By Declan Langton ’22
Since colleges around the U.S. began closing in March, many students have found themselves with more time than expected during the spring semester. For some, this means turning to old hobbies and art forms, attempting to create something out of the crisis of a global pandemic. Mount Holyoke’s student-run art and literary magazine, Open Call, is trying to take advantage of this, putting together what they call a “quarantine issue” for their sophomore publication.
“We want to see your poetry, your visual artwork, your quarantine crafts, your short stories, your playlists and anything else you’re making now,” the magazine’s Instagram (@opencallmag) said on March 30.
Open Call Magazine, founded in the fall 2019 semester by Zoe Fieldman ’22, Julia Smith ’22, Kate Turner ’21, Callie Wohlgemuth ’21 and Lila Goldstein ’22, is a student-run literary and arts magazine based out of Mount Holyoke College, focused on centering the voices of people of color and queer people of color.
The name “Open Call” was created by co-Editors-in-Chief Fieldman and Smith one night in the Dining Commons.
Photos courtesy of Open Call Magazine
Open Call’s first edition, “embodiments,” represented a “celebration of different bodies and the intricacies that come with having a physical form,” according to an internal note from the editors. It was published online on March 27.
The two were working through word associations and stumbled on “Open Call” while going through theater terms. Fieldman described the phrase as “almost a blank slate.”
“We like to use the color beige because it’s not quite blank but it’s basically blank,” Fieldman said. “We want to reflect the culture and community around us and prioritize that instead of our own image.”
Their first issue, “embodiments,” was published March 27 as a 40-page online book of colorful drawings, paintings, photoshoot photography and poetry. Originally, the team behind the magazine hoped to publish a physical book, but instead, submissions were circulated online after Mount Holyoke’s closure due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to their online platforms, Open Call will be publishing again this academic year. A quarantine-themed edition is in the works, with submission guidelines posted on social media and website outlets, calling for work with themes of “connection” and “yearning” or inspired by playlists.
“We wanted to encourage people to do something creative,” Fieldman said. “We wanted to give them an outlet as well as make … this period of time a permanent stamp on our culture, artistically and creatively speaking, in a way that is productive and healing.”
Fieldman hopes this issue of Open Call will show off the personal growth they say so many are going through, as well as the contrasting destruction the pandemic has caused.
“It’s about validating people’s time and what they’re choosing to do with it,” Fieldman said. “We don’t want people to be ashamed of what they are committing their time [to] … we want to make them feel confident in what they are doing and give them encouragement to keep creating.”
To Open Call’s staff, it doesn’t matter what is sent in, whether it be pictures of dogs or intricate poetry — all of it is something worth seeing and publishing due to the circumstances.
“[This is] a period of numbness for a lot of people, and also a period of strong emotions. Sometimes having something like a prompt or even just a submission deadline … can be really helpful,” Fieldman said.
This week, starting on April 15, Open Call will begin using their Instagram to create poetry and music collaborations between artists from Mount Holyoke and beyond. “[It] will be really interesting … to see how working remotely is going to impact the art making process,” Fieldman said. “Not everyone is used to communicating their art in that way to other people.”
This particular publication relates back to Open Call’s original mission. “Now more than ever we need to be uplifting people of color and LGBT people and all different marginalized communities because [they] are the ones being hit the hardest right now,” Fieldman said. “If we can get marginalized artists’ work out there then that is really important to us.”
Editor’s note: Kate Turner ’21 and Callie Wohlgemuth ’21 are both current members of the Mount Holyoke News.