ABOUT LOONBEEK

This indie magazine is one big art share. When its two creators, Alex Hart and Jon Lackman, find something—or something finds them—that stops them in their tracks, they pretzel themselves to feature it in their pages. They email, DM, and practically smoke-signal creatives and their representatives in pursuit of that all-important yes. They seek permission from estates and foundations, pay fees, read confoundingly fine print. They commission fantastic new work.

Alex and Jon cut their teeth at The New Yorker and The New York Times—but what they do here is different. LOONBEEK can only be LOONBEEK. Still, as with those publications, this content is world class and worthy of your time.  

Issue #2 (coming soon!!) is a full meal, with extra sauce. The sincere hope is that you will find between the magazine’s art-drenched covers enriching, engaging, sometimes even astounding works of deeply committed craft that you won't find anywhere else. Let it feed you, surprise you, inspire you, even frustrate you. Let it make you laugh. Or get under your skin. Perhaps reach out directly to a contributor whose work really touches you—start a conversation! Maybe even buy a print. Or an original.

Finally, you should know that a huge motivation for Alex and Jon, making each ad-free edition, is to support artists. By giving them a platform, a clean white canvas, to say their piece. But also by giving them real support, payment for each page of their powerful work. Their ambition is to eventually extend their reach farther still with art shows, oddball events, books, and more. LOONBEEK is in an expansive mood. Maybe you are, too!!

ABOUT US

Editor Alex Hart is a self-taught multicreative, learning (and un-learning) as she goes. In her life she has been a journalist, a curator, a poet, a painter, a collage artist, a mother, an instigator, a critic, a singer-in-the-shower and a dancer-in-the-kitchen. Toujours a lover of all things resonant and beautiful. Music, novels, film. Random stickers on the street. A passerby's smile. A small child holding a trusted beloved's hand. Motto: Where possible, unplug that dubious brain. Also: Trust, and go on hoping (Edward Lear). Some personal gurus: Vivienne Westwood, Beatrix Potter, Alexander Calder, Alice Neel, Erik Satie, Maurice Sendak, Louise Bourgeois, Amy Sedaris, Joseph Cornell, Ray Johnson, Pee Wee Herman oops Paul Reubens, Reggie Watts............!!!

Designer Jon Lackman is a journalist and author of the (mostly) nonfiction graphic novel The Woman With Fifty Faces, about the unjustly forgotten artist’s model / con artist Maria Lani. He’s covered politics, science, and the arts for Harper's, The New Yorker, Slate, and Wired. He completed a PhD in art history from NYU and a fellowship at the MacDowell Colony. He's represented by Mary Krienke of Sterling Lord Literistic. Currently at work on two books, one on why we shouldn’t force kids to go to school and another on the underappreciated potential for sport to transform the lives of adults.