April 10, 2006

Charitable organization launches arts magazine:
New quarterly for visual arts crowd

TORONTO-Magazine publishers who've pined for registered-charity status will slap their foreheads when they hear this one.

This is the story of one woman's impassioned quest to support the arts via book publishing and exhibitions; she sailed through the charity-registration process and then introduced a magazine. Moral: launch the magazine after you get charity status.

So it is with Magenta magazine. About 50,000 copies were distributed last week to Toronto-area Globe and Mail residential subscribers. Magenta is a quarterly published by Magenta Publishing for the Arts, which received registered-charity status on March 15, 2005.

The force behind Magenta is MaryAnn Camilleri, who returned to Canada in 2004 after working for 10 years in the busy world of art publishing in New York City. "Portfolio magazines have always been a favourite of mine," she writes in a note to readers. "The sad truth is that there are so few venues around to showcase some of the amazing talent that's out there."

That's where Magenta comes in-Camilleri's charitable arts foundation. "We want to be the new vehicle for visual communication in Canada for art enthusiasts of all types."

Camilleri says the next issue, due out in June, will have a national circulation of 100,000 and possibly some newsstand presence. The Globe and Mail is a sponsor; the debut issue carries an extraordinary signed proud-sponsor message from Globe publisher Phillip Crawley, complete with his mugshot. It's not clear what role advertising will play in the mag; there's little of it-the Globe has the OBC while Clarity Digital Management has the IFC. Asked if Magenta would accept advertising from Nike, for example, she said, "No, because that's a Globe client and I would refer it to the Globe." How about Nikon? "Nikon is technically a cross-over client for the Globe so.the Globe and I would work with the client together." She stressed that Magenta's role is to promote talent, not make money.

The editor of Magenta is Camilleri's longtime friend Doug Wallace, who is also deputy editor at Wish and executive editor at Gardening Life; both titles are published by St. Joseph Media. Camilleri has recruited some Globe moonlighters, as well. Magenta's art director Vanessa Wyse and photo director Clare Vander Meersch are associate art director and director of photography, respectively, at the Globe's Report on Business magazine.