Cows...

Photograph by Toella Pliakas, Story by Samantha Freedman

Long ago, in the summer of 2019, Layout Designer Toella Pliakas ~ studied abroad ~ in Tours, France. She saw some cows there, and took some pictures of them. The photos lay dormant in her camera for months, but when the Bossier submissions period rolled around in October, Toella knew that the time had come to share her creativity with the Georgetown community. Her heart fluttered in her chest as she uploaded the most beautiful photo she had taken as an attachment in an email to bossier.mag@gmail.com and clicked send. What a rush!

A few weeks later, Bossier Issue 7 was officially in the making, and Toella immersed herself in her work as a layout designer. Every day and night she toiled over her spreads in Gelardin, haunted by the question of how she would ever fit the long pieces of writing she and her friends had submitted onto singular pages in the magazine. But Toella, like all layout designers, is a trooper, and she powered through Gelardin week with beauty and grace, clinging on in the hardest of times to the knowledge that seeing her cow photograph in the finished product of the magazine would make every Bossy challenge she experienced worth it.

The feelings of anticipation and excitement that rushed through Toella’s veins as she scrolled through the final drafts of all the layout designers’ spreads were unprecedented. Her mind was like a broken record skipping at a rate of one hundred beats for minute: cow pic cow pic cow pic cow pic cow pic cow pic cow pic cow pic cow pic. But alas—an alarm soon started blaring in her ears as she neared the final page of the issue. Where was the cow pic? Where was it? She didn’t see it. Whereeeeee was it? Where. Was. It? WHERE WAS IT?!

Where….

Was…..

It………..?

It wasn’t there. Her cow pic wasn’t there. Her bovine photograph was not present in the magazine, sa photo des vaches n'est pas dans le magazine!

Okay, she thought. This is okay. She collected herself and mentioned casually to Bossier’s creative director that she didn’t seem to have spotted her photo in any of the final spreads. Oh yeah, responded Olivia. We loved your cow submission! We just had so much art that we weren’t able to find a place for it in the spreads. Rationally, Toella knew that this was true. She knew that her photograph of the cows was hands down the most beautiful piece of art she had every created and that its absence in Bossier Issue 7 did not lessen its value whatsoever. She also knew that any creative work of hers that was not published in Bossier, she could submit to the blog! This realization sparked the light within her that had previously been blown out, and her mind began to spin once again with the possibilities of a cow photograph gone viral. Then, chaos ensued:

It seemed as if every time the clocktower bells rang to signal the start of a new hour, Managing Editor Samie Freedman received a new text from Toella hassling her to just post the cow picture already. No matter the fact that the blog runs on a planned out schedule, no matter the fact that Samie is sometimes asleep or engaging in activities that don’t involve posting to the Bossier blog. Toella was relentless, and honestly, I—Samie—don’t blame her for it. In this world, we have to hustle sometimes to make our art receive the attention it deserves. Do I believe that this cow photograph deserves to be shared with the wider world? Yes. Does it make me feel some type of way that I can’t even explain? Does it drown me in some kind of intoxicating emotion that becomes more intense the more I look at it? Absolutely. Can we, as a Bossier community, all learn a little from Toella? I think so. That is why I would like to share with you today…

Cows

By Toella Pliakas

Cows in France.

Try to spot all the cows. Happy holidays everyone.