Helllllooooo and welcome in this new episode of AUTOPRO, my rubric about the selfproduction world! For the July/August episode (I'm a lot late, I know. So sorry for this ๐ฆ) I decided to talk about a zine from Scotland where me and other people from all over the world have partecipated. This is Quaranzine, the first collective zine from the Coin Opereted Press duo Katie and Chloe.
"This edition is all about the COVID-19 crisis, and our current Lockdown situation. Our collaborators responded with their thoughts on the crisis, social distancing, how they have been affected, what they are looking forward to once we start to return to normal, their future predictions, and more!
There are 28 fantastic artists in total within the pages of this zine, with a wide variety of artwork, poetry, photography, short stories, essays, and so much more for you to enjoy!"
As I told you before, I also partecipated in this with my artwork [D]Istruction. It want to represent my feelings about being an italian student in her final yearin this particular year of Covid-19. When I send them my artwork, my last exam was really near and I was very hit by the fact that My country, Italy, was one of the few countries that didn't mind about its students' disastrous psychological state since our minister forced us in doing a complete different exam, not only telling us about it just a few weeks from its starting, but also that it was in presence. To "justify" us this decision, she says that it was only a test to see to see how to handle the September school reopening (and belive me, right now it is a chaotic sutuation of which I'm laughing my ass off. Just a sort of revenge, ya know?). So me, my classmates and other students of my age were her cavies. As this wasn't enough stressful, our online classes were bad, there were a lot of students who has lost their parents, granparents and friends, or others who contracted Corona. I lost my granpa while preparing in this exam, not for Corona, but I wasn't able to see him because of the virus situation in the hospitals, and I didn't even have time to recover my psychological state that just one week later I was at school. So I decided to represent us students, but also teachers and principals by illustrating a girl who is intubated, sick, and she screams but anybody can't hear her help request or just doesn't want to do it. In the meanwhile, a vicious voice (that can be interpreted with the Minister one or everyone who dimished our situation) rembers her that "she can't die, she must study" and she can't think about her healt, it is time to take her responsabilities.
Ooook, so after this I don't think there is anything to say. As you can see, this zine is pretty simple, so I invite you to go and search all the other artists works and support them and the CoinoPress. But it is not finished yet because I made an interview with Katie and Chloe, the two fantastic girls who are in the backstage of this and other project. Continue the reading!
1. As you may know, the basic question to start an interview is: who and/or what were and are your biggest inspirations?
KATIE:
I’m a huge music fan, and I’m inspired by the stories of some of my favourite
musicians, like Laura Jane Grace (Against Me!) and The Dresden Dolls.
Screenwriters Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, as well as Weta Workshop
Co-Founder Tania Rodger, are some of my biggest inspirations in terms of women
in business.
CHLOE:
In my own artwork I am inspired by the natural world, mythological creatures,
faerytales, nerd culture, and the radical idea that humans should be kind to
every living thing. In my zine work with Coin-Operated Press I like to work
within the niche worlds that are often overlooked in mainstream culture, such
as: feminism, the LGBT+ community, equality, environmental activism, and animal
conservation.
2.
Why did you choose to follow the self production's way? And how
was it born Coinopress?
KATIE: I think we always wanted to
work for ourselves! As artists, it allows us the creative freedom to do what
makes us happy. As somebody who has a chronic illness the ability to make
adaptations to my working day, and to set my own hours, is wonderful!
Coin-Operated
Press officially formed at the start of lock-down. We had been dreaming about
it for a couple of years, but quarantining gave us the space to be able to put
our dreams into practice. Chloe and I have been friends for many years. We
originally met online in a Dresden Dolls forum called The Shadow Box, and the
band has been our long-time shared passion, so we decided to pay homage to it
in our company name!
CHLOE: I have always wanted to be an
independent artist, and to work for myself, and I know Katie feels the same
way. I don’t want that nightmare of waking up one day in a muggle job that I
hate and realise that I have wasted my life. We might not be making enough
money to pay ourselves a wage yet, but at least if we are making art we are
happy!
3.
What do you want to communicate with you fanzines
and your art?
KATIE: I like that zines can be used
to share political issues - they can highlight minority voices and allow people
a platform to speak out. Zines blossom in anarchist punk scenes. But really,
they can be anything you want them to be - there are no restrictions, which is
what makes the artform so appealing. I’m not that great of an artist, in the
technical sense, but I have found a home within the zine community. As long as
you have an idea and a Sharpie, you’re good to go!
