The Knox Student

After junior Joe Kozlowicz and Lecturer in Journalism Christie Cirone discovered that Knox has never had a visual arts-focused publication on campus, they decided to do something about it.

Nine students, including Kozlowicz, have been working on an independent study with Cirone to create Folio, Knox’s first visual arts journal.

“There has never been an art publication on campus outside of the open studio catalog,” Kozlowicz said, “which is only for studio art majors … It just kind of seemed like something campus needed.”

Kozlowicz came up with the idea for Folio after attending senior art shows and taking a graphic design course at Knox. He said it was then that he realized that students do not have many outlets for artwork at Knox if they are not Studio Art majors.

“We researched,” Cirone said, “and found that at no time in the history of the college since 1837 has any publication been devoted to the visual arts.”

The journal accepts submissions from students as well as faculty and staff.

While Folio is currently being created within the framework of an independent study, and partly with use of Richter Grant funds to cover printing costs, Cirone said that next year the journal will hopefully be under the umbrella of the Broadcast, Internet and Publications Board (BIP). If it does become an organization governed by BIP, the members of Folio will be able to establish a budget.

“It parallels Catch, TKS, WVKC in other aspects of the college … in which students create and invent new forms of communications,” Cirone said. While she acts as the faculty advisor for the group now, she said she also hopes to stay working with Folio in the coming years. Though she is involved to give advice to the students working on the project, Folio is entirely student-run and the submissions that go into the publication are entirely student-selected.

Kozlowicz said that he was worried about getting enough submissions at first, but many came flooding in near the last deadline. About 35 students submitted pieces of art, with most of them submitting more than one piece. While Kozlowicz is not sure how layout will work at this point, he said if printing every piece in the hard copy publication is too much of a strain on their printing budget, they might also put all the submissions online.

Cirone also said that Folio,while it is primarily focused on visual art, does not exclude scholarly papers and text related to fields of visual art.

When asked if he thought members of the Knox community would see Folio as a publication competing with others such as Catch, Kozlowicz said he was surprised at the reaction of some people on campus.

“I was really surprised at the political implications of starting this,” he said. “Dealing with the art department … people were cautioning me to approach it in the right way.”

Kozlowicz also said, however, that the overall support from the faculty “has been really overwhelming.”

While Kozlowicz is graduating early and is not sure who will be running Folio next year, he and Cirone both agree it is a publication that is here to stay.

“It’s been well-accepted by everyone,” Cirone said.