Perla to Cover Art and Culture of San Antonio

Posted on October 18, 2002

Perla magazine, a San Antonio-based arts, culture, literature and news publication, premieres in San Antonio this week. Perla features the work of regional artists, writers and performers and promotes close cultural collaboration among San Antonio, the Southwest and Mexico.

"This is an especially exciting time to live in San Antonio. Thanks to the hard work and dedication of local artists, visionary curators and directors, our city and state have become a national focal point of artistic innovation. perla celebrates and promotes the culture that is our region's greatest asset," said Elaine Wolff, Managing editor of Perla.

Perla is a non-profit magazine published by an eight-person collective. In addition to coverage of regional arts and humanities, each issue will feature a theme section guest-edited by persons from a wide range of artistic, academic and professional disciplines. The theme for Issue One is "desire" and has been jointly edited by the publishing collective. The first issue contains articles by south Texas journalists, local poets and fiction writers, profile of a local leader, book reviews and the work of prominent and emergent regional artists.

The premiere issue, printed in San Antonio by Lopez Printing, is designed and produced by Barbara Schelling and Coral Diaz of Pale Design, also in San Antonio. Perla will be available at various local organizations and retail outlets such as Blue Star Art Space, Bower Gallery, Wren, Nolita, and Inside Out.

Regional coverage includes News and Politics, Arts & Culture, Media (film, literature, music, internet), Environs (development, environment, architecture), Food & Travel. Perla also features a freeform theme-based section created in partnership with the Bower Gallery in San Antonio. The theme for each issue will be selected by rotating curators, and interpreted freely through a combination of essays, poetry, fiction, critical discourse, and visual arts. The initial issues of Perla will be approximately 80 pages, four color documents with low print runs (10,000).