up and coming: SFZF 2015!

It’s that time of year again: San Francisco Zine Fest time! Taking place September 6^th, 2015 at the SF County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park, this year’s DIY extravaganza is gearing up to be something else.

Just like last year, Miz Happenstance and I will be sharing a table! And also (just like last year) I can pretty much guarantee that I’ll have a riot of rubber stamps, postal mayhem, and brightly colored goodies for you to look through!

I’ve managed to put together full sets of issues 1-4 of Red Letter Day…

…as well as some new copies of Posted (a zine all about artistamps and why I make them.)

(I’ve got a couple new things I’m hoping to get put together before the event.)

I’ll also have a selection of Red Handed Rubber Stamps on the table for your delight and consideration! Pro tip: it’s NEVER too late to consider your rubber needs for Halloween and the holidays. Interested in a placing a “special order” and picking up at the Fest? Get in touch (redhandedrubber@gmail.com) and let me know what I can bring to SFZF especially for YOU!

Alrighty: it’s back to the studio for me – of course I’m burning the midnight oil for the next two weeks!

–JH

PS: details about SFZF 2015 can be found at their website: www.sfzinefest.org. Two items of note: 1) SFZF2015 is a ONE DAY EVENT this year and 2) BART will not be running the weekend of September 5^th and 6^th. You’ve been warned!

 

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look mom! I’m on youtube!

I know, I know: two posts in one week. But I just couldn’t save this one until next week (especially since I’ve got a FANTASTIC interview with Hope Amico all lined up!) So I figured I’d share this as a “welcome to your weekend” sort of thing.

I was interviewed at the ALA2015 Conference by Joseph Coco, on behalf of Rebecca Hillburn and her “Natto Soup” blog. Joseph and I chat about mail art, zines, and how to get involved in the Network — take a look! (everything was completely UNSCRIPTED –> insert some sort of anxiety emoji here…)

PS: there is a little flub that I made at the very beginning of the interview…did any of you catch it? If you hit the 2 minute mark, you’ve gone too far!

–JH

 

 

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ALA2015: zine pavilion! (wrap up)…

This past weekend I felt oh-so-lucky: I was an invited artist for the American Library Association’s Zine Pavilion! Imagine if you will: a national conference of librarians descending upon San Francisco, who are brimming with curiosity about zines and zine making!

I spent most of last week getting a bunch of new (and old) things ready: issues 1-4 of RLD, rubber stamps, zines that were due to be reprinted…

…and Miz Happenstance put together a handful of “Herstorical Oakland” artistamps (shown above), in order to showcase them at the table.

Much of the weekend was spent discussing zines: what sorts of people make them, how they can be defined, the different ways in which libraries collect them. In the photo above, you can see some zines on display; ALA attendees could read anything they wanted, with the entire collection raffled off to one lucky winner on the final day of the conference.

Interested parties could contribute a page at the make-a-zine table…

…using materials and supplies provided by Zine Pavilion organizers.

The idea being that: on the final day of the conference, if you had contributed a page to the group project, you could return to the Pavilion on the final conference day and collect a copy of your zine! (I really really really love this idea, and would like to figure out a way to implement it into my own zine making projects.)

Some of you may remember punk rock poet/zinester/mail artist Irene Dogmatic from last year’s Ex Postal Facto event; she was my tablemate for part of the event, which I greatly enjoyed. XPF was so frenetic, I didn’t have a real chance to connect with Irene in just the right way. Sharing the weekend with her was enlightening, entertaining, and wonderful.

I learned a new party game called “Knuckle Sharpie” from Alex Wrekk (one of my zinester heroines) and Jonas Cannon (buy his zine Cheer The Eff Up RIGHT NOW): cross your arms at the wrists and have a person on the left and right hand side of you (different folks, naturally!) write four letter words across your knuckles. No peeking! When everyone has written something silly/serious, put your right and left hands together: that’s the name of your new punk rock/goth/emo band! Hilarity will ensue.

(I even managed to get some “work” in, during the down time of the event…SF Correspondence Co-op lists shown above, hand stamped with all the usual goodies!)

Weekend’s end: I packed up my remaining zines and headed back out to the fogbelt. As I was making my way to the studio, I spied this work of art hanging from a telephone pole — I felt this was a good omen for the week to come, as well as a lovely way to end the fantastic weekend which had just passed.

May each of you have a creative and inspired week, as well as a happy fourth of July! Light some fireworks for me (my Aries personality LOVES fireworks!)

–JH

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june 2nd and it’s summertime in the city!

As you can see, it’s been a whirlwind of productivity at the RLD studio! Don’t let the mess frighten you; it looks far more daunting than it actually is. Underneath the above pictured “mountain of mess” is a pile of items-to-be-mailed-out, projects-which-have-been-completed, and things-in-progress. All in all: a great and fantastical situation to be in!

I’m happy to announce that I am in the process of booking up my fall teaching schedule; more on that with next week’s blog post! I have a handful of new classes that I’ll be teaching at SFCB, alongside ever popular book/mail art favorites. Photos and descriptions will be forthcoming (you’re welcome to follow my Instagram and twitter feeds [@redletterzine] to keep track of all the booky/stamp-ish details!)

Love and Postage —

–JH

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