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An online magazine, community, and educational resource for the arts.
ISSUE 1 | FALL 2008
Editor's Note
Here come the balloons and confetti and the cheap hors d’oeuvres. A snow globe tableau of optimism, wherein a founding editor stands atop his desk, toasting hypothetical readers with a flute of champagne. Celebration preserved in glass for future audiences to admire or ridicule depending on its outcome. Meanwhile, an economy derails and a new regime inherits disaster beneath a redundancy of November grays. And so another online magazine is born.

Why, you might ask? Why do we need yet another publication for the arts? We don’t. But we could certainly do with some better ones.

AmbushArts.com is committed to offering its readers and contributors an engaging alternative to the slough of art journals out there. This isn’t a matter of adding a venue; it’s about creating a magazine that advocates artists whose work is well-worth our valuable time. It’s about promoting the individuals behind the work, having discussions with them, so that art is not divorced from its origin and audiences can gain a greater understanding of the creative process. It’s also about readers connecting with the work in the magazine, and providing a means for that affinity to develop into something greater.

With that in mind, I’ve included links to places where you can find more work from each of the artists in this issue. Spend some time exploring what they have to offer; you’ll be grateful you did. And if one of these artists has something to say to you, please consider giving them your support. Attending a show or buying an album, a painting, or a book of poetry truly makes a difference.

Whether or not you decide to seek out more from these artists, I sincerely hope that you enjoy your experience with the first issue. If you are touched by any of the work here, I’m sure the artists would love to hear from you. Feel free to contact AmbushArts.com with any relevant feedback you may have, and I’ll pass it along.

Finally, I’d like to thank the artists appearing in this issue for taking a chance on a new magazine. It is truly an honor to publish your work. In spite of all the gloomy headlines and Wall Street shenanigans, you’ve given us plenty to celebrate in the uncertain days ahead.

Ad lucem,

John Thomas
Founding Editor
Reader Survey
Each issue of AmbushArts.com will include a reader survey, the compiled results of which will be made available in the following issue. To kick things off, AmbushArts.com would like to get an idea of how much our readers are currently supporting the arts. If you'd like to take part in the survey, please fill in all the fields below. Your participation is anonymous and greatly appreciated.
Do you consider yourself a practicing artist?
How many times have you supported live music in the last three months?
How many art galleries have you visited in the last three months?
How many theater or dance productions have you attended in the last three months?
How many books of poetry have you purchased in the last three months, not counting used books?
How many novels?
"Prayer"
by Ingebrigt Håker Flaten
From the album The Year of the Boar by the Ingebrigt Håker Flaten Quintet.
"Voodoo Nights in Cleveland"
by Doug Ramspeck
Strip malls dark as goat’s blood on city streets.
Refinery flames creating their own blue peristyles.
"Imagining a Smaller House"
"The Voice of Running Water"
by L.A. Seidensticker
Years ago a husband I loved
… though not as much as I earlier had …
"Sometimes, It Really Is Different This Time"
by Norman Ball
Breathless talk of trillion-dollar GDP's can subscribe one to a false sense of strength and unassailable might. In fact little more than a massively constructed fragility may lie behind these impressive arrays of zeroes.