Last Friday I was invited to be a part of a panel discussion about zine history in my town. I documented it with audio, video, and photos. This post has some of the photos, and I will describe what is happening in them. Oh also, this event was in the basement of an art space that I helped to start. It was great to come full circle, return to that stage and have a chance to share about zines! I haven't done that in years.
There's a new revival of zines lately , which , I could have told you would happen hahah... people get sick of the internet and how impersonal it is. Zines are intimate. Tangible. Personal. Sometimes when you make a zine, you hand you special little book that you made right to your audience, and they usually get to talk to you a little and a relationship forms between you. Its not always like that, but there is always an element of that because zine makers tend to share their work locally, and sometimes sell it online. The niche is so small, and unusual, that it is very personal/ human-human usually.
A zine is a publication you create yourself. Or I can create it for you. :)
Or, its something that you create with friends. Or maybe you have someone make it for you. I am for hire if you have content and you like the look and feel of what I am showing you here. I create all my zines by hand on a shitty copier and laser printer in my house. If you want something fancier, I know how to do that too. I will accept steem and USD. I also sell my zines, and I would love to add you to an email list so I can let you know when new ones come out! Comment if you are interested and we can talk in private message!
I have been making zines since I was a teenager
Here is my table from the evening. I brought a bunch of my old zines, just stuff from my collection, but also everything that I could find that I have personally made. I still have more than these, but actually I have never set them all on a table like this before. That is because I make them in small batches, and sell them , and then time goes by before I make the next one. So they rarely sit together like this! I was excited to have a chance to photograph them. ..
Lots of people came to the event!
We were all surprised as we are used to like 10 people showing up to something like this. It was hard to capture in photos, but there were easily 50 - 60 people there! Woahhh.
This is the table of one of my favorite artists, Ladypajama. Look her up!
This event also blew my mind because it called attention to the fact that I actually taught people in Missoula how to make zines, and then they went on to make zillions of zines, and have successful art careers now in their own right. The fact that I had an influence on people who I truly admire, was making me weepy! In an upcoming post, I have an awesome video of Ladypajama reading from her zine. I just want to post it to Dtube, and really feature it, so its going in a separate post.
Another great artist that came to my very first zine making class a million years ago is Theo Ellsworth
Theo, Katy, and some other artists and I started a small press collective together. Thats where the bike- powered bookmobile came in. Since then Theo has become very successful and widely published. But he still makes zines. Here is his table.
Here is the new zine on the block, Brine the Zine!
This zine is in its second issue, and I haven't even read it yet and i LOVE it. The women running it are doing it from such a positive place. They are tired of the negativity in the world, and wanted to create a venue for artists and others to talk , and share . Their zine always features a central interview. The woman featured in this issue is also a totally badass who has started a cake making business.
In addition to tabling, I was in a panel talk. Here is my view from the stage.
The people in the photo are the writers of the article I shared last week. The local weekly paper hosted this event. I recorded the interview but it is an hour long . A lot of it is particular to my town so it might not interest everyone. I want to edit it down into clips, and post later. So stay tuned if you are interested.
And that's it for now!
If you like what you saw, please check out my blog to see what else is new!
Art
Poetry, with audio
Art and a poem with audio
