Dear Reader,
    Thank you for reading Reshaping the Bell Jar. As Winter Tangerine’s fourth Spotlight Series feature, the aim of this collection was simple: we wanted honesty. We called for narratives of striving, of suffering, of triumph and survival. And we received them.
    The spotlight feature focuses on marginalized narratives; to create a space for these narratives to take root, expand, and smolder. The focus for this particular feature seemed intuitive: from the start, our team of staff and editors unanimously agreed that we should enter into a dialogue on mental illness.
    It was a dialogue we felt was missing, both from the conversation of our everyday lives, and from the enormous thought-cloud of the mainstream media. But what does it mean to talk about mental illness? In titling this feature ‘Reshaping the Bell Jar' we hoped to evoke the difficulty of re-casting this narrative, of answering this question. There is no easy answer. There is no easy means of neatly bottling or distilling a range of experiences, simply because there is no single means of living. The result is a feature that depicts survival; depicts striving; depicts living.
    We received more of these works than we could possibly have expected. We received pieces of stunning luminosity and real candor. We are so grateful to all of the artists who shared these pieces with us. Thank you to all of the artists whose bold, honest works we were unable to fit in this feature. We hope you will submit again, both to Winter Tangerine and elsewhere, because your narratives are valuable. They are crucial.
    Finally, an enormous thank you to our team of readers, who defied timezones and dead-lines to produce the work before you. Thank you to our incredible guest editors, Shira and Timothy, for your creative inspiration and generous dedication to Reshaping the Bell Jar. We cannot thank you enough for the diligence, passion, and care you provided to this feature.
    On a last, more personal note- I hope the works resonated with you, as they have done with myself and our team of editors. The value of art, in the end, is the way in which we allow it to enter our lives. I’ve let it into mine. I hope this feature allows you to do the same.  

Best,

Isa Flores-Jones
RBJ Creative Director
Winter Tangerine