For decades, VCU students have planned and printed original magazines that capture the voice and style of their generations. Today, students from the School of the Arts collaborate with writers and editors from across the university to publish regular issues of Poictesme (also known as Pwatem), Ink Magazine, Amendment and Emanata. Each year, these captivating literary, art and fashion magazines introduce incredible student work to the Richmond community. Most of all, they provide formal exposure to young creators who are just beginning their careers.
Since the days of Richmond Professional Institute, students and faculty have worked together to produce long-running arts publications. Here’s a look at some of the historic issues held by Cabell Library’s Special Collections and Archives.
Image (1960s)
Image was one of the first print magazines produced by the Student Government Association of RPI, and its run extended into the earliest years of VCU’s existence. Billed as a “journal of creative ideas,” Image combined essays, poetry, short stories and even one-act plays with illustration, photography, graphic design, sculpture and painting. Its editors hoped the magazine would “act as a catalyst for the transference of images and, thereby, serve as a gadfly to lethargic intellects.” By the late 1960s, Image had been selected to participate in a cultural exchange exhibition with the Soviet Union, and had appeared in Art Direction Magazine, a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts biennial show, and the Art Directors Show in New York.
Richmond Arts Magazine (1970s–’90s)
Through three decades, Richmond Arts Magazine captured the changing face and rising ambitions of the School of the Arts in the late 20th century. Like Image, it welcomed thought-provoking essays on pertinent issues, but the topics covered by faculty and students hewed more closely to the concerns of the art world. What was the future of photography? How does a theatrical performance change is different rooms and venues? In these pages, the VCUarts community took charge of these academic conversations. In its later issues, Richmond Arts Magazine was sometimes published with spiral bindings and loose pages distributed in folded packaging.
Poictesme/Pwatem (2000s–present)
Poictesme began life as Millennium, a student anthology primarily comprised of literature. In 2006, it was renamed after the fictional medieval French province “Poictesme,” which appeared in the novels of writer and VCU Libraries namesake James Branch Cabell. Since then, the annual publication has curated the work of fiction writers, poets, photographers, painters and sculptors in an anthology that can inspire, provoke, frighten and ignite readers’ imaginations. A chapbook companion known as Rabble has occasionally followed the flagship magazine.
Pwatem accepts work from all undergraduate majors at VCU. Check out the submission guidelines on their website.
You can also visit the Pwatem website to read archival issues from 2005 to 2018.
Explore selections from past issues of Image and Richmond Arts Magazine with the Flickr album below.
2018 marks 90 years of creative daring at VCU School of the Arts. To mark this occasion, VCUarts is spending this school year reflecting on our shared history and envisioning how we can continue to pave the way for creative practice in the 21st century and beyond. Visit the VCUarts 90th Anniversary website to learn more about the many stories that have shaped our school, and to share memories of your own.
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