Letter from the Editors

Hamlet Tries to Follow His Father's Ghost, Eugène Delacroix, 1835

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the debut issue of Love & Theft! In this journal, we make space for the seemingly inexhaustible dialogue between art and influence. Think Hamlet, a play with striking similarities to the Danish folk tale Amleth; Brahms’ first symphony was described by contemporaries as “Beethoven’s Tenth”; in the novel Frankenstein, Mary Shelley grafted scientific lectures—some borrowed verbatim—onto a ghost story; a century later, conceptual artist Sherrie Levine exhibited photographs of famous photographs in a legally fraught conceptual experiment. From Homer to Beyoncé, countless creatives have remolded clay from the work of predecessors—in honor or jest or the primal urge to build on what’s come before.

The contributors in this issue continue that tradition, forging new pathways from familiar points of origin.

Nina Michiko Tam’s “An Appointment in Samarra” reimagines a fable retold by W. Somerset Maugham in 1933, later cited by John O’Hara as an epigraph to a novel of the same name. The lineage doesn’t end there, as noted in the blog Extracts—like a game of intergenerational telephone, Maugham most likely pulled from playwright Jean Cocteau, who may have seen iterations by Egyptian scholar Al-Suyuti or the Persian poet Rumi. The earliest version we could find, from the Babylonian Talmud, is paired with Maugham's at the end of Tam's addition. We think you’ll be surprised by how little thread from the original carries through.

Meanwhile, muralist, painter, and gallery owner Gabriel Pons traces his practice to the communal nature of skateboard culture. In a wide-ranging interview, Pons details how his collages evolved from the inside of a high school locker to the façade of Fredericksburg’s iconic Purina Tower. The pieces we’ve featured here juxtapose unlikely traditions. Fate and Fortune #2 blends graffiti and newspaper clippings with Greek mythology; Equilibrium Page 514 layers comics and film stills over mathematical formulas. As Pons puts it, he thinks of his work like a DJ might, scouring bins of records for “that gem of a music sample.” Take a second look and you’ll find new sources peeking through every panel, hiding in plain sight.

Our final installation offers a modern take on the “archigram,” an avant-garde design genre formalized in 1961. Where early practitioners turned to writers and architects for inspiration—see Ron Herron’s Walking City— Armenian siblings Davit and Mary Jilavyan render new worlds from film, painting, even furniture. First conceived as an outlet from more client-focused projects at their 3D design studio LEMEAL, the images in this issue locate viewers in whimsical landscapes. What if animal-themed footstools roamed the savannah? Might a less disastrous version of Jurassic Park have offered VIP digs? How does Norse folk music translate into time and place? We invite you to wander through these thought experiments in search of fresh inspiration.

In the meantime, we thank you for dropping by our digital outpost. If you want to learn more about our mission or the kind of work we’re looking for, feel free to drop by our about page. Questions, queries, submissions, and leads are all welcome at loveandtheft@gmail.com.

Cheers,

Edward Helfers & Chloe Irwin