Summer 2022
Be Zine
Work In Progress
May and June have been very busy months as we have been involved in the Arts Council funded Be Zine project which will result in the creation of highly original zine publications. Groups have been participating in weekly workshops with creative practitioner Claire Speight and poet Maggie Sawkins. And on Sunday’s Teresa Grimaldi launched the Collage Crew, a collage activity that’s open to all. Each week the Be Zine workshops covered a different activity all loosely revolving around the themes of place, space, and headspace. These themes were expressed in different ways including mono-printing, collage, drawing and creative writing.
“Claire has been really supportive and I loved doing the mono-printing, it was so much fun and the results were very unique.”
The participants ranged in age from 11-65, over the weeks we have been lucky to work with over 50 individuals! People were motivated to join in for a multitude of different reasons including wanting to learn a new skill, feeling a need for a safe social environment after the pandemic to helping with anxiety, we even had a Ukrainian refugee and their host family attend, this was a poignant experience as the refugee got to express their feelings about loss and longing for family and the pets they were forced to leave behind.
Another unexpected outcome was individuals reconnecting with their creativity as well as others finding their creative voice for the first time.
“I was very much in a creative slump before the workshop and it was great to come and take part. I’ve never attempted poetry and found it naturally flew out of me! I actually spent the next few nights writing a first draft for a rhyming children’s book. This was the spark I needed!”
“Participating in the workshops has helped me find new ways of working and cleared a blockage that was dragging me down. It’s been a really rewarding experience.”
“I never thought I could write, I always thought I was better at drawing however the workshops with Maggie have really helped me to express myself in words which is been brilliant.”
The next stage of the project is inputting the creative elements from each group into the final zines. Claire will be creating 2 Be Zines, one of which will be the teen zine. The process involves separating the artwork into different layers which are then printed individually on the Riso press. The process will add an unexpected layer of creativity defying total control – again another lesson in life! Each zine will be printed in 2 colours to create a unique identity. This is an experimental format and the outcome will be what it will be.
“I don’t feel very confident and being in the workshops I felt supported and encouraged by Teresa. It was a nurturing experience and has helped me feel more confident about myself.”
The Be Zine launch event will be held toward the end of July. Please sign up for our newsletter for details of this and other projects we are doing, in the meantime, we hope you enjoy the Be Zine Work In Progress.
A big thank you to all the partners on this project including Sandown Library (Isle of Wight Council), The Bay Resilience Team, Community Action Isle of Wight, Sandown Hub, On the Wight and Quay Arts 🧡
