Love Reclaimed: Exhibiting at My First Art Show!
Exhibiting as part of a Portsmouth Pride event, wrestling with a riso printer and selling my first zine
First up let me just say I am as shocked as anyone that I’ve managed to get two posts out in one month but things are starting to pick up speed in my little corner of the south coast. There may even be a third post on the horizon!
When visiting The Corner Collective to view Nusye McComish’s Vespirary exhibition I was put forward by my friend/ future agent Kelly to take part in the next show, that was in 12 days time. I was never going to decline, but I did go home with a slight ‘wtf am I going to put together in under two weeks’ panic.
Love (Re)claimed and The Modern Craft
The Love (Re)claimed exhibition was part of Portsmouth Pride’s events and centred around love in all its forms. As it was a Pride event I wanted to bring together some ideas from my MA research that included how the Witch, like queer identities, is always the other in a patriarchal, colonial society. There are infinite overlaps between the Witch and Self Love and reclaiming your identity, Queer Love and Trans Love (both love between Trans people but also a love for the Trans community that is facing intense prejudice). To back up my thoughts on this I returned to The Modern Craft: Powerful voices on witchcraft ethics edited by Alice Tarbuck & Clare Askew. This collection of essays had informed my final MA report and I was itching to dive back into it for inspiration.
Riso Ready-ish
I created three (it is the magic number) zines along the theme of ‘Summon’, as to Summon is to make present, to command presence or to demand to be seen. Plus it sounds witchy as hell - always a win. The three zines grouped together quotes around witchcraft for reclaiming sovereignty, witchcraft as an act of queer love and witchcraft as a spell of Transition that offered strength to Trans people.
From the beginning I intended to Riso Print the zines and designed my colour scheme and print layers accordingly. Unfortunately I was not as clever as I’d thought as when it came to printing, the text size I’d used wasn’t legible -especially in the flouro colours I’d originally intended to use. Womp womp.
I did how ever get plenty of practice with using the Riso and setting up artwork correctly. It was a rookie error that took me back to the InDesign doc but it did give me lessons for the next project.
Summon: First Edition
After some last minute adjustments based on what I’d seen with the Riso test prints, I use the vivid printer at Portsmouth Uni’s CCI facility to print an A0 spread containing five zines. Because they’d been designed as ‘foldy’ zines there was no need to worry about double sided printing which was a relief. Due to a tight deadline however I was unable to provide my own paper. The draft paper the final zines appeared on was very luxurious to hold, but a bit of a demon to fold. Two listens of Ghost’s Rite Here Rite Now album and a lot of wrestling with the bone folder later, we had zines!
On with the Show
My inner critic was on steroids as I marched my zines to the gallery before work on deadline day. Posting them through the door of the gallery I patted myself on the back for making the hand in (and making something pretty cool looking if I do say so myself) but I mitigated my excitement by telling myself they might not make the cut. I wouldn’t get my hopes up. When I turned up on opening night however I found my zines placed on display and better still, next to Cat Askew’s iconic Alpha Fucking Female print (which I later bought a copy of). I also discovered that people were interested in buying the zines which was no on my radar.
A celebration of love and resistance
I celebrated selling my first ever art sale at a nearby Venezuelan restaurant with friends and churros. The next day I went back to the exhibition to take in the art a little less frantically. I’ve popped some highlights below but the quality, character and inclusivity of the show was really something to celebrate. As Lauren Hepple noted in her piece:
Cultivating Kindsess is a Radical Act
For my debut into the world of sharing (and selling!) my art to be as part of a show that encapsulated so many radical pieces was an absolute dream. Here’s to the next creative adventure with a tighter than I’d like deadline 😅
