Where Are We Going?

When Juxtapoz ended, or I guess I should say, when I knew it was going to end, I was devastated and lost. I had one more issue to complete, the last issue of our 30th year that would be the last issue of 2024 that would be the last issue of the magazine ever. I had a sense a big decision was going to be made, but not because we were doing poorly or the magazine was failing to sustain itself, but that 30 years is a long time in publishing and the direction that everyone felt it should go was differing and I was at a crossroads about it. It’s like being on a melting glacier and thinking the Ice Age is coming back, or that a really cold winter day was going to bring this thing back to life. It was just over, and I needed an idea.

I had seen a painting by New York artist Clayton Schiff at that time (you can see it below) that captured how I felt, I think how the world felt. It was melancholic, sort of funny, kinda weird, existential, sort “where are we going?”, and wherever it is, I’m still at a distance trying to map something that I can see. I remember writing this (okay, I don’t remember, I found what I wrote) about Clayton: “We rarely know what to do with the absurd, let alone define it. We might say to ourselves, ‘Oh, life is so absurd,’ but indeed, is it just an endless sequence (maybe an array?) of illogical events? Or, in fact, do we simply grow to understand that what is ridiculous is what makes sense. The absurd is what makes the color of life.”

So that image was the last cover. And it made sense. It felt absurd to end Juxtapoz, but then again, what was the path that was going to be taken forward? Where were we going? What could be the destination? And maybe, a little sadly, we just all needed to find a way on our own.

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