Zines

The Arts Area and The Benton Museum Present the 3rd Annual Print Pomona Art Book Fair

Published 02/21/2024 | 10:10 am PST

Claremont, CA—The Benton Museum at Pomona College and The Arts Area are pleased to present for the 3rd year, Print Pomona Art Book Fair (PPABF) on Saturday, March 2, 11 am to 7 pm and Sunday, March 3, 11 am to 5 pm at Pomona College’s Edmunds Ballroom located in the Smith Campus Center. PPABF will bring more than 70 national and international exhibitors where San Gabriel Valley meets the Inland Empire to provide a forum for independent booksellers, distributors, and publishers to showcase artist’s books, art catalogs, photography monographs, drawings, and other print ephemera.

The two-day fair will also serve as a meeting place for creatives, book lovers and publishers to discuss and exchange ideas about art making, publishing, and other related topics.

Admission to this event and PPABF are free and open to the public.

Print Pomona Art Book Fair (PPABF) is a 501(c)(3) sponsored by The Arts Area and hosted in partnership with the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College. PPABF was founded in 2018 by photographer and co-founder of Mirrored Society Books, Julian Lucas with a goal to promote the recognition, distribution and awareness of artist books and other publications by artists within the region of the Pomona Valley and beyond.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Saturday March 2, 2024
Amalgam #4 Journal contributors
(Mashinka Firunts Hakopian and Alec Mapes-Frances)

Print Pomona Art Book Fair
Saturday, March 2, 11 am–7 pm
Sunday, March 3, 11 am–5 pm
Edmunds Ballroom in the Smith Campus Center, Pomona College
170 E 6th St, Claremont, CA

ADMISSION IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
The Benton’s main parking structure is located at 295 E. First Street. Additional visitor and handicapped parking is available in the Alexander Hall lot (N. College Avenue and Sixth Street). Limited street parking is situated along College Avenue.

About Print Pomona Art Book Fair
Print Pomona Art Book Fair is a 501(c)(3) sponsored by The Arts Area and hosted in partnership with the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College. PPABF was founded in 2018 by photographer Julian Lucas with a goal to promote the recognition, distribution, and awareness of artist’s books and other publications by artists within the region of the Pomona Valley.

PRINT POMONA ART BOOK FAIR 
www.PPABF.org

About The Arts Area
Working at the intersection of economic development and the arts. The Arts Area, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, provides fiscal sponsorship, professional development, resource support, and civic advocacy to develop and support economic sustainability and equitable access in the creative industries of San Bernardino, Riverside, and East Los Angeles Counties. Learn more about the fiscal sponsorship and professional business services provided by The Arts Area and join the inland region’s largest professional arts network at TheArtsArea.org.

THE ARTS AREA
2910 S Archibald Ave #A145
Ontario, CA 91761
contact@theartsarea.org 
www.theartsarea.org

About the Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College
Now housed in the new Benton Museum of Art designed by Machado Silvetti and Gensler, Pomona College’s collection of art numbers 17,000 objects, including Italian Renaissance paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation; works on paper, including a first edition print series by Francisco Goya given by Norton Simon; and works in various media produced in Southern California in the twentieth century. In keeping with Pomona College’s reputation as a leading center of the visual arts, the collection also includes works by such esteemed alumni as Chris Burden ’69, Marcia Hafif ’51, Helen Pashgian ’56, Peter Shelton ’73, and James Turrell ’65. Recognized globally for its commitment to contemporary art, the museum is the home of The Project Series, which has featured more than 50 contemporary Southern California artists since it began in 1999. Through its collaboration with students and faculty, the museum encourages active learning and creative exploration across all disciplines of study within the liberal arts context.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact
Print Pomona Art Book Fair
Julian Lucas
Julian@ppabf.com

Media Contact
Benton Museum at Pomona College
Caroline Eastburn
(909) 607-2291

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Arts Area
Media Contact 

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Curious Publishing Presents Packing House Zine Fest

The Pomonan
Published 10/20/2023 | 12:00 am PST

Curious Publishing presents Packing House Zine Fest: Printed Ephemera Showcase on Sunday, October 22, 2023 from 12 PM - 6 PM at the Claremont Packing House Atrium located at 532 West First Street, Claremont, CA 91711.

The Packing House Zine Fest features 40 artist exhibitors whose practice emphasizes the art of print in formats such as zines, art books, risograph, screen printing, block printing, and cyanotype. This event is free and open to the public and will include artist talks and workshops throughout the day hosted at The Claremont Forum and Curious Publishing’s Art & Bodega. 

The inaugural Packing House Zine Fest took place this past April and attracted 500 attendees, 35 exhibitors, two performers, and two educators from the Foothill Communities.

Curious Publishing is a Fiscally Sponsored Project of The Arts Area, a Non-Profit 501(c)3 organization, and is 100% artist owned and operated since 2017. We tell the stories of artists of all practices who reside throughout San Bernardino, Los Angeles, and the High Desert Communities through one of a kind, small-run art books designed and printed in Southern California. We aim to celebrate the rich diaspora of the Inland Empire, Womxn, BIPOC and Queer Artists first and foremost. 

Curious Publishing and Cappuccinos & Drip Hosted a Zine Fest with 250 in Attendance

Text and Photography Julian Lucas

It was a weekend of zine collectors, enthusiasts, and collectors of printed matter emerged from transitional quarantine to attend, Zine Fest presented by Curious Publishing and Cappuccinos & Drip coffee shop (Caps & Drip) located inside of O'Donovan's Restaurant & Pub in Pomona this past weekend.  

