We have some sad news from Take Magazine: Our February/March 2018 issue is our last print issue following our stopping publishing online at the end of last year. Despite our best efforts, Take has not attracted the audience or advertiser interest to remain viable in the long term.

We’re not stopping Take because we’ve run out of funding. We looked at our revenue projections and came to the decision that it would be in the best interests of our company to look to other business opportunities.

We’re very proud of the work that Take published and the incredible staff, freelancers, and community partners we worked with along the way who pledged strong support for this idea. Without them, we wouldn’t have lasted as long as we did.

Thank you for reading and believing in us. Please keep believing in print, and support local artists and the broader creative community. They need you—now more than ever.

Photo by Paul Specht. Clockwise from top left: Michael Kusek, John Arvanitis, Rick Mortensen, Izzy Berdan, Aaron Taylor-Waldman, Janet Reynolds, Jennifer Hayes, Debbie Way, Emily Hannigan-Page, Stacey Kors

The post A Farewell from Take Magazine appeared first on Take Magazine.

Take Magazine is going to stop publishing.

We’ll stop posting stories online at the end of the month and will be publishing one last issue – our February/March issue – early next year.

Despite our best efforts since we came back to work at the start of the year, Take has not attracted a sizable-enough audience and the advertiser interest to become a viable business for the long term. Looking at the financial projections and where they were headed, we came to the decision that it would be best to look to other business opportunities.

It has been a real pleasure to bring you the stories of New England’s creative community. Not only did we enjoy introducing you to them, but we had a great time working with brilliantly talented writers, photographers, and illustrators to tell their stories.

With so much to read out there, we want to thank you for spending some of your precious time with us. We are very appreciative.

Take Magazine

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Head to our online store now to peruse all our past print editions – especially if you subscribed to Take late in the game, or if you’ve only recently discovered us. Chances are you’re missing a magazine or two, and at $10 an issue, or a full print run for $42-$54, why not be a completest?

Though some of our print editions are nearly two years old, our philosophy was always that the content in print is timeless, meaning Nanette Vonnegut’s feature on Anna Schuleit Haber in our October 2015 print edition may be nearly two years old, but the information in the write-up is just as fresh and revealing as the day it landed in our subscriber’s mailbox. We guarantee the object profiles featured in our “un-gift guide” for the December/January 2016 edition will still inspire awe and envy.

Visit our web store today and order single issues or a full print run today

Top photo by Joanna Chattman

The post Get yourself back issues of Take appeared first on Take Magazine.

Kick off your summer with the most creative party in the South End of Boston.

Boston Center for the Arts will hold its annual fundraising gala event, the BCA Ball & Disco Under the Dome, June 3rd from 7:00 pm until midnight at the historic Cyclorama Building in Boston’s South End. This year follows up the inaugural event in 2016 which had record-breaking attendance and set the standard for this evening that features two great parties in one unforgettable night.

“This year, it was really important for Boston Center for the Arts to put the art front and center at the BCA Ball 2017,” says Gregory Ruffer, President & CEO of Boston Center for the Arts. “So we’ve contracted nearly 70 artists that run the gamut of the visual and performing arts, from classical cello to sampled dance music, contemporary dance to hip hop, spoken word and performance art, and visual arts of all kinds. This is truly an experience with something to delight all arts lovers.”

Support of the BCA Ball 2017 makes Boston Center for the Arts programs possible including those that incubate work by theatre, dance and visual artists; facilitate the development of vital contemporary art and performance; and introduce the community to artists and art that transforms.

The evening features a pop-up exhibition curated by Robert Moeller (with all sales benefitting the BCA), performances by John Lam (Principal Dancer, Boston Ballet), The Wondertwins, and Company One, music by composer Nate Tucker, Mobius Percussion and the Community Music Center of Boston.

PBD Events, will set the stage for the first part of the evening with delicious cocktails and cuisine donated by Gourmet Caterers, Capers Catering, The Catered Affair, East Meets West and MAX Ultimate Food while audiences are immersed in an awe-inspiring multidisciplinary experience. At 9:30 PM, the lights will dim for the second party, Disco Under the Dome, and DJ Natito will spin tunes to keep the party bouncing all night long, with delicious desserts and signature cocktails provided by Gourmet Caterers.

Single tickets for the BCA Ball ($300) and Disco Under the Dome ($100) are now available. For ticket and other event information, visit www.bcaonline.org/bcaball.

The post One Night Two Parties appeared first on Take Magazine.

We’ve put together a quick survey – less than 10 questions. If you have a few minutes to fill it out, we’ll enter you to win a new Take t-shirt and a one-year subscription to the print edition when it returns this October.

Thanks for the feedback!

The post How Do You Take Your Take? appeared first on Take Magazine.

Michael Musto and Mickey Boardman provided Grist for the Mill in the form of hot takes, gossip, and a little controversy.

