chapzine

I’m still working on the chap-zine that re-uses the discarded stamped prints from the installation of ‘Varied, noisy’ at Artspace last year. Chapzine is Caren’s term for a zine – like artist book that been produced using letterpress, and is usually printed on one piece of paper and folded (like the orginal chapbooks). The one piece of paper makes the setting up and printing time more manageable.

When you do a search on the term chapzine you mostly get links to Caren’s chapzine pr0n c0k-tales, but I also found references on this dead Art School blog in Vancouver. I gleaned from the detailed entry about Chapbooks on Wiki, that chapbooks where still a common form in the States in the early 1900’s, so not surprising that the term still has resonance there. Although I also found this interesting little poetry press in Berry, NSW, using the term.

The wiki entry also provided the wonderful term ‘bum folder’:

Because of their flimsy nature such ephemera rarely survive as individual items. They were aimed at buyers without formal libraries, and, in an era when paper was expensive, were used for wrapping or baking. Paper has also always had hygienic uses and there are contemporary references to the use of chapbooks as bum fodder

I don’t recommend that you use the Nature Strip chapzine as toilet paper as it is over 120gsm: not very soft or absorbent.

I have now printed two colours on the outside and am getting ready the plate to print on the inside. The top picture gives you an idea of how the long pieces of paper will be folded into a zine.

Here is a detail of the whole image that will be on the inside. It’s a reworking of the drawing that Andrew McQualter and I did on the walls at Artspace.

At the moment as well as working on a deadline for Aichi Triennale, (this website has a very helpful counter telling me it's only 37days to go) I’m also trying to get things ready for a show with Andrew in Melbourne at VCA’s Margaret Lawrence Gallery (when you see this link you have to wonder why Universities, like local councils, can't get the importance of a good website for a gallery). Busy? Too much on my plate? Yes well…