Lantern Journal Call for Submissions - Volume 3, Issue 2 - Creation
Register/Submit Deadline: Sunday, Jun 1, 201411:59 PMEDT
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Submission Deadline for Issue 2 is June 1, 2014; Publication is June 21, 2014
http://lanternjournal.org/category/submissions/
Each of our four issues in 2014 will feature a collection of year-long projects between two or more contributors comprising our newly formed Fellowships, celebrating collaboration by nourishing the growth that it fosters. Each of our Lantern “Fellows” will produce a piece for each issue in the hope that as the year progresses, the work developed will reflect both an improvement in the individual’s contribution to the project as well as demonstrate an elegant weaving of the elements of their talents into a coherent whole, exceeding the sum of its separate parts. It is, at its heart, an experiment with the hypothesis that a commitment to open and honest collaboration will, without fail, produce startling and beautiful results.
As such, in addition to the standard invitation to explore the current theme with individual submissions, there are two unique aspects of this Call: the first invites makers of all walks to join forces with their fellows and pitch us an idea for a collaboration that would produce progressive pieces in the issues of Volume III; the other permits authors and artists to seek to join existing Lantern Fellowships (designated in Issue 1 by an “F” emblem) with the intent to bring their flame to the collective fire. So, for example, we will consider submissions until June 1, 2014, from those who would seek to be Lantern Fellows for the remainder of Volume III. For those without a plan to collaborate with someone specific, we will also consider proposals throughout the year to join any existing collaboration, to expanding it beyond the initial pairing of artists and authors, etc.
As announced in our initial Volume III Call [LINK the word CALL], the themes for Volume III are: Inception [Spring], Creation [Summer], Emergence [Fall], and the Unknown [Winter]. We view this set not as a linear progression, but as a cyclic one. Each gives way to the next, making room for growth, retracting into the darkness as it awaits its re-call.
It has often been said that great things and acts predominantly occur in solitude, when we are alone. In the collaborative spirit of Volume III we are harnessing the role of ‘creation’ in a participation of multiples. Without constraint, creation is the unattainable moment of convergence between creative minds and willing hands - resulting in freedom. In The Agony and the Ecstasy, Irving Stone describes art as 'hard brutal labor,' when he wrote: "one should not become an artist because he can, but because he must. It is only for those who would be miserable without it."
This desire for creation makes the artist forget about reality. It is a disconnect from protocol, and a connection with the whole, to a state of pure euphoria of the intuitive and yearning mind, beyond logic and reason. This insatiable drive - an unending hunt at all costs - is what Jane Hirshfield describes as the 'lion' when she says, "A savage spirit raging in the dark does not sit lightly and easily through Thanksgiving dinners; it refuses to charm, to acquiesce, to go to bed at a reasonable hour, to bend to the ways of the world." Giving oneself to the act of creation is a vow. Nothing more and nothing less than one's entire life will be asked. For others who give up nothing and expect everything: you fools! Nothing short of complete submission will result in true freedom: one of the mind, and in turn the soul. Art only exists within the struggle. Once a will has succumb to the power of it, art ceases to exist.
Paul Klee once wrote, 'the artist does not reproduce the visible, rather he makes things visible.' If the goal of the artist is to make visible the unseen (that is always already there), would not this be the only intent of the artist? Would not all intents of all artists be the same, and thus, irrelevant? If the artist has other intentions, then could what is produced still be considered art? This volume's summer issue asks these questions about the art embedded in creating, uncovering, and releasing. Submissions(http://lanternjournal.org/category/submissions/) for Summer will be due by June 1, 2014.
As always, we hope the Call inspires you as it has us, and we look forward to your submissions: poetry, short fiction, essays, architecture, images, paintings, music; we want it all. We are interested in thought and expression and connection, and we don’t much care what forms those things come in. We will value your work for its strength of character and for its contribution to the Issue’s exploration of the theme and to the Volume’s celebration of collaboration. Please view Creation as you wish—creatively or destructively, literally or figuratively—and feel free to wander through them as we walk beyond the lantern’s glow to the endarkened places where academic and other such publications stop. We invite you to join the collective journey in Volume III.
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