Watermark is an annual publication that showcases the best literary and artistic work by the students that represent UMass Boston. With this year’s elections completed, there is a lot of work to be done, ideas to be manifested, and art to be explored!
Watermark has been a student run literary magazine that has survived under a number of different names and forms since 1979. It welcomes and circulates a wonderful variety of art, from acrylic paintings and impression photography to fiction writing and poetry. In addition to the Graduate Student Assembly donating $1,000 (for the first time) to help fund and support Watermark, the primary funding is by the undergraduate Student Senate.
Donna Neal, the student life advisor to all undergraduate publications, exclaims, “Students shouldn’t be afraid to submit their work.” Neal states that many artists got their start in their school literary magazines and communities.
The newly elected Editor in Chief, Sarah Reddick, states with passion, “I’m going to make it fun.” Reddick thinks that Watermark can bring the campus together as a community by publishing our local artists and circulating the Watermark throughout the Boston community. While Reddick is hot on the path of establishing the staff for the 2001-02 edition, art editors, drama editors, fiction and poetry editors are quote, “desperately wanted!” Reddick is extremely enthusiastic and holds a very positive outlook for this years Watermark.
Reddick is looking forward to the public display of our artists by way of art galleries and poetry slams along with a weekly “open-mike” at the Wit’s End Café. Here students can bring artwork, poems, a story or just a friend to listen with.
Reddick is an English Major in her “almost” junior year. Now living in Cambridge and having just finished up an extensive and impressive two-year term of volunteerism at the “Boston Weekly Dig,” her background extends to the Pratt Institute of Art in Brooklyn, New York. “I love charcoal drawings and painting, but writing has become my most adored medium,” she dramatically expresses. Although her greatest strength, she admits, is in coordinating and executing things that need to be done.
“This is available to students,” Reddick adds. Watermark is open to all kinds of volunteers willing to lend their efforts in any area from evaluating the artworks to advertising experience and event planning. The more help Watermark receives the less energy each member will have to expend. Reddick slips in, “And it’s a great resume builder.”
One of Watermark’s most significant features this year will be a section about the emotionally inspiring artwork associated with the current events surrounding September 11. Reddick expects there to be artwork produced by these events, but also intends to draw attention to the art inspired by these life-altering events. With a soft voice Reddick adds, “Watermark is our mark, and this has marked the year.”
There is not a lot of time left for your submissions. The deadline is the last day of the fall semester – with a two-week grace period. The editors of each section will assess the work over the winter break, and Watermark will sew the works of art together. Stop by and visit Sarah Reddick and the Watermark office on the fourth floor of the Wheatley building in room W-4-174. It’s time to make your mark!