Today I harvested the finished zines from my local copy shop, Papeterie Zoubris on Parc Ave. Demetra Z. did a great job putting my books through the machines and I am now a week ahead of being fully ready for Expozine 2019.
This is going to be my first Expozine since leaving the organizing team several years back. I burnt out a bit with the whole process and gave myself some time to heal from zine fairs. This year i'm only tabling on the Sunday. I'll have these new books (pictured above) plus a couple of other concrete poetry titles of mine published by above/ground press in Ottawa.
The antibiotics in my gut are making me feel woozy....oddly hungry and nauseous at the same time. It's not a good feeling to have underlying the accomplishment of 6 new zines. I take these damned things at the suggestion of my gastro-enterologist, we're trying to find out what is at the root of my problem. Maybe it's a stubborn bug that's been throwing me off.
This fucking thing has been throwing lots of chaos into my life. It's making me edgy of course which rubs off on the family. My 6 year old is throwing near daily tantrums and i am not being my best self about it. I get mad too and then we have two kids, one 6 and one 51 yelling at each other.
The zines. Sure, I got them printed. The material has existed for a bit, all done at different times these last few years. Although I am happy to have them, there is still some need that keeps gnawing at me, the need of the unwritten novel or the unlived dream. I'm not sure which. I collect art. My own art. I collect projects and series of drawings, monotypes, collages, poems, comics, whatever...I collect these small stacks of my creations hoping that something - anything - will happen.
What is it I hope for? I hope someone will sweep into my life and take my art and give me money and glory. I dream of some phantom agent coming in and leading my work into the hands of publishers and curators so that I can relax. So that I don't have to sit retail to make a living - selling my own art.
So what would I do, now that my art has found a premium art house publisher dedicated to making and distributing my work? Would I still sit shop at Monastiraki? No. I would not. I'd move out of here and create a home studio and work from home. My home? does it have a room I can use for a studio> Of course not. We'd have to move but no problem, big money is coming in now at this rain of fire global time and I can afford a sweet home in Outremont. My Mom can even live here, it's so big. I'm losing my mind!
Keep making art, Mavreas.....but why? What for? It's some sort of stand in for something else...So often on this blog I've gone on about needing to write more and here I am months later writing a bit more. For what? more drops in the void.
I still haven't taken up running. That would probably tire me out in the right way.
It's like I make art as busy work, as a stand in for something still out of reach. I am productive and prolific and often satisfied. right now I am not. iI can make cool stuff and thing whatevs more stuff. How can I even begin to untangle myself from this store studio I've built? I don't know what's mine anymore. I have a giant cave full of riches I can't easily liquidate.
Ok. Venting done. I sat here to describe the news zines and instead I've described my unease.
Here's what i posted on FB about these new books:
Six new books ready in time for Expozine. Sunday only. Details below:
Untitled Abstract ed. of 20
The Realms - comic about Becoming ed. of 60
QuoteUnQuote - suite of concrete poems ed. of 100
The Burden of Possibilitie - autobio comic about pathways ed. of 100
Untitled Abstract ed. of 40
ACCEPT - chapbook length full colour visual poem ed. of 100
available at Expozine and at Monastiraki
$5 each except Accept $8