CHLOE: Our collaborative zines are a
showcase for artists to share their voices on specific topics, and as we grow
as a company there will be more and more of these opportunities on offer. A
zine is a perfect place to talk about anything, and everything, and they are
great for highlighting subjects that don’t get talked about enough. I want our
zines to shine a light on LGBT+ rights, gender inequality, the climate crisis,
animal rights, ending poverty, celebrating peace, championing education, as
well as making art about the more lighthearted side of life in: indie films,
independent art culture, local businesses, small musicians, vegan food, and
much much more! I like to delve into these worlds within my own art as well,
and here they often end up with a more fantastical and surreal edge!
4.
The Quaranzine was your first collective zine.
Why did you wanted to include other people in it?
KATIE: Quaranzine was created as a way
of reaching out to our community at a time when we were so isolated - like we
were reaching out into the darkness just hoping we would find a hand to hold!
We were blown away by the amount of submissions we had - and all of the art was
amazing. We’re looking forward to creating more collaborative zines very soon.
Part of our ethos is that we lift up other people’s unique voices….though it’s
great that we have given ourselves a space to make art on our own terms, too!
CHLOE: The collaborative zines are a
huge part of Coin-Operated Press. As artists, we want to create a platform for
our peers to share their art and thoughts. Quaranzine was to connect us while
we are feeling a weird and heavy disconnect in the world, and we were
completely in awe of all of the fantastic responses that we had! We can’t wait
to get more collaborative zines out into the world, and we currently have a
callout for our Festivals zine… so be sure to submit to that!!
5.
Do you have other collective projects in mind?
KATIE: We plan on making a
collaborative zine once a month, and we have just launched our latest call-out!
We were really sad that the Edinburgh Festivals have been cancelled this year, because of COVID, and we know a lot of
actors, musicians, writers, and circus-folks who are now out of work. I used to
manage Leith Theatre and last year I worked 3 jobs during the Fringe and
International Festival. I felt a bit lost, but it’s great to be able to reach
out to our artist friends with our latest collab zine. (Please see www.coinoperatedpress.com for more information on our monthly collaborations)
We are
also looking forward to hosting zine-making workshops and other events very
soon!!
CHLOE: As Katie said, we are
currently working on our Festivals zine, and we plan to release new callouts on
a monthly basis. We have so many ideas in the works, and we would love it for
anyone to get in touch with theme ideas for our zines! We are also currently
working on getting Coin-Operated Press out into the real world! It is a tad
difficult with this whole pandemic thing going on!! but we are in the planning
stages of hosting a zine-making workshop, but you’ll just have to stay tuned to
see how we get on with that!!
6.
Do you do other jobs or have other hobbies apart
from this? And would you like to be able to live only by working with
Coinopress one day?
KATIE: We would love to make a
living working with Coin-Operated Press! That’s the dream!!
Outside
of Coin-Op I am a music listener and I go to gigs whenever I can. I noodle
around on the ukulele and I’ve been trying to learn guitar throughout
lock-down. I also like to travel a lot, when I can.
CHLOE: I was working in a Dog Day
Care Centre, looking after doggos and playing with puppies, before being made
redundant due to Covid-19. It sucks, but it was the catalyst that has pushed me
to pursue my own art as a career, and start up CoinOp with Katie!! I create
illustrations, jewellery, and zines under my Chloe Henderson umbrella, and sell
my work (online at the moment, but hopefully back in real life again soon!), as
well as taking on illustration commissions. I am hoping to be able to build up
my business enough to be able to live off being an independent artist
full-time… and it would be even more amazing if we could be successful enough
to take a wage from Coin-Operated Press. I would love to do regular zine-making
workshops, and fairs, and really build up CoinOp to make a viable living for us
both. We are going to work super hard to make this happen, but for now it is
the dream that keeps us going. In my spare time I take care of my animal family
(a mischief of rattos, a rescue tortoise, a praying mantis, and a little old
lady hamster), and like to go on micro-adventures with my partner Stuart to
visit weird and wonderful things! We play Dungeons and Dragons with Katie, and
her partner, where I play a Druid Triton… and I really wish I was a magical nature goddess mermaid in real
life… that would be perfect!
And's all for this episode folks! Thanks again to Katie and Chloe for being so kind to answer to all my questions! If you want to support them and their works I'll leave all their useful links down below. Also, if you are a creative, don't forget to search and partecipate to their zines calls! See ya soon!
INSTAGRAM:https://www.instagram.com/coinoppress/
YOUTUBE:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOhmdDIm9QigeYdnjklBiCg
SITE: www.coinoperatedpress.com
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: https://coinoperatedpress.com/call-for-submissions/
PATREON:https://www.patreon.com/coinoppress
TWITTER:https://twitter.com/coinoppress
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