a brief history
Daryl Smith, editor-in-chief
Seeing the Everyday magazine began with simple thoughts and observations that I suspect we all have as we learn to make our way in life and relationships. We sense the profound influence of someone close to us. We begin to consider our responses to how others treat us, and how our actions affect others. We might see in ourselves characteristics of those with whom we spent the most time during our younger, developmental years. I imagine we all share similar yet individual realizations.
As a child I was most familiar with stern and often harsh interactions among those surrounding me, which made a particular experience all the more profound: I was in the home of a high school friend and observed her mother helping a young child with a chore that the child did not want to do. I watched as she worked with him in a kind and deliberate manner, without showing signs of impatience or anger. Her every action seemed to communicate concern for and attention to his development, rather than frustration with him. That simple act of gentle, effective teaching left a deep impression on me.
As I spent more time with her family I eventually learned about a particular grandmother's legacy—a grandmother whose life witnessed that greatness really does proceed from small, ordinary acts full of goodness, kindness, and genuine care. She became another evidence of the truth I was beginning to understand—the truth that not only do ordinary interactions matter, but when done with caring kindness, they can have a profound, binding influence on our relationships and enable us to strengthen the development of others.
These thoughts continued to develop over the years and took new shape during my graduate work at Rhode Island School of Design. I explored how the most common of visual elements can be combined in a way to create unity, communication, and wholeness, which explorations led to parallels within the principles of human relationships I had been observing for so long.
By January 2005, less than a year after graduate school, the concept emerged for Seeing the Everyday magazine—to capture the true significance of the ordinary through combining image and text narrative. During that period I re-united with a dear colleague, Jenet Erickson, whose doctoral work at the University of Minnesota in family social science included a focus on the prosaics of family life—the ordinary, messy interactions that seem to truly shape our development. The concept of prosaics resonated with me. By seeing the higher purposes in the "everyday" we are able to see more of the meaning in everything we do. Seeing the Everyday would be based on our most common, most mundane relationships—those at home.
Photographer Bradley Slade, known for his ability to capture different perspectives on the seemingly mundane, joined to create the visual language of Seeing the Everyday. The inspiration behind his work: watching and documenting moments with his own children.
Others joined, eventually completing the team, and we launched the first issue of Seeing the Everyday in the spring of 2008. To avoid detractions from the importance of relationships, there are no advertisements. From the personal stories shared by our readers, we continue to see that in relationships nothing is really routine.
The premier issue of Seeing the Everyday went to press from Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 21, 2008. Printed in Burlington, Vermont, the first issue arrived in a modest 4,561 households in the United States, Canada, Belize, New Zealand, Italy, and England. Since then, 14 issues of Seeing the Everyday have been published. Its readership has steadily increased and now includes subscribers from all 50 United States and countries throughout North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. Most importantly, readers are finding a useful resource in discovering and re-discovering that in life, nothing is really routine.