Aorta is a horizontally run collective with a central core of editorial, submissions and design team leaders. Every year we invite new volunteers to participate in creating our publication, submitting work, organizing fundraisers and participating in several annual media conferences and art festivals.
HOW DOES THIS WORK?
We do envision our structure as a big artistic heart, and we love to pump new blood in it. Before you become the artery of the core project (our publication) we ask that you first support us as a system of vessels and capillaries if you permit our corny analogy. We start our volunteers off with smaller tasks and supporting the collective in various teams (list below) to assist with fundraising or events.If you have a secific skillset you want to share with the collective (or learn) you can request to be placed in a specific team. As with any collective activity, you grow and take on work according to talents and commitment. We appreciate all levels of involvement, from occasional blogging to consistent input. *Please note that we are all volunteer based collective, this means is we don’t get paid for our work or time.
OUR MEETINGS
Meetings happen once a month. To keep informed about the dates via google groups email paulina@aortamagazine.com
Twice a year during production times we pretty much ignore all organizational issues and deal with print stuff.
If you are itching to learn about magazine production from start to finish and have design or editorial skills (and a love of DIY publishing) join the editorial and design team!
OUR TEAMS
EDITORIAL TEAM
Editorial Coordinator is the team leader and is responsible for contacting the editors who conduct interviews. EC will than gather all of the assigned interviews and hand them out to team members to be edited. The EC is responsible for getting back all of the articles by the established deadline, all in final edited form.
DESIGN TEAM
Design Coordinator, is responsible for getting all of the artists photos in great quality. They are also responsible for any hand lettering that may be done, cover art as well as illustrators. The DC coordinates work flow and makes sure all printed materials and layout is done by the estimated deadline. The Designers are responsible for the layout of the articles (text included) and for handing the work over to the DC. DC puts it all together in a form of the magazine. Sometimes designers also work on fliers, media kits, business cards, photo edits, promotional materials and whatever else comes up. We try to be fresh, and always appreciate creative input. design teams meet at their own time if neccessary and report back to the collective.
GRANT WRITING TEAM
Grants Coordinator researches grants for the magazine and facilitates grant writing meetings outside of the collective meetings. They can also divide research and grant writing between various grant writing team members to make the work load easier, but are responsible for putting all of the parts and materials together. The main focus is to get the grants out before deadlines.
Grant team members are responsible to check in with the GC about their progress before the given deadline. This is great practice for folks who want to get to know and practice the grant writing process.
EVENTS TEAM
Event Team Coordinator is responsible for coordinating and dividing duties to the event team members. The team handles food, snacks, and booking music or art shows, writing press releases and flier distribution at other events prior to the show. The team also deals with art submissions for art shows and is responsible for installing art and sending any art back to the artists.
Aorta is a ton of fun, we are artists, free spirits, feminists, movers and shakers. Even though we are flexible and relaxed we do have some very basic policies.
ACCOUNTABILITY
If you are committing to a project – please check in with the team coordinator about the progress and completion.
If you can’t follow through with work please do not pull out of the collective without talking to us. Most of the time, we can help redistribute the workload and will help rather than scorn you – never that!. We’re all in it together!
STEPPING UP
If you see that someone is struggling and is overwhelmed with the task, please step up to help if you can. We encourage mutual help and the spirit of comradery.
TRANSPARENCY
Despite of the fact that team leaders are usually busy with coordinating things, they are also asked to be available and accountable towards their team members. If you have a question – feel free to ask them, they are there to support the project as well as you. We encourage communication and transparency between the team coordinators and team members.
If problems and issues arise, please feel free to reach out to the core collective members and ask to set up a mediating meeting.
If you commit to a task and cannot deliver – please let us know. If you have had a great experience, a success, an insight- let them and the rest of us know. Your success and effort is greatly appreciated, we want to hear about it.
Also, if you have to change your involvement hours or want us to do things differently, if you have a valuable critique, a way to improve how we work, an new idea- do share! We are here to listen, learn and be open to your suggestions.
COMMUNICATION
We communicate via email mostly, if you are on the email list you may get bombarded with messages about collective *stuff *, not all of them are urgent or that important to answer, but we ask you at least skim them once. We usually don’t post our complaints on the public email forum, we resolve these in meetings and in person.
BLOGGING:
To all of the writers, thinkers and opinionated folks. We have an opportunity to set you up with a blog to rant and rave about the state of the art world, or review shows or post pics of inspiring art. Let us know if you want to be Aorta’s blogger. We do reserve the right to approve postings.
FUNDRAISING
We like to have fun now and again, so we try our best to organize art shows and benefits just to keep the blood going. Its fun, and its a great fundraising tool. All of the money goes to the costs of print and operational costs.
SPONSORSHIP
We are sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA) and have their 501(c)3 status, so we can promise any donors a tax deduction. If you know any rich folks, let us know!
GRANTS
Who doesn’t like a big check? Grants are great for us because we can pay for a whole magazine run just with one grant and the events money gets spend on mailing fees and snacks. It works!
CONFERENCES & SHOWS
We try to participate in many conferences, it allows us to connect with other folks and gives us the motivational injection to keep us rolling the whole year round. It also gives us much needed exposure.
Anyone can be a part of these with the Aorta crew. We will ask the volunteers to do some tabling at events now and again, and do the promotional work. It’s awesome to network and get to talk to amazing people from all over the country and attend workshops. Let us know if you are interested in tabling events.
OUR PRESENCE
Since we believe in this project so much, we try to represent Aorta everywhere we go. We talk about it, we recruit, we look for new ideas and work. We ask you to promote us when you can, word of mouth is still the best way to spread information.
STORES
We are currently distributed by :
OAKLAND
Issues
Pendragon
Pegasus
SAN FRANCISCO
Modern Times
Needles & Pens
Peanut Gallery
CHICAGO
Quimby’s
NEW YORK
Bluestockings
ONLINE
BuyOlympia.com
aortamagazine.com
ONLINE PRESENCE:
www.aortamagazine.com
http://www.facebook.com/aortamagazine
SO here we are… We hope this is informative and you want to join us to make some noise, create some waves and make the next issues happen- email paulina@aortamagazine.com
LOVE
AORTA COLLECTIVE