Easthampton City Arts kicked off its Grist for the Mill speaker series with a pairing of two celeb-obsessed (in the best way) authors and commentators, Michael Musto and Mickey Boardman. A lively crowd in Easthampton’s Boylston Room listened and chatted with the two about keeping spirits up in the age of Trump, the star power of the Kardashians, the scourge of political correctness and “safe spaces” on college campuses, and how Joan Crawford enacted revenge against Bette Davis at the 1963 Oscars.

Photographs by Austin Harney

The post Taken: Grist for the Mill appeared first on Take Magazine.

In a former lifetime in which the person inhabiting the Oval Office had an actual vision based on facts, the arts were recognized as an integral measure of our society. President John F. Kennedy, for instance, said this about the arts: “We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda. It is a form of truth.”

Truth, of course, has taken a hit since 45 took office. That whole “alternative facts” bit. But numbers, or so the saying goes, don’t lie. So with that in mind, we took a quick look at the potential math implications of 45’s federal budget.

First the overview:

• Number of programs and agencies due for elimination: 62
• Number of programs within the Environmental Protection Agency alone: 50

Other programs due for funding cuts—or outright elimination—focus on everything from literacy to low-income home energy improvements to investigating chemical accidents. The enormous breadth and scope of impact on those least able to manage without these programs is breathtaking.

But since we’re an arts and culture magazine, we’re going to focus our hyperventilation on the potential impact of these devastating cuts to art and culture in New England. The proposed budget calls for eliminating all funding for the National Endowment for the Arts ($152 million) and the National Endowment for the Humanities ($155 million).

What NEA funding means to New England:

For fiscal year 2017, New England states received $2.591 million in NEA grants overall, according to the NEA website. Here’s who got what:

• Connecticut: 15 organizations, $310,000
• Massachusetts: 62 organizations, $1,672,000
• Maine: 11 organizations, $242,000
• New Hampshire: 6 organizations, $120,000
• Rhode Island: 9 organizations, $152,500
• Vermont: 4 organizations, $95,000

But the math adds up even less when you look beyond straight grants. Ann Wicks, communications manager for the New England Foundation on the Arts (NEFA)—one of six regional arts organizations funded by the NEA and private donations—explains. Arts organizations can potentially receive NEA dollars in three ways:

• an outright allocation of a grant the organization applies for itself
• an allocation from NEFA through NEA dollars provided to NEFA
• from NEA dollars given to state arts organizations, such as the Massachusetts Cultural Council

Wicks says about 15 percent of NEFA’s annual budget comes from NEA dollars. Beyond grants, NEFA uses those dollars to support artists in other, less direct ways, Wicks says. The Creative Ground Directory, for instance, is a free resource that lists artists and other creators around New England so that it’s easier to find appropriate collaborators for projects. In FY2016, NEFA made a total of 462 grants equaling $3.4 million. New England states received $829,947 of those NEFA grants.

In other words, the loss of funding to New England arts and humanities organizations could be even larger. “NEA support is very important to New England and the creative sector,” she says.

It’s a point that is echoed nationally. The National Assembly of State Arts Agencies (NASAA), a national nonprofit that assists state arts agencies, offers this math about how NEA dollars improve the economy at large:

• The arts return $22.3 billion in tax revenue to federal, state, county, and municipal governments.
• Rural areas, low-income communities, and schools would feel the effects of this funding loss disproportionately from reductions. State arts agencies (using state and federal funds) award more than 25% of their grants to rural areas, 54% to low-income communities, and 45% to arts education projects.
• Every NEA dollar leverages more than $9 in matching funds, meaning that the impact of the NEA loss is just the beginning of the potential financial loss for arts organizations.

Cutting the NEA and NEH seem especially confusing given this math offered by NASAA: The NEA receives 0.004% of the total Federal budget, which is less than ½ of one hundredth of a percent.

That math also doesn’t add up when you consider the numbers presented by The Guardian. The British paper reports the following expenses incurred by taxpayers less than 50 days into 45’s residency:

• $56.6 million (or a cool $500,000 a day) to protect Trump Tower. That was through March 1. Assuming that Mrs. 45 stays until June for Mini-45 to finish school, that dollar amount could add another $46 million, bringing the total to $102 million.
• $3+million estimated cost for EACH weekend jaunt to golf work at his Mar-a-Lago Resort (a place where he doubled entry fees from $100,000 to $200,000 the day after he was elected).
• $97,380 for hotels for Secret Service to protect Eric Trump (that would be his son on those business interests 45 still hasn’t divested himself of) while he visited a condominium development in Uruguay. This is just one trip.

And finally this statistic: 45’s proposed military spending increase in his federal budget? $54 billion.

Something definitely doesn’t add up.

Does this irritate you as much as it does us? Here are a few links if you want to #TakeAction. See you on the streets.

