Nearly 300 students packed the Middletown Roller Rink last Thursday for a CD release fundraiser for a new visual arts magazine called “Small Antenna.” The goal of the fundraiser was multifaceted, as the magazine’s creators, Kathryn Typaldos ’05 and David Wilson ’05, hoped to raise enough money to issue the publication in color, as well as to support student bands, help local business and provide a change in scenery for Wesleyan student life.
“We really wanted to have a fundraising process that would get people involved in the spirit and creation of the magazine,” Wilson said.
The event included roller-skating for a $5 cover charge, live music from nine campus bands, and a benefit CD for sale featuring these bands and more. The success of the event, evidenced by lack of adult-sized roller skates to accommodate the amount of skaters, resulted in a $1600 profit to be divided between the magazine fund and the roller rink.
“I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of people that showed up,” Typaldos said. “I had no idea that many people would be interested.”
With profits from this fundraiser and some additional WSA funding, Typaldos and Wilson plan to send the first, and possibly only, “Small Antenna” edition to print by the end of April. The mission of the magazine is to publish and recognize the diverse art, both processed and unprocessed, that is created at Wesleyan and in the community.
“There is a lot of exciting art happening that exists outside of the studio,” Typaldos said. “And if students aren’t doing an art thesis there’s no way to expose their artwork, so it often goes unrecognized. This will be a nice way to celebrate and give recognition to people creating great artwork outside of the studio.”
“Small Antenna” will feature visual artwork submitted by students and community members, profiles of artist’s works, and a final section focused on broadening awareness of the local art community in the Connecticut area, as well as Boston and New York.
“I think that it’s just something new and exciting,” Wilson said. “It pumps a breath of fresh air into campus. A lot of people create cool stuff here that people don’t get to see. We want it to be formal, and yet informal enough to be playful. And also to just show that we can make something that looks really nice, like a real magazine.”
Students are encouraged to send submissions of artwork by contacting Typaldos (ktypaldos@wesleyan.edu) or Wilson (dwilson@wesleyan.edu).
“We’re being proactive in submissions,” Typaldos said. “We’ll come around to the artist if they contact us, and we want to involve as many people as possible from as many different perspectives as possible.”
While future fundraising ideas are still in the works, ideas of a T-shirt designing contest and sale, as well as a possible event at the Middletown Laser Tag Center have been discussed as potential spring events.
“I’ve had a fantasy of having the next fundraiser the laser tag place,” Wilson said. “I figure anything that brings us back to middle school fun is a good kind of attitude to have about this.”
As of now, there is just one issue of “Small Antenna” planned for release.
“If someone wanted to carry it on next year I’d definitely be willing to pass the torch,” Wilson said. “But our goal in doing this was to up the ante in the quality of a student publication by putting all our efforts into one edition.”
Leave a Reply