In February, 2017, I started a new art practice: zine making. Since then I’ve been making one a month and I started a patreon as an easy way to manage subscribers. Sometimes, I have the wherewithal to blog about an individual issue, but that’s been pretty rare. For the most part, I don’t archive them. It’s interesting to think about creating work with a limited edition and also a kind of ephemerality. It does make me think about reorganizing my room to incorporate a special shelf so I keep at least one copy of each zine I make on there.

The process. The last week of every month I collect/create 32 pages of zine. Copy it and bind it and mail it out. I decorate envelopes. It feels really great to have something ongoing and anchored by a little bit of income. I was thinking this morning about how money and art sometimes work together. It can be emotionally confusing when giving art to people– in some ways we are programmed and conditioned to create an equitable transaction.

How do I come up with the content? My goal is to have a bit of variety in the format, so it swings from non-fiction to fiction, image driven to text driven, mixes, original content, someone else’s content. It’s interesting thinking about how most people have minor fixations that passes them undocumented, where I leave a trail of little books about things that I thought were the coolest at the time. I still think they’re kind of cool, but art and writing is interesting because the more I do it, the more it changes and I find something else that draws my attention.

When the pandemic hit, I handmade the batches, aka didn’t use a copier. Lots of stamping, repeated writing, etc. I also made them 4 3/8” x 5 3/4”. I really like the new size. It seems a little friendlier. I also started binding them with embroidery floss instead of staples which I really like the look of and the feeling of threading paper is pretty unique. Now, in the last few months (after my vaccination), I’ve started going to the copier again. It has felt good to use a copier.