WMME: issue 1 Allowances

Checks it out!  First issue of my Western Mass ME zine.  I feel oddly, exactly the same.  And oddly, that seems exactly right.  It was a process and it did take a while.  I'm glad I did it and have it to document this era.  While making it, I wondered if it would be interesting to anyone, what I would learn, if my drawing would improve, if I will look back on it years from now and love it, laugh at it.  Who knows.  More coming.  Copy done on next one and ideas for at least 4-6 more in mind.  We'll see what happens.  If I may, what I like about this issue is that everyone makes a million decisions every day.  Everything says something about you, but you have no control over other people's interpretation.  So why people sweating image?  For example, it's not cool to eat at Joe's and it's not cool to not eat at Joe's.  You just do or don't.  You could be an asshole, you could be awesome.  Maybe you ate at Joe's every Saturday night with your best friends in the mid 90's and now you eat at the Blue Bonnet Diner every Saturday night with your best friends.  End of the day, they are all your decisions.  Sometimes I'm busy, or lazy or tired or overwhelmed or rushing to work or only have $3.  As long as it makes sense to me, I'm happy.  I'm really mainly focused on trying to impress myself, and my husband, friends, colleagues and family.  And that means I have to leave my comfort zone and do things that challenge me.  And sometimes there's a mother fucking shitload on ya, and nobody knows it and you find your own way to get through it.  And maybe that week you ate slices from Mimmo's 3 times and maybe, on that week, that was some righteous shit because you got done what you had to get done.  Or maybe I was lazy.

Trinkt Echt Kolsch

Cut paper, glued on chipboard and laminated.  This is my Pop's Father's Day postcard.  It's from a Kolsch ad.  That's a beer from Cologne, Germany.  Drinking beer in Germany is full of regional ritual.  I have so many awesome beer drinking in Germany memories:  bier gardens, sharing tables with strangers, small beers and numerous hash marks on coasters, beer vending machines, German cousins trying to get you drunk, German elders teaching you the right way to do it, heavy liter steins and jokes about drinking arms, pils and alt, kolsch, Jever, German toasts, singing in bars, listening to yodeling in a hidden pub, drinking on relative's patios, sitting in the grass along the Mosel, beer on trains.  Man, I'm thirsty.  Me and my Pop are weirdly similar.  It's become more clear as I've gotten older.  And I guess the weird part is really that all the inexplicable things that my father did when I was growing up, now seem like crystal clear unambiguous lessons in what he expected from me.  I might not have been smart enough to grasp or articulate it then, but somehow I knew.  I always knew what was expected.  And I also knew that I probably worried my parents with my own inexplicable to them actions and decisions.  I chose my own path and it wasn't the obvious dutiful daughter one they wanted.  But the lessons stuck, and I guess it all worked out.  I'm proud of them and they are proud of me.  Prost Pop!

Father's Day Postcard - FIL

Holyoke Cotton Rag Paper in Bone 280# with painted edge (by me) - ah yeah, cuz that's some of what I do at my paying gig.  I get to learn how to airbrush this coming week, yeahs!  Anywhoo.  I am making a father's day postcard at my job (in any spare time of course) for my Pop.  After what P, T and R did last night - I got the idea for my FIL's father's day card.  I married into one kind and impressive family.  Paul is funny and fearless and confident.  He and R wore their FOE tshirts to Rotofugi for the Josh Herbolsheimer and Martin Ontiveros opening.  So cute and cool.  We LOVE Rotofugi and found them while visiting my in-laws in Chicago.  Our first purchases:  Dehara blind boxes, around 2004. We also love Josh and Martin's artwork and have been lucky enough to work with them through FOE.  So, P and R in their FOE tshirts show up at the opening and R (6 years old) says he works for FOE drawing monsters.  Cute and dorky and sweet and sincere.  I am a lucky girl.  Oh, so, free hand cut letters, glued, laminated.  It's kind of a perfect card for my FIL.