New zine: ‘Ambulant’
The Festival of the Photocopier is coming up, and one of the many reasons I am excited for it is that I’m launching this little guy:
I became a wheelchair user last year, and since then I’ve become even more aware than ever of public perceptions of disabled folks. There’s a lot of misunderstanding out there about what it means to be disabled, just how many people use mobility aids, and all the many reasons we might need them. This is pretty harmful, on both a broad and an individual level, and I think it mostly comes from the oversimplified, stereotyped image of what a disabled person looks like. If I’ve learned anything in my time as a human it’s that the best way to combat that kind of thinking is education.
The only problem with that is, educating folks can be pretty tiring and repetitive, and sometimes I’m too exhausted, overwhelmed, or grumpy to do it.
Knowing this about myself, I decided that I needed to make a little zine to cheerfully hand to the strangers who think they can ask personal questions about my body, or who give me affronted looks when I get up out of my chair. It saves me another round of the “yes, my legs work, but…” conversation, but doesn’t let a teaching moment go by.
The zine has collaged art in it that I made in my favourite style: salvaged brown paper (grocery bags, packaging, etc.) painted with gouache, then cut with a craft knife and assembled using matte medium. I scanned the illustrations so you can see the layered detail, and I think they look pretty great. I think my favourites are the tiny little spot illustrations:
I wanted the text to look like it had also been cut from paper, but knew that it would be too time consuming to do, so I created a font in that style. It’s called Essie’s Cutouts, and I think it serves it’s purpose perfectly.
The only tricky thing about this zine was keeping it short and sweet. I have so much I want to say about the realities and complexities of navigating the world on wheels, so I think there might need to be a follow up volume (or three…).
It’s all formatted and printed now, and with SJ’s help I’m folding them all up, ready for launch. After the Festival of the Photocopier, they will be available in my shop, so pop over there to get your copy if you’re not able to grab one in person. Otherwise - I’ll see you there!