How to cut and fold a mini zine

This mini style zine is super easy to make. All you need is a sheet of regular printer paper and a pair of scissors. Follow along with the video below and if you need written directions, you can find those below!

1/ Start by folding your paper the long way (hotdog style).

2/ Now fold this in half so it’s half as long, then do this fold again once more.

3/ Unfold your sheet of paper, then re-fold it the short way (hamburger style.

4/ Grab your scissors and cut along the center fold, but make sure to only cut halfway, to the center, where the fold lines intersect.

5/ Now unfold again, then fold it hotdog style once more. You’ll see a diamond shape form where you cut the paper.

6/ hold the ends of the paper and push your hands towards each other to flatten that diamond, then fold everything along the crease lines you created in step two, and you’ve got your zine!

If you’ve printed off a zine and folded it, your zine is made! If you’re making a zine yourself from scratch, you’re now ready to start filling in your pages with all the info and/or creativity you’re ready to share with the world.

If you want to grab my little creativity zine, click here to download it!

Your screenshot folder is waiting...

I used to do these annual bucket lists where I'd make a list of, for example, 27 things to do before I turn 28… 28 things to do before 29… 29 before 30. You get the idea. I think I probably stopped doing this around 29 because, well, the list does tend to get longer each year. I was reading back through old blog posts and saw a mention of my 27 before 28 list, and how on that list I'd put “create new art and submit it to a gallery for exhibition.”  I definitely didn't accomplish that one, and now here I am realizing that ten years later, at 37, I've got the same thing on my *unofficial* 37 before 38 list. Sometimes having a blog for a decade and a half is cool, and sometime it reminds you of all the goals you never actually accomplished. But in a way, it feels nice to know that this dream is still percolating inside me. I'm still wanting to be a “real” artist, even though I've put it off for a decade.
 

In the past six months I've screen-shotted dozens of calls for submissions from galleries, magazines, and journals. Of course, most of them have just sat in the graveyard of my screen shots album on my phone, but I've dubbed 2024 the year of submitting, so I'm dragging that album out and actually submitting my work-- whether its poems to a local literary journal, a mural proposal for the city, an article for a magazine, an application for an artist residency… I'm actually doing the thing instead of just thinking “oh, I want to do that!" then screen shotting it and forgetting it forever. You miss 100% of the shots you never take, right? And at least I don't have to compete against all the other people out there who just screen shotted the call for submissions and then left those photos to die in their phone, right? 

So whatever the thing is that you've been screen shotting and thinking about doing, but never taking the leap… hey, maybe now's the time! Maybe 2024 is the year you resurrect your screen shot album and start taking action on those little dreams sitting in there.

One of the things that I took action on from my opportunity screenshots… Tacoma Wayzgoose! Wayzgoose is an annual printmaking event here in Tacoma, and besides having tons of printmakers hosting booths as vendors, they also do giant linoleum block prints that are printed using a steamroller. So cool right? I’ve always wanted to do Wayzgoose, so this year when the application opened, I threw my hat in the ring. And guess what? I was picked as one of the steamroller print artists! So for the next month I’ll be feverishly carving away at this absolutely gigantic sheet of linoleum. I’m so so excited. Jack took this photo of me after picking up my sheet of linoleum and I’m not intimidated in the slightest by the fact that it is nearly as big as I am. Nope. Not at all…

All that to say, if you never ask, the answer is always no. So don’t give yourself an automatic rejection by never putting yourself out there in the first place. Now excuse me while I get back to carving…

Abstract art making and attuning to intuition

My comfort in formative art lies in the comfort I feel knowing I’m capable of replicating an object or image realistically. I know that once I choose a subject, I’ll be able to render it sufficiently. Abstract art removes that crutch entirely. In the past I’ve approached abstract art by replicating other abstract art— basically doing the same thing I do with representational art, applying it to abstract art that I enjoy as a viewer. But that’s not my art. In order to make my abstract art, I would have to stop looking outside myself and tap into something inside myself and that, folks, is uncomfy. I’m not great at listening to my intuition. I’d rather take a course, or hire a coach, or follow some kind of template, or, or— instead of quieting all the outside influences and seeing what oozes out of my own intuitive creativity. 

There’s also a guarantee of “goodness” in my representational work. Because I know I’m able to render things realistically, I know that it will turn out “good” or at least good enough to not trigger fear or anxiety. In my representational work I avoid the pain of creating “bad art” to a certain degree. Which isn’t to say that everything I’ve made that is representational and realistic is good art, far from it. But at least the badness about it can at least partially be looked over by the fact that it looks alright from a realism standpoint.

I was painting over this orange monstrosity earlier today, and Dan came over and watched me for a moment before I lamented to him about how abstract art feels so unnatural to me. And maybe that’s true, maybe I’m really not an abstract artist. But he reminded me that I’m new at creating abstract work and that I should expect to be amazing at it first try (how dare he. I must be amazing at all things first try, doesn’t he know?!?).

I was on the verge of completely giving up on the piece, and I may still paint over it completely and start over, but I think I might still try to push into doing abstract work. The above screenshot from my IG story yesterday mentions bringing in typographic elements, and I think I might attempt some mixed media elements. I really l love postmodern and pop art and have since college, and 90% of the art I have hanging in my house is typographic. Maybe it’s the writer side of me elbowing my way in, or the printmaker, but I really really love typography elements in fine art.

So. Here I am. Just a girl, standing in front of a canvas, asking abstract art to come out of my brain and onto the canvas.

the perfect tree

I've featured some of Parker's work here before, but these photos were just too good not to share.  Besides, tis the season for Christmas tree spam, right?  These photos make me wish that I was a little boy all bundled up for a christmas tree hunting trip with my Dad.  I'm always amazed at how Parker evokes such tangible feelings in his photographs.  Parker mentioned in his blog post that, since these photos were shot for the Kinfolk Magazine winter issue, they had to be shot back in July.  It's pretty incredible that he evoked that cozy, rubbing your hands together feeling, even though it was well above 70 degrees when these images were created.  Head over to his blog to see the rest of the images, or pick up a copy of Kinfolk!

  all photos via Parker Fitzgerald

Photographer Crush // Parker Fitzgerald

I first discovered the work of Parker Fitzgerald after seeing his photos of Chelsea, who I'd met up with on the Brave trip. Just recently he took some photos of another lovely blogger who, incidentally, I also met up with on my trip! The beautiful Vanessa from The Velvet Bird. I visited Vanessa in Georgia, but she's just moved to Portland! I keep meaning to make it down there to visit her, as well as the many other bloggers and friends who call Portland home. Hopefully I get down there before summer ends. But I digress. Parker creates incredibly beautiful photographs. His portraits are some of the most arresting I've ever seen, and it's refreshing to see a great photographer with a love for film, when most of the photography world is abandoning film for digital. I think his polaroids are my favorite. I've got a Polaroid Land camera that I've made feeble attempts at getting to work, but so far no luck. I always tell myself I'm going to start using film more, as I've got quite a few film cameras, but I never remember. I think I'll add "take film photos" to my summer goal list. I digress again. Take a looksie at these beauties and then head over to his website, blog, or flickr to see more!