Kathleen Mark ‘21
Michael Zhou ‘21
Epolitan, EA’s art and literary magazine, was founded in 1961 by Benjamin Foster. Run by students, the Epolitan is published once a year to celebrate the artistic and creative achievements of EA students. The magazine showcases a myriad of work, ranging from writing to painting to photography.
The word Epolitan, according to Foster himself, represents a blank slate. Quoted in May, 1961 and printed in the 51st anniversary edition of the magazine, he explains, “‘Epolitan’ must be one of the simplest words in our language. It does not come from the Greek Episcopos meaning ‘bishop’ or polis meaning ‘city’, or the Chinese tong meaning ‘secret society’, or the Hebrew kova meaning ‘hat.’ It has no connotations, denotations, overtones, or diminished sevenths. There are no English, zoological, ecclesiastical, obsolete, Armenian, or Hottentot spellings. First known usage, 1961. Neither Noah ever heard of it. It has no relation to cosmopolitan, neapolitan, epollicate, or episolic. It has no verbal, adjectival, or gerundive forms. In short, it is the ideal word.”
As one of the faculty advisors of the club and head of the Art Department, David Sigel reaches out to many art students and recommends that they submit work to Epolitan. He has also created a classroom environment that promotes student pride and ownership of their own work. The students in the club are also responsible for finding people to submit their work to be published. Many of the members are in the Creative Writing club and heavily involved in EA’s visual arts, enabling them to curate impressive content for the magazine.
Some of the visual art submissions include paintings, ceramics, woodworking, 3D work, and photos. Literary pieces, both poetry and prose, appear throughout all editions of the publication as well. As Christopher McCreary, US English teacher, explains, “Some pieces come out of the creative writing club, but many of the fiction pieces come from people’s own writing outside of class.” The work does not have to be from one from art or English classes at Episcopal, but can be any work students would like to submit. For some students, submission can be a daunting task. As McCreary says, “I think writing, because sometimes people feel that writing can be harder to share, some people think it reveals more about themselves.”
Currently, Sigel and McCreary are working with their student staff for the annual edition. McCreary states, “I started to be the co-faculty advisor to the club 14 years ago when I first started here [at EA]. Sigel joined the year after.” This spring, the 2019-2020 staff will publish their issue. Regarding what he is most excited about for this year’s edition, McCreary expresses, “I’m looking forward to working with a lot of staff that I haven’t worked with before, also a lot of the students have a great eye for the editorial parts of the magazine.”
Epolitan is an important part of Episcopal’s history, as Sigel explains, “the history of Epolitan is that not one publication is like the other, but the one constant is the passion and creativity, and the desire to celebrate this with our community.”
Alum Olivia Cipperman ‘19 expresses her gratitude for the magazine in her years at EA: “Epolitan is a community exploration of creativity in which artists of all types come together to make something beautiful. I love all it presents each year and all it represents. I’m glad that I could contribute to the project multiple times. I was honored to be part of Epolitan as a tradition.”