Sarah Ingram, Art Bar
Last year, Sarah Ingram pulled together her interests in photography, documentary and film-making, and a love for all things art and analogue, to launch Art Bar magazine.
Founded with her husband Ira, Art Bar features contemporary art, photography, film-making, artists with roots in skateboarding, and musicians with other forms of art practice. They produce their magazine from a studio in Downtown LA, and are coming to London this week to showcase their magazine at the magCulture Fair. Here, Sarah discusses the process of launching and producing the magazine as she prepares to fly over.
What are you doing this morning?
I begin my morning at my home desk, and then transfer over to our studio on the outskirts of the Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles.
As a quick backstory, after being a freelance filmmaker for 20+ years, I took a full time job as an in-house cinematographer for a production company on the opposite side of town… Right as the magazine was launching! I thought to myself—I can do both. I was wrong. My commute was three hours a day round trip, and I wasn’t giving the magazine the full attention that it deserved. After a year of this, I quit the job, and I am now full time Art Bar. I have been living this new dream now for merely two weeks, but it is already night and day. I am overflowing with joy to be able to work on this project consistently, on my time. No more hellish commute, my studio is a quick 15 minute drive. My instincts had been screaming at me to quit that job for months.
Today, I will have some egg on toast, and then work on some final edits for issue four of Art Bar. Yesterday I went to a nice artist talk, and tomorrow we will be preparing to leave to London for the magCulture Fair! Daily routines are a combo of magazine edits, artist correspondence or interviews, magazine admin and shipping, and studio time. Now that I have more free time, the goal is to tackle all of the video content we have been shooting, more travel based features for the magazine, and more self care.
Describe your work environment
At home, my desk window has some plants and trees outside, and there are some wild parrots that live in the trees. They alternate residency with the crows.
At the studio, we have loft style windows, just across the lot there is a metal scrap yard, so the vibe is very industrial—but we have a decent amount of space. I have a photo darkroom there, a shipping station, a collection of magazines, art books, and vintage cameras, with places to edit (or get my hands dirty), depending on the day. We recently moved studios due to some bad leaks, so I am still unpacking and hanging art.
I split my time between working from home and the studio. I am usually working in solitude, unless visiting an artist. My husband Ira is the co-founder of the magazine and contributor, so I am lucky to work with him on the fun parts of our process, bounce ideas, and do final notes together. We also cover a lot of interviews together. Our creative director Jason Kulp is in the bay area of California, and our copy editor Valen Lambert is in Oregon and on the road quite a bit. Other than contributors, that is the whole team. (Minus the printer and distributor).
My roots are in punk rock and metal, but when I’m working I like to listen to moody cinematic music, synth, witch house, doom metal, old country or folk, and if I need an extra energy boost—I’ll play something like Cardi B. If I’m just doing busy work and not focusing on copy, I play a lot of podcasts.
Which magazine do you first remember?
As a kid, I remember Rolling Stone, and later on I loved fashion magazines like Flaunt because the photo spreads were artistic. For my partner Ira it would be Thrasher. One of my first jobs was at Tower Records and we carried magazines. I loved Swindle, While You Were Sleeping, and Vice.
Aside from yours, what’s your favourite magazine/zine?
For a new magazine, I love Elastic. There is a great new zine called Healing Arts from Barry McGee and Heavy Manners Library. One of the photographers that we covered in issue one, Valerie J. Bower, is releasing some great zines. Another photographer featured in our next issue , Robert LeBlanc, has an amazing magazine called Comfort Magazine. Some others: Aperture, Interview, Perfect, King Kong, Popeye, and Closer (skateboarding).
What other piece of media would you recommend?
L.A. TACO is a great digital publication. They are on the ground doing reporting that big TV stations don’t have access to, and this was extremely crucial during events like the I.C.E. raids in Los Angeles. They also cover great local fares like tacos and Art exhibitions.
We also love documentaries, art films, and film festivals.
Describe Art Bar in three words
Inspiring, Accessible, Community
You’ve been a filmmaker; how does that discipline compare to making magazines?
