Phaedrus. Meaning bright. Meaning radiant. A discussion between Socrates and Phaedrus about love and the mastery of art. “Art is often what makes life beautiful,” Luca Lennon, a senior at Parker and one of this year’s Phaedrus heads, said. 

On January 5, 2023, Issue One of Phaedrus was released. It featured media ranging from handmade clothing, to digital art, to poems, all created by the students at Parker. “Phaedrus pushes different mediums that I wouldn’t normally look at,” Lyric Nelson, a junior at Parker and one of this year’s Phaedrus heads, said. Brooke Marsico, Luca Lennon, Lyric Nelson, and Maggie McPharlin are this year’s four Phaedrus heads. Each of them is an aspiring artist and are common contributors to Phaedrus and hope to bring a spotlight to art created by students at Parker.

For the many years Phaedrus has been around, the editors-in-chief have made several changes to the magazine, from experimenting with a ‘cut policy’ in 2019, to this next issue’s ‘doodle section.’ Lennon, who mainly submits photography to Phaedrus, says, “For future issues, I hope to get a variety of styles to show all spectrums of art.” This is including the behind the scenes sketches and simply doodles from when you’re bored in class. Nelson describes how adding a ‘doodle section’ to Phaedrus will make it more accessible for works from the student body. “This shows that Phaedrus is for everyone, not just “artists” that make super polished art but simple drawings in a notebook.” 

Marsico is encouraged by the new section. “This will get more people who don’t consider themselves artists to get involved with Phaedrus,” Marsico said.

This was one of the efforts to obtain more content for the second issue of Phaedrus. Lennon also described other ways the editors will gain submissions. “We plan to get more submissions by talking more with art teachers and making more student government announcements,” Lennon said. Marsico mentioned creating more opportunities for students to create art for Phaedrus. “Lunch activities? Art dumps? Art club? Asking friends?” McPharlin talked about the submissions needed to make an art magazine. “We have 22 submissions so far, but we need around 50 to publish. In Issue I we had about 50. Hopefully for Issue 2 we can get more writing.” All of the Phaedrus heads hope they can collaborate with the Poetry Club to get more writing submissions. 

In addition to getting more writing in Phaedrus, the heads have many more goals for next issues. McPharlin and Marsico hope to incorporate seasonal themes into Phaedrus. “Autumn: Halloween, winter: holidays and a spring or summer theme,” Marsico described. McPharlin has another goal. “We want to make the actual book a piece of art.