Two Zines from My Collection

There was a great little gallery in Melbourne called Hand Held Gallery run by Megan Herring, which used to exhibit Artists Books and zines.  I participated in their exhibitions a number of times but sadly it closed down around 2012-2013.  

Here are two of the zines I purchased from their final exhibition.

BENEATH THE SCREEN OF CLOSED EYELIDS (PORT SAID)

by Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison

Undated but numbered 57/60, 24 pages

The pages are glued along the spine and the covers attached with pink card.

                                        

I love the name of this zine!  Gracia and Louise have taken very old black and white travel images which don't look very exciting at all (in this case images of Port Said) and altered them by the use of colour and the addition of gigantic exotic looking animals.  The animals are larger than life, the kind of visual image you could experience in a dream and the photos have been transformed. 

18.18 to 22.22

by Jan Davis  Dated 2012, Unnumbered, 10 pages

The pages are folded and stapled together through tape along the spine.

This zine is a record of a train journey from Southern Cross Railway Station in Melbourne to Bairnsdale Railway Station on Saturday July 21st 2012.  It's a kind of automatic drawing where the bumps and lurches of the train create the marks on the page.  The names of the stations on the way are inserted as well as a message about the doors failing to open.

On the inside back cover Jan provides instructions for others to make their own train drawing.

1. Board a train

2. Put the pen lightly against the page and begin a very slow line allowing the bumps and lurches of the train to affect the progress of your line.

3.  Pause your line when the train halts and record the station name,

4.  Continue until journey's end.

I haven't tried making one of these train drawings but I do know other people who have enjoyed using this method to entertain themselves while in transit.

Zines are Fun

 Zines are a great way for artists to give away a small piece of their artwork or to sell cheaply.

In 2012 I made my first zines, a series of two based on my love of art history.

         The first was called Guess Who's coming to Dinner?

    I started looking for an image of a painting of the Last Supper.   I found one painted as an altar  frontal (c.1230) for a church in Soriguerola, Spain and as far as I know the artist is unknown.  It is now in the Museu Nacional d'Art Catalunya in Barcelona. 

Its composition was perfect and would suit being presented on a long page folded into a concertina.  I made a line drawing of the composition in ink onto offcuts of Fabriano HP paper.         

 I  found images of twelve male artists that I like who also made an artwork which contained something relating to food.  

          The heads of the artists and a small detail of food from their artwork were copied and pasted onto the drawing.  

I then printed an edition of 50. 

 The artists included were from left to right -  Brett Whiteley, F.T. Marinetti, Paul Klee, Paul Cezanne, Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso,     Salvador Dali, Giorgio de Chirico, Jasper Johns, Vincent Van Gogh, William Robinson, Henri Matisse.

The aim was to guess the names of the artists from the clues.

           I made a little insert to be included with the zine which contained the names of all the artists.

             A number of both zines went down to Hand Held Gallery in Melbourne which exhibited  artists books and zines.  I was pleasantly surprised to hear that one of the zines, Guess who's coming to Dinner was purchased from Hand Held Gallery by the University of Melbourne Library Special Collections.

I made the second zine in the series Guess who's not Cooking Dinner? using the same method.  I searched for another painting of The Last Supper and came up with a painting by Duccio.

    

 Duccio's Last Supper (1308-1311) was commissioned by Siena Cathedral in 1308 and was completed in 1311.  The double sided altarpiece is now in the Cathedral's museum.   It was a perfect composition for my line drawing and I used the same method of photocopying the heads of the artists and placing a small detail from their artwork on the table.

    This one was to be of female artists and the issue of equality.  Like the male artists these women would not have had time (or perhaps the desire) to stop work and cook dinner.

The artists I included here are from left to right back row -

 Berthe Morisot, Yayoi Kusama, Georgia O’Keeffe, Yoko Ono, Tracey Emin,

Margaret Olley, Margaret Preston, Judy Chicago

From left to right front row -  Sonia Delaunay, Frida Kahlo, Artemisia Gentileschi, 

Fiona Hall, Kathe Kollwitz

I made an edition of 50 copies again and also included a little insert with the names of the artists. 

I enjoyed making these so much it could be fun to make some more zines now I've more time to play.

Part 2 will be about some zines I bought from Hand Held Gallery not long before it closed down.