Live and Let Gift
Making homemade zines and giving away art like it's our job.
In the heart of our small town there is a little info booth, a postage stamp of a visitor’s center. People come to the Berkshires for idyllic summer days surrounded by mountains, lakes, farms, meadows, and cute towns peppered with farm stands, antique shops and top-shelf cultural attractions – you get the idea. The info booth has information for local venues and businesses, arts happenings and farm dinners. People come in and grab a few brochures and magazines and go off and enjoy their time in the Berkshires.
They can also leave the info booth with a piece of artwork.
A few months ago an idea started brewing in my mind, a culmination of reading about the gift economy in The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer and my experience as a member of Seth Werkheiser’s excellent SOCIAL MEDIA ESCAPE CLUB and the liberating idea that anyone can publish a zine as evidenced by the variety of work (both polished and unpolished) curated by Jen Mayer | Makeist on Zinestack.
We had a printer, we had paper, and I had had pent-up frustration with the digital landscape – it was time to make a zine and disperse it in our local community.
It was liberating to make something purely experimental, almost speculative, like a rough draft that I was ok with people seeing. Would people pick up a zine? Would they be curious about our work?
The first zines buckled in the changing humidity and weren’t picked up by anyone. Undeterred, I decided to take a risk and try something slightly rebellious with my artwork. What if I just gave it away? I pivoted to putting the zines in protective sleeves with the surprise gift of a signed 4x6” print and let me tell you, those zines have been flying off the shelf. I’d guess maybe 65 zines have been taken in the last month, that means 65 of my photographs are out there in new homes, and we know of at least one big print purchased from us because someone was impressed with our zine in the info booth.
This zine + artwork combination is about as opposite of an Instagram post as you can get. It’s hyperlocal rather than broadcasted to the whole world. It is tangible instead of existing in the digital ether. There are no likes, no comments, either people pick them up or they don’t. And if they pick them up then we have made a connection. My art exists in their world, maybe in a frame, maybe pinned by a magnet to a refrigerator, maybe as a bookmark, maybe it was gifted to someone else who would appreciate it more, and yeah maybe some have ended up in the recycling bin. I won’t know and the not knowing is okay. Art can go on its own journey independent of the person who created it.
Speaking of journeys… we have to acknowledge some lovely gifted printed material that is living on in our space, each one coming with handwritten notes. At a glance, have a peek at what has arrived in our PO Box lately:
In detail, we’d love to give attention where attention is due. In no particular order we have:
Chris da Canha sent us two photographs of layered graffiti and advertising in Bangkok and they are awesome, especially for their covetable rounded corners and the most creative note spanning the two postcards – it blew my mind!
Davin Trail-Risk sent us a thank you print with our purchase of his dreamy publication Imaginary Landscapes. Also included: a note saying FIND YOUR PLACE. We’re working on it, Davin, thank you!
Mansi sent over a token of appreciation that I used as a bookmark recently, accompanying me through Elif Shafak’s novel, The Island of Missing Trees. “Live Fearlessly” is the message with a gorgeous poppy, but the reverse also has the most thoughtful note in truly beautiful penmanship.
Colin Czerwinski sent us some of his Oshi stickers to disburse into the stickerverse and spread the “Bitcoin is money” message. Colin also has an amazing signature that I seriously envy. Am I the only one still signing my name the way I learned in third grade?
Noah Kalina sent a couple postcards our way with our purchase of his Protect The Network zine. We unabashedly display these as artwork around the house…
And finally Lara Frederick sent me this surprise zine loot as part of the Zinestack chain mail loop and I just love the handmade urgency behind the zines, no straight cut lines, and heck yeah, “Support + Defend our Libraries!”
On the subject of libraries… stop me if I’ve told you already but we share our monthly art drop in our local library complete with the analog version of our newsletter! Yes, you can sit in a comfy chair, take in the artwork and read all about it without ever looking at a screen.
Displaying artwork in the library and dispersing zines with gifted art obviously doesn’t pay the bills, but there is something pure and satisfying about the work being received and experienced by others. We have ideas – a lot of ideas! – for where this experiment goes from here, but for now we’ll just say thank you for reading and see you August 1 with our next art drop!
Diana & Tom
We don’t paywall our work here, so if you enjoy what we do it would mean a lot if you supported our newsletter (and zine-making!) in some way. Consider becoming a paid subscriber or perhaps make a one-off tip via Buy Me A Coffee, or Strike if you’d prefer to support us with Bitcoin. Better yet, add some art to your space with a print from our Permanent Collection or an art drop. Just the simple act of liking this post, commenting, forwarding it on, recommending it to others – it all helps and we really appreciate it.
Happy to see the cards arrived!
Wow, well done! I love what you did with your approach to the zines. Such a great way to get the word out and not worrying about what happens to the work. It just lives on however it does.