As a filmmaker you have to become very resourceful. There are no excuses, only solutions. When you are doing DIY filmmaking, you learn to wear many hats, and live with the long haul over instant gratification. When you are working on bigger productions, you learn how to work across many departments for a common goal. I think this combination helped me with the magazine process.
However, I will say that the most important part of my film background that helped with this magazine was my documentary work. We’ve done hundreds of interviews, and this strongly influenced the way we approach artists in Art Bar. Our features are more storytelling based. We are trying to learn about artist’s lives and how it influences their work and process. We aim for authentic conversations vs. pretentious jargon and generic questions.
There are many magazines dedicated to art and creativity. What makes Art Bar stand out?
And we love all of those other art magazines! I can’t speak for all art magazines, but some of them focus on current exhibitions, reviews, and critiques. We avoid reporting on trends or the ‘scene.‘ Our stories are evergreen conversations about the lives of artists and their body of work. We are thick, and printed on high quality paper. Our artist features are 10-20 pages long, and our page count is packed with lots of full bleed artwork. Some other magazines are doing this well. One thing that might set us apart from them is that we cover a variety of genres. Instead of just New Contemporary, or Pop Surrealism, we also cover a lot of photography, filmmakers, street artists, with a few legends mixed in: Our next issue will feature Ralph Steadman, the artist and illustrator also known for his Gonzo journalism work with Hunter S. Thompson.
We do not promote gatekeeping or elitism when it comes to the art world or the creative process. People are connecting with that and feeling inspired by our stories. Whether you are an art collector, an established artist, or an emerging artist—we hope that this content ignites a spark in you and your love for art. We also have a focus on the importance of using creativity for mental health and art as therapy.
Highlight one story from the latest issue that sums up the magazine
Oh this is tough. Because we cover different artists for different reasons. But I’ll pick one, and it is kind of unlike our typical feature. We did an in-depth 20 page DIY roadmap with independent filmmaker Rick Charnoski called ‘How to Eat an Elephant.‘ It is a comprehensive, start-to-finish blueprint for the ungovernable creator, manifesting a film with no money to start with. And the movie is brilliant! It is called ‘Warm Blood,’ and he is currently working on his next film.
This movie was an example of how and why you should Do It Yourself. We talk about how daunting the process is, and break it down into bite size pieces. Along the way, the life of this project could not have existed without community and extreme devotion to the process. Whether you are a filmmaker or not, this feature can serve as a handbook for self-starting any project, validation on what we all go through to get to the end product, and a reminder that it’s OK to break the rules. In fact, no rules is highly encouraged.
What has publishing taught you that may be helpful to anybody else planning to make their own magazine?
You kind of have to be a psychopath. You have to REALLY love magazines and publishing, because it is a lot of work, but it is so rewarding. When things get overwhelming, remember why you started. Getting touching feedback from our readers really keeps me going. It is a marathon, not a sprint. Build a good team. Have a strong vision, and realise that it is going to evolve as you get into it.
I wanted to make the type of magazine I had been looking for but couldn’t find. Make something you would be excited to find on a newsstand, or in your mailbox.
As far as the nitty gritty, like printing, distribution, or e-commerce, etc., fall down the rabbit hole and do tons of research. We got paper samples from at least 7 printers in 3 different countries. Sit with it and find what you love. Have a good relationship with your printer and learn as much as you can about the process. If you are running your own online shop, you are going to spend countless days getting all of that dialed in. If you are working with a distributor, don’t plan on that as your main source of income.
Set up workflows and timelines. There are many steps from confirming artists or contributors, to receiving the content or artwork needed, layouts, copy edits, proofs, remembering to properly credit things, get approvals, and much more. And they all have to happen in a certain order and timeline to get to print. No matter how much I swear that we will get ahead of schedule, there are always some late night crunch modes before we are sending the final draft to the printer. Embrace those moments, that’s what publishing is all about.
Respect your contributors and value your readers.
What are you most looking forward to this coming week?
The magCulture Fair of course! We are flying out to London in the next few days. I’m excited to meet other publishers at the Fair. We are also going to do some artist visits while we are out there for future Art Bar issues.