Each year without fault, I neglect to do my vacation shopping early. Before I know, I am on the verge of ventilation at the Bryant Park holiday market, while waiting in a crowd of tourists for too expensive scarves and a day apple cider donuts. It is a kind of Christmas tradition.
But last weekend, I found a remedy for my procrastination linked to gifts at the Caverneux Pioneer Works in Brooklyn: the Play Play FairA two -day rally for independent publishers. Now in its fifth year, the event has brought a multitude of remedies for the season of trade festivals in mind in the form of zines, books and stickers – ideas, thoughts and wishes that you can touch and hold.
“'Press Play' is much more than an excellent word game,” observed Passenger pigeon pressSchocy Lockard. “These are things that really go hand in hand. It is also very great to see so many well -dressed people happen to something so cool. ” (Lockard, for his part, sported a hats beautifully in knitting with ear flaps to drown the din of crowded books.)
The extinct species which give the publisher its name serves as a lodge for its zines and Martha's Quarterly edition, a tribute to Last known passenger pigeon. The project manager Holly Greene explained that the press, founded by Tammy Nguyen, is dedicated to “the dissemination of ideas through unconventional paths detached from technology and more tangible”.
Press Play himself was a physical exhibition of unconventional paths sculpted by a global network of publishers, artists, writers, record companies and editors, with a free entry and several workshops led by artists inviting visitors to the fold. Presses and veterans present – Nightboat, Secret Riso Club and Wendy's Subway to name only a few – tend to frequent tastes New York Art Book Fair And East Village Zine FairMaking a warm reunion environment. And when I visited the last hours of the show on Sunday, December 8, new connections and collaborations were already in bloom.
“It's a kind of magic of small press fairs like this,” said the illustrator, the designer and the artist Riso Christina Leeincluding Stand Lockard and Greene recommended.
“There is a very beautiful community, and I think that at the moment, everyone is really lonely. There is an element of sharing your work and selling it to make a living, but there is another element to see your friends and make new ones, like Kyle here,” said Lee, pointing to the same table. “I just met Kyle.”
Canyon Also works with risographs and common sharing practices with Lee, a sign of the reflected stand that has underpinned the fair. The serendipity was a common theme through the exhibitors, an observation taken up by Esmé Naumes-Givens, which shared a table with Do me! Ann Lukyanova of the magazine and David Gray.
“The name of my mother is Ann and the name of my father is David, so it's like Kismet,” said Naumes-Givens. The artist's mission is to create one zine per month before their 30th birthday in April, “a kind of delimitation of a decade of my life”. This started as a way to collect funds to get to the wedding of a friend quickly snowed in a collection of deliciously psychedelic zines, all hand -related with copper wire or wax wire.
“I said to myself:” And if every month of my 29th year, I was doing a zine, and in the end I will have 12? ” “For 30, they plan to shave their heads and continue to write, which, faithful to the spirit of the fair, covers self -fiction, visual art and poetry.
“A solid 10% of visitors who come through the stand have a publishing link to something we have,” said Charlotte Anderson de Ellipsis rare bookswhose display included a first edition copy of the Essay collection by John Berger in 1972 and the history of Art 101. Ways.
“I was reading a book this morning when it was a little quieter, and it is an obscure book from the news from Slipstream of the 90s. I had to drive this book just to be able to read it,” said the founder of Ellipsis, Andrew Lenoir. “So I'm sitting here to read it, and a woman comes and said:” You know, my husband has published this. I didn't believe it for a second.
Among all these cerebral vascular accidents and signs of the universe of the little press, it may be the lesson of the prevailing carrier's pigeon: riso cards with handwritten zines, nothing is compared to the weight of a piece of paper in your hand.
