Letter From the Art Director

Dear reader, 

As always, thank you for picking up this issue of The Wake. As the year continues to bring us challenges, it’s important for us to seek simple pleasures often. Whether it’s reading this issue of The Wake in a sunny spot in your apartment with some sweet morning coffee or flipping through a few pages between your Zoom classes, I hope this magazine can bring you even a few ounces of joy.

It’s a new year and hopefully a fresh start. While the turn of a calendar doesn’t dissolve our problems, vaccines and summer are peering around the corner and I hope things are looking up for us. We have learned so much about ourselves and our world through this experience– while much of that knowledge is quite grim, we have also seen so much resilience, strength, and community throughout the past year.

Within that, I feel that many of us have also learned the importance of finding and inserting joy within our lives often. With the amount of stress, loneliness, and hardship that we’ve endured, I think it’s shown us how necessary it is to seek things that make us happy, even if it’s just cuddling with your pet, going for a walk outside, calling a hometown friend, or reading your favorite magazine. 

I hope the spring brings you growth and gives you reassurance that we can, and will, take on this year. And I hope The Wake can be here to aid in that journey. 

Love, 

Sydnney Margova Islam