Art, folklore and ‘the deeper magic’ in Elementum journal
Jay Armstrong is the editor and creative director of Elementum, a beautiful biannual journal that draws upon the landscape and folklore of the British Isles to create a totally original sense of place. Filling her pages with stories about nature, identity and spirituality means she could easily cross over into politics and religion, but as she explains in this conversation, she actively avoids those subjects and instead prefers to plough her own furrow and create, “a crucible where academics, folklorists and artists can bring their own responses”.
She’s also a mum, and she speaks about the challenge of fitting the magazine around the rest of her life, and the things she has learned along the way about the practicalities of publishing on a biannual schedule. I love it when a magazine finds an original way of viewing familiar material, and her “genre fluid” publishing does exactly that, crossing over conventional boundaries to bring a fresh and distinctive view of Britain’s nature and history.
If you enjoy this one, please do take a look in our archives on Soundcloud and iTunes for lots more conversations with independent magazine makers, and if you follow us while you’re there we’ll be able to deliver next week’s episode to you as soon as it’s ready.
