One of my favourite books is how to be both by Ali Smith. It’s a bit weird and experimental, radiates love for art, explores coping with grief, is a ghost story, and so much more. One of my all time favourite quotes is from this book, and I was inspired to create a zine with it.

My goal was to have a project where I simply create and enjoy the process. I didn’t limit myself to a specific medium or colour palette, and didn’t aim for the spreads to have a consistent appearance. The approach was simply: what do these words inspire? Or: what mediums do I want to use? And: how can I make this interesting and/or fun to make?

Over months I chipped away at it, picking it up, putting it down, sometimes forgetting about it for an extended time. But it’s done! The result isn’t very cohesive, but that’s okay. I could list the things I like and don’t like about it, but I’m trying to have a better on-off switch for the judging part of my brain, so I’ll spare it. All the spreads are below, just click/touch to expand them. But first, the quote in full:

“It is a feeling thing, to be a painter of things : cause everything, even an imagined thing or gone thing or creature or person has an essence : paint a rose or a coin or a duck or a brick and you’ll feel it as sure as if a coin had a mouth and told you what it was like to be a coin, as if a rose told you first-hand what petals are, their softness and wetness held in a pellicle of colour thinner and more feeling than an eyelid, as if a duck told you about the combined wet and underdry of its feathers, a brick about the rough kiss of its skin.”

Ali Smith, how to be both