I’ve been spending a lot of time working with paper lately. It starts off quietly. I look through my folders to find a drawing that fits. After that, I edit the poem that goes with it. Then comes the layout of the page. My table slowly fills with printed sheets waiting to be assembled into small booklets. I sit down to adjust a margin or review a page, and before I know it, the afternoon is gone. The work is simple, but it needs careful attention.
For the past few weeks I have been turning some of my drawings and poems into small zines. I created many of these pieces years ago and stored them in sketchbooks or folders. Putting them all together in a small printed booklet makes it feel like they have a place to sit next to each other. The format is modest. A4 pages, folded and stapled. Seeing my drawings and words in the same space makes me feel pleased and grateful.
There are a lot of minor adjustments that need to be made to get them ready for printing. These include the order of the pages, margins, and size of the paper. I just learned about “bleed,” which is a small extension of color that goes past the edge of the page so that the final cut doesn’t leave a white border. It’s a small technical detail, only a few millimeters wide, but learning about it helped the process move more slowly. When you start to notice these little things, the work becomes more purposeful.
In addition to the zines, I’ve also been making art cards out of some of my drawings. These are small reproductions of older works I made over the years. Some are colorful illustrations from past projects, and others are drawings in graphite. They look different when you print them on postcards. They don’t seem like things from a sketchbook anymore but something that I can now share with the world.
I start to see how different the work has been when I lay it out on the table. Next to quiet graphite portraits, there are bright, fun drawings. Cultural drawings next to fun characters. Each of these drawings belongs to a different moment in time.
There is a rhythm of simple tasks that goes into making these small prints and booklets: looking through the files, assembling the booklets, and sending them to the printer. Waiting. When the printed copies come, open the package. Looking through the pages to make sure everything is in the right place.
I received the first set of zines yesterday afternoon. They came back with some problems. The paper was thin, and the binding looked like it was done quickly and poorly. I took out the staples, added a thicker sheet to the covers, and then stapled them back together. These are just prototypes but holding them in my hands made the work feel more real.
There is something absorbing about the physical nature of these steps. The papers were stacked on the desk. The smell of fresh prints. And the newly folded booklet along the middle line.
While I work on these small paper projects, time moves slowly in the background. I only notice it when the light in the room changes or when I see that the stack of pages next to me has gotten smaller. The poems and drawings slowly settle into their places. The cards are lined up on the table. The zines rest in a small pile, ready for the next step.
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