Dear Readers,

I’m sitting in a media booth at an art fair on a sweltering late August afternoon writing this editor’s letter. It’s not working because I keep getting interrupted, but there’s air conditioning, so I’m not complaining.

Even though fair-goers tend to have a glazed look on their face by the time they wander into the magazine section of an art fair, they somehow come to life when they get to Artillery, tethering me to the booth with their many questions. I did manage to get away toward the end of the day however, and go see some art. Since so little time was left, I made sure to visit Co/Lab this time, a section that mainly features nonprofit and artist-run spaces. I knew this was where I would most likely see fresh work as opposed to the obviously market-driven art so often exhibited at fairs.

Now that the fair is over (and on to the next!), most of the art I saw is just a blur. But there was this one piece, a plastic fork—apparently used—hanging on the gallery wall just like another piece of art, even though it was clearly just an ordinary plastic fork, perhaps at one time accompanied by some take-out food. The flimsy cheap white tongs were even stained an orange-brown, seemingly glistening from a recent meal.

I didn’t pay much attention to the fork the first time I saw it. I progressed swiftly to the next piece, which I found to be much more interesting (even though I can hardly recall it now). I was ready to move on when the artist stopped me and wanted to know what I thought of his fork piece.

I told him that I had in fact seen it, but it hadn’t interested me enough to ponder its significance. The artist promptly launched into a spiel about the symbolism of the used plastic fork, how it represented artists and poverty and how Top Ramen noodles were the only meal starving artists could afford during their student days. I listened to him for a while then asked, “How much?” He told me $1,000. I flinched at first, but then decided that that was probably a good price. (Why not ask $1,000?) But mainly—the artist made sure I knew—the fork was in honor of a now successful friend who still eats Top Ramen to this day, even though he could easily afford a daily diet of Lobster Bisque.

It wasn’t until after the fair, however, that the plastic fork really began to resonate for me. It wasn’t because it was a sublime piece of art, (okay, it’s a little silly to suggest that it’s sublime); rather, it was the artist, that continued to fascinate me. Whether he had just finished a bowl of Top Ramen and decided at the last minute to put the fork on the wall and call it art really doesn’t matter. What matters is how much he wanted to tell me, his audience, why it was important to him.

Or was he just playing with my mind? Whatever the case may be, I felt like he was making art, right in front of me, and that that’s what creating is all about. And that’s what this issue is all about. The artists. No fairs, no biennials, no auctions. Just the artists, the ones who really make this big, expansive art world go ’round, and are probably eating Top Ramen noodles right now.