Olympia zine community gathers to share work, ideas and have fun

Olympia will celebrate the culture of do-it-yourself magazines with its second annual Zine Fest 2016 this weekend.

The event will feature how-to workshops, a tabling expo and appearances by guest artist Erika Rier and guest of honor Osa Atoe.

Zines are self-made, self-published limited run works that offer content and perspectives not typically found in mainstream media.

Atoe, a 37-year-old Nigerian-American, created her first zine, Shotgun Seamstress, in 2006 while she was living in Portland. The subsequent five issues were created while she was in New Orleans. Atoe said she created the zine to share the experiences of black people in punk and related subcultures. Now living in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Atoe has toured with the People of Color Zine Project and has played with dozens of bands.

At 1 p.m. Sunday, Atoe will lead a workshop, “Don’t Over-think it,” during which she will lead a discussion about how to overcome mental barriers that arise during the creative process.

The kickoff event begins 7 p.m. Friday (Sept. 30) featuring Atoe and live music by Spider and the Webs, Dr. Identity and VOG that all have members who make zines. The event will be held at the Olympia Timberland Regional Library, which has an extensive zine collection.

Rier has been making zines since she was a teenager, doing cut-and-paste artwork and photocopying her zines in black and white. She transitioned to making bound, limited edition books. Rier has since progressed to combining high art and zines. Using gouache, watercolor, ink and paper, Rier creates work in a style she describes as folk surrealism. The Portland artist and former Tacoma resident will be attending the tabling expo Saturday.

After the tabling expo will be a game night, an opportunity to play board games with other members of the zine community.

The Sunday schedule is filled with workshops. They will explore a variety of topics, including how young woman can use zines to express themselves, tips from professionals about how to improve your zine, creating a cookbook-style zine and the growth of zines created by disabled people.

This story was originally published September 28, 2016 at 2:13 AM with the headline "Olympia zine community gathers to share work, ideas and have fun."