From the Editors 34.5

ROBERT K. LIU and CAROLYN L. E. BENESH

Dear Ornament Reader,

During these challenging times, news can be dismaying in so many areas that sometimes you do not even want to discuss or acknowledge it. But within our community of craft, we have learned that two magazines who have helped make up the field, Fiberarts (since 1973) and ReadyMade (for the last ten years), have closed due to the current economic downturn. None of us want others to follow. We urge you to keep your subscriptions current, give gifts to Ornament but also to American Craft, American Style, Art Jewelry, Beadwork, Ceramics Monthly, Metalsmith, Surface Design, The Crafts Report, and to international publications like Crafts in Great Britain or Textile Fibre Forum in Australia, and others which you have supported.

Magazines provide substance and guidance in a world of confusion and virtual ephemerality, where there is the misguided viral concept, encouraged by the internet, that content should be free or incredibly cheap. Just exactly how are we, or the artists or the galleries or the museums, going to support ourselves if we believe such nonsense? The proverbial Truman buck has got to stop somewhere.

Take Ornament for instance: a five issue subscription costs $4.80 per issue (roughly five cents per page, a large discount from our $6.99 single copy price). This is extremely high value for very little cost to the reader, and with this issue as an example, provides ninety-two pages of insight into the creative possibilities of jewelry, beads and clothing. Our coverage (and the other magazines’ as well) supports artists, galleries, schools, museums, and we all need their economic support in return. None of us exist in isolation from each other. If you love craft, if you make craft, if you supply craft, if you sell craft, then step up to the plate, even when difficulty presents itself, and keep our community together and flourishing.

We have readers who have been with us since our beginnings in 1974 and would never consider dropping their subscription, for the additional quality that we have brought to their lives through art, history and culture. We have advertisers who have their own financial worries, but consider it important to be visible in the magazine they feel represents them well and reflects what they do. Whether subscriber or advertiser, they all sustain the Ornament mission to inform these critical areas of human experience.

Within our office in Vista, California, each staff member continues to strive for the very best and our readership is part of each day’s mindful journey. You are always in our thoughts as we endeavor to illuminate your (and our own) lives with carefully realized and stimulating presentations. Our visualization is that you, too, share a fundamental belief that we can help sustain a healthy and compassionate Mother Earth when we know more about our own and other lands.

Yes, the times may be challenging, but there is still more beauty to bring to light in the world, helping to illuminate it even more. We must also remember the most important of all—the relationships we have with one another, passed from one to the other with gratitude for the great gift of sharing our lives and passions together.

Thank you for being part of our world, and let us keep moving forward, together.

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