Artists and writers celebrate do-it-yourself ethos
Inspired by hardcore punk of the early 1980s, the do-it-yourself spirit that spawned the zine scene rages on.
Back then, the mainstream media mocked the music and the mosh pit, so fans of the bands chronicled the anti-commercial goings-on in minute detail because no one else was going to do it for them.
But the zine world eclipsed the crude, smudgy black-and-white punk rock periodical phase a long time ago. As book artists elevate printmaking to new levels of sophistication that bring color and creativity to the form, 24 practitioners will display their work at the Beacon Art Book and Zine Fair on Saturday (April 26).
Organized by the Beacon Photo Club’s leading lights, Emma McDonald and Diana Vidal, the fair will allow its members to share their work, including Beacon resident Randy Calderone, who self-published a paperback filled with dozens of photos taken around the Hudson Valley, most focused on urban decay. All seven selections shown in a just-closed group exhibit at Grit Gallery in Newburgh are included in the collection.
The photo club began in 2023, when McDonald and Vidal met at KuBe Art Center. “We immediately clicked on the same train of thought: to create more of a community and share work, resources and inspiration,” says McDonald. “Art books, photo books and zines often came up in conversation at our meetings and after putting out a call for submissions, we were blown away by the amount of interest from participants and by the caliber of their work.”
The event will include workshops on collage techniques and creating one-page zines. Marianne Petit, one of the more accomplished creators attending, is a professor at New York University who raised $40,000 on Kickstarter to publish a pop-up alphabet book. Her work is housed in museums, private collections, the British Library and the Library of Congress.
The zine and art book world is a substantial subculture due to a confluence of factors, including the general art-world bubble, says Petit, who lived in Beacon for a few years during the pandemic but got “priced out” and moved to Amenia.
In addition, “printmaking is a technical field that fosters communal spaces: people share presses, teach paper arts and develop a generous open-source community,” she said. “It’s also less expensive at the entry level and easy to transport. I can fold entire exhibits that fill up a room into one suitcase.”
Members of Chelsea Rae Mize’s writing group, Little Histories, will share a table and offer typewritten poetry on-demand. She will display the three-zine series, Sex, Drugs and Rock n’ Roll, which compiles work from other artists in 30-page collections, along with the somewhat risque four-volume set, Short Shorts.
After a stint in Hollywood writing screenplays, Mize ended up in Beacon and self-publishes bestselling cozy mysteries, a distinct genre that centers on a murder but lacks violence and prurience. Her Dog Groomer series features humorous juxtapositions between punny titles and the cute pooch on the cover.
Also a cartoonist, her life transformed after meeting a “punk anarchist squatter” who lived in lower Manhattan and “wrote an incredible fantasy story about George W. Bush,” she says. “I’d never encountered a DIY ethos so full of talent and that’s why I self-publish my books. There’s pros and cons to it, but the direct-to-consumer relationship inspired me.”
The Beacon Art Book and Zine Fair will take place at the VFW Hall, 413 Main St., in Beacon from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday (April 26). Admission is free. See beaconphotoclub.com. The schedule includes a collage workshop for kids at 11 a.m., a one-page zine workshop at 2 p.m. and ongoing community art projects.
