back on my zine bullshit // reading recs
Hello & happy Tuesday, folks!
In case anyone needs a refresher, since finishing my master’s last month, I’ve been getting into zines. Call it a gift or hamartia, but I’m utterly unable to just ~be~, always needing to “produce” something, even (or especially) when taking a break would be a better idea. Part of that is probably internalized capitalistic thinking, but it also might be explained by Beth Pickens in Your Art Will Save Your Life:
You have to make work, above all else. You are an artist—as opposed to, say, a person creatively expressing yourself—because you need to make art in order to lead a contented life. […] In my estimation, artists need to be active creatively in order to be alive, processing the world and other people. I find that artists who have been away from creative engagement for a long period of time frequently describe feeling depressed, agitated, anxious, disconnected, and empty. Making art is an essential form of self-care in their lives.
I prefer that explanation over “capitalism is inside you and will eventually kill you.” So maybe it’s that.
& then there’s also this quotation by Davey Davis, which is frankly…..a mood.
I am me because I do x. What am I when x is gone? Makes a strong argument for defining oneself in other ways. Let me know if you figure out how to uncouple your essence with your actions!
In any case, I’ve been filling my newly-freed time with putting together zines—from drawing, to scanning, to writing, to printing, to folding, to even creating a custom font of my own handwriting (it’s free!).
And, today, I was thinking back to all the volumes of collected letters by literary figures I read during college: letters by John Keats, Franz Kafka, Henry Miller, Anais Nin, F. Scott Fitzgerald, May Sarton, Violet Trefusis, Sylvia Plath, Brenda Venus, Vita Sackville-West, and Virginia Woolf, among others. And, of those letters, Vita and Virginia exchanged some of my favorites—with lines that stick with me, even half a decade later—and so I made a tiny 8-page zine, featuring my favorite passages.
The zine, in its entirety:
And, finally, here’s a handy little guide, if you’re in the mood to read some letters by iconic authors but don’t know with whom to start.
Read:
John Keats, if you’re full of longing
Franz Kafka, if you’re a water sign
Henry Miller, if you’re in the mood to hate men
Anais Nin, if you love a dreamy (b)icon
F. Scott Fitzgerald, if you’re in the mood to hate men
Violet Trefusis, if you’re full of gay longing, specifically
Sylvia Plath, if you live for pettiness
and Virginia Woolf, if you have a lot of time on your hands (There are six volumes at ~500 pages each) (So, obviously, I was very social during undergrad. /s)
That’s all for today, folks. Hope you’re having a great week.