Pen.org
artsactionfund.org
Change.org
The Official White House Petition to Save Arts Funding
Contact Your Representative
Arts Advocacy Day – Washington, DC
#SaveTheNEA

Top image courtesy Royal Talens

The post #TakeAction: Doing the NEA Defunding Math appeared first on Take Magazine.

There are countless reasons why we love living in New England. Sure, there are the tourist faves, like Cape Cod beaches, Vermont maple syrup, Maine lobster, and, of course, our fall foliage. There’s also the wonderful quality of life: historic New England homes nestled in the hills and valleys; farm stands and farm-to-table restaurants; small towns with quaint main streets populated by local businesses. All proximate to the big cities of the northeast.

But New England also has a vibrant and dynamic arts scene, born from our region’s hundreds of colleges and arts schools, as well as a plethora of old mill towns full of raw, affordable industrial space being rapidly converted into artists’ studios.

While there are regional magazines that play up New England’s country charm, and state and city publications that address the arts to some degree, what we’ve lacked is something that covers all of our diverse, edgy, and engaging contemporary culture—from Greenwich, Connecticut to Caribou, Maine. Since Take Magazine’s inception in 2015, its mission has been to fill that particular void, sharing stories through thoughtful prose and gorgeous imagery of interesting people doing extraordinary things all over New England. You can expect much of the same when we return to print later this year.

But there’s more that we need to do.

In the six months that Take has been out of print, our world has been turned upside down. A divisive and hate-filled election cycle has led to a thin-skinned, bullying businessman using the power of the presidency to tweet unspeakably vile personal attacks, actively censor government agencies, denounce the media as the opposition, and traffic in alternative facts. Orwell’s fictional dystopian autocracy, made real on American soil. Most recently, and perhaps most egregiously, the president has signed an order that discriminates against one particular religion while favoring another, banning some from coming to our once-welcoming shores. To “make America great again,” he is going against our country’s core values. The Statue of Liberty’s torch is flickering; the world is watching.

We’re angry, but we’re also energized—as are so many others in the arts, who are using their talents and creativity to powerfully, and beautifully, express their dissent through their work. #TakeAction, a feature that’s already appearing on our website and will be integral to the relaunched print mag, will promote New England’s artistic and cultural voices of political protest. We hope that, in doing so, we’ll inspire others to rise up and join us in this critical fight for freedom and democracy.

Now, more than ever.

Stacey Kors
Editor in Chief

The post A Letter from our new Editor in Chief appeared first on Take Magazine.

Michael Kusek announced today that Stacey Kors purchased a percentage of Take Industries. Based in Northampton, Massachusetts, Take Industries is the publisher of the award-winning Take Magazine and www.thetakemagazine.com.

The terms of the sale are private and the sale price will not be disclosed.Take Magazine began publishing in January 2015.  After six issues and several awards, Take suspended publishing a print edition in June 2016 and switched its focus to building the editorial offerings and audience of the online edition.

With Kors’ investment, Take has been able to clear all past debt to freelancers and vendors and begin work on relaunching the print edition, currently slated for late summer/early fall 2017. Existing subscriptions will restart with this issue.

“Since I started Take Magazine, I have been on the lookout for a business partner who saw the potential in a magazine that covered culture makers across New England. Stacey arrived at a time when her investment could build on our past success and provide us with the capital we needed for stability and to grow and expand,” said Kusek.

In addition to her ownership stake, Kors will join the Take team as Editor in Chief. In the next few weeks the magazine will be announcing additional staff hires as well the opening of new offices.

“From the moment I saw Take, I knew that I wanted to be a part of it,” said Kors. “New England is such a vibrant region, with so much happening artistically and culturally; Take is the only publication that covers New England’s new culture, and the people spearheading it. I’m thrilled to help present an editorially rich, visually stunning platform for our region’s most creative voices.”

Kors’ publishing career began in Western Massachusetts when she worked as a college intern for the region’s first high-end culture magazine, New England Monthly. Over the two decades in between, the New York native has worked as an editor, music critic, and arts features writer for the Financial Times, New York Times, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Salon, and TimeOut New York.

The post New Investment in Take Magazine appeared first on Take Magazine.

Dear Readers:

Many of you have been following our ups and downs over the last year. One issue that has resonated has been our difficulty in paying freelancers that have done work for our print and online editions. As this most challenging year draws to a close, I’d like to let you know some good news on that front.

This week, thanks to new investment in Take Magazine that has been in the works for the last few months, we mailed full payments to all freelancers that have open invoices with us. Very talented people who did excellent work for us waited far too long to be compensated. This should never have happened and – lessons fully learned – will not happen again.

Additionally, this investment also allows for Take to continue publishing into 2017 and beyond – please keep an eye out early in the new year for more news concerning our plans.

Thank you very much for continuing to be one of our readers. On behalf of all of us at Take, I’d like to wish you all the best the holiday season.

Michael Kusek
Publisher

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