2/26/2008

My Work in Somerset


I used to be heavily involved with a little zine called AEZ. It was formed years ago by Melissa McCobb Hubbell, Amy Peacock, and myself. We were (are) members of a group called Art Erratica on yahoo.groups. We started out with a nice little black and white zine. The cover was from some kind of special colored stock, and printed black. We had fun picking out stock, covers, and coming up with fancy mailing options. I did an animated CD for each issue, using colorful digital pictures and flash, to help compensate for the black and white visuals in the zine. We weren't heavy into text, but we were into art. Erratic art to be specific!
After a time, we evolved a bit and began printing full color zines on a laser printer. We got really bizarre with the themes, the art was from even more prominent folks, and the CD's became more and more intense as my skills in flash and dhtml increased. Amy had some personal things closing in on her and she went on to pursue them. Meanwhile, Melissa and I continued the zine for a time more, under the name Erraticus Zine. We did a few more issues, and then I also had my turn with the personal stuff. That left Melissa who still is printing and producing this little zine, now on her own.
She recently did an interview with Somerset about the zine, and last night she let me know that a bunch of my artwork is featured in the current issue! I was psyched to see a few pieces of mine on the Somerset website. It was really a good thing to do the zine. I felt focused, involved, and also overwhelmed! It was a ton of work, even though it was satisfying. We didn't set it up as a money maker, and after awhile devoting so many hours wore me down.
In retrospect, I think I replaced my Erraticus Zine work with this here blog. I still enjoy reading and reporting about good art. I like to be involved with my special niche...and this blog is less work than laying out, printing, and binding a physical product. I miss the feel of the actual product tho. I don't have any cool ornate zines to show for all this writing I do. But I do manage to have some of that time back for myself, for the studio. For the magik making...

2 comments:

tgarrett said...

Julie-
I have those zines still and love your work on the CDs as well! Thanks again for all the work you put into your blog! Terry

dollface design said...

love the erraticus zine, such eye candy and fantastically amazing art work! great blog, glad i stumbled upon it, i'll certainly be back to visit ♥
layla


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