to my academic classes, several flaws still sneaked their way into my art classes. First, the magazines were written using vocabulary most students never heard. Even when a article looked fascinating, it would take way past the allotted class time to fully understand the thesis. Second, newer issues of the art magazines were almost impossible to find in classrooms. Teachers constantly reused the same October and Art in America issues from the 1980s. Although they were interesting, when I could understand them, it was frustrating that I could not read a magazine focusing on the art of my time. Having such little exposure to current art trends, I focused most of my art on traditional and classical examples since they were much easier to come across in books and magazines. Post-modern and contemporary art were almost foreign topics to me when I graduated high school.
It was not until college that I realized I knew almost nothing about mod-late 20th century art. This is when I got the idea to create Zeitgeist. This monthly magazine was to be distributed monthly to teachers of art classes of Junior High and High School levels. The narrow audience I am reaching is purposely done to lower costs, thus allowing me to provide the magazines free of charge. Articles and columns will be written with vocabulary consistent with the students reading levels. Nothing will be convoluted. I want the students to completely understand the message of the article instead of getting sidetracked by the confusing language.
Monthly columns will include a question and answer section for both teachers and students. It will be refreshing for students to hear answers to questions they may have themselves been pondering. The articles will be focused on current exhibitions and artists of contemporary art. Also, to facilitate better understanding, I am including a glossary after each article to define terms that may be too difficult.
My personal favorite section of the magazine has to be the Do It Yourself pages. As artists, these students can try a modified version of an artists’ work and get a first-hand experience on contemporary art. I believe that only through experimentation can one truly understand something. Students and teachers will be allowed to submit stories of how their projects worked as well as feedback and questions concerning the activity.
I want this magazine to be an interactive tool for art students to gain a better understanding of the art of their time. This is how the name Zeitgeist came into play. Defined literally as “spirit” and “time”, the word exemplifies the purpose of my magazine. It will address the “spirit” or art of “our” or students time.