The fest included around 20 print artists and artisans from the surrounding and local community, featuring notably, Hella Awkward Shop, John Dishwasher Zine, Cops are Robbers, and Cheyne Ellot just to name a few.. Handmade accessories by Orange Grotto, and Mirrored Society Books stepped up to the plate and showcased a small curated collection of imported photo-books from Europe, Mexico City, Japan, and Singapore, including Books by Los Angeles photographers.

It didn’t just stop at zines and printed matter, Christian Cuevas Caro led an exciting hands on workshop on the Cyanotype process. Which is defined as, a photographic printing process that produces a cyan-blue print. Engineers used the process well into the 20th century as a simple and low-cost process to produce copies of drawings, referred to as blueprints. 

It was definitely a beautiful time meeting and hanging out with fellow artists listening to music by Reneetalks sipping coffee by the homies from Caps & Drip and beautifully crafted cocktails by Pomona’s one and only P.town Social. 


DID YOU KNOW
In various subcultures, zines have been a major media of communication. The oldest zine festival on the west coast dates back 20 years to the Portland Zine Symposium which began in 2001. The Los Angeles Zine Fest was established 11 years later, and was first held at the Last Bookstore in 2012. The Los Angeles Public Library launched a circulating zine collection in partnership with the Los Angeles Zine. LAPL states, “zine content can be personal, political, niche, artistic, visual—there are no rules! We have zines for all ages by local and international zinesters.”

Because zines have cultural and academic value, major libraries and museums such as the British Library and the TATE have also created a zine archive, again without any RULES! - HINT! HINT!

Julian Lucas, is fine art photographer, photojournalist, and creative strategist. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking homeless veterans to housing. Julian has lived in Chicago, Inglewood, Portland, and the suburbs of Los Angeles County including Pomona.

AN INTERVIEW WITH HUDA AZZIS OF YOUR LOCAL NEWSSTAND

Huda Azzis Your Local Newsstand

Huda Azzis
Your Local Newsstand

Interview by Julian Lucas

Huda Azzis is a Singapore based freelance video editor, but she doesn’t stop there. Huda is also the founder of the independent publishing group, Your Local Newsstand. Huda has many goals, but one goal that stands out to me was to create a platform that was inclusive to many photographers across the globe.

So you are a freelance video editor living in Singapore. Are you from Singapore? How did you get into freelance video editing?

Yes I am! I was born in Singapore and have been living here all my life. I studied film in school and right after graduation got my first job as a junior video editor at a small production company specialising in television dramas. After a few years, I took a gap year and eventually began freelancing. That was when I was first introduced to other formats of filmmaking such as documentaries, short films, tvs and corporate projects. I have been freelancing for the past 6 years or so. 

 

 Have you made any short films? What Genre do you focus on?

My job requires me to work on many different genres and formats. I mostly work on longform documentaries for broadcast networks and channels such as Channel NewsAsia, National Geographic, Bloomberg, Al-Jazeera etc. But since a lot of content has been moving online, a lot of the projects I’ve had the opportunity to work on also have moved to various digital platforms in various formats. 
I would say the only content that I’ve ever directed/produced was solely for Your Local Newsstand. Last year, I decided to launch NEWS Presents which is a series of mini docmentaries featuring various photographers. It’s kind of a vignette - very short form documentary. That was something that was very exciting. I’ve always wanted to make something of my own and having this great opportunity to talk about photographic works by photographers I admire and respect is a very exciting process!

I also read you were also a photographer. Do you have a concentration on subject matter? How long have you been making pictures?

Honestly, I wouldn’t consider myself a photographer. I’m still a hobbyist at heart! I still enjoy portrait photography but I don’t really limit myself to anything really.

Hito Bito Huda Azzis

Hito Bito
Huda Azzis

“Zines are important to our society because it’s not being pushed by any bigger agenda”.

Did your photographic experience lead you into making zines and owning and operating your publishing company, “Your Local Newsstand” ? By the way It’s such a great name, actually catches the attention. Why publishing?

Haha, thanks! The name was actually derived from a Frank Ocean article I read once and thought that it really explained what I wanted to do with zines and publishing really well. YLN really started from my love of zines and zine making. I’ve been collecting zines for almost a decade now and I really like the idea of what zines meant. Zines can mean many things to different authors and anyone can make zines. That’s the allure of publishing zines for me. Photography on the other hand was something that came later on. I guess it was just something that gradually happened you know - publishing photography zines. 

 
What do you look for as a publisher, meaning how do you choose who you want to publish? Is it both you and the artist collaborating or do you have total creative control?

I think for me, story is king. When I look at a photography project, I will never read the descriptions or statements first. I would look at the images and if the images are compelling enough to make me want to know more about the project, that’s when I would read up on it. Because every photography project is different and takes on different forms, I don’t have any pre-requisite on what we should/should not publish under YLN. 

“Give The Devil His Due” by Louis Leeson Your Local Newsstand

“Give The Devil His Due”
by Louis Leeson
Your Local Newsstand

With zine publishing on the other hand - I give pretty much full creative control to the photographer however they want to tell the story within a zine format. I do this because I believe that this is their story and so they should at least have some sort of freedom to do what they feel is best for this story that they’ve been working on for months/years. I’ll come in halfway to collaborate on image sequencing etc but at the end of the day I would say my involvement is more collaborative rather than coming in with an “Editor/Publisher” mentality. One of the main reasons I was attracted to zines was because it was so unconventional.

When I was younger, I was amazed that zines was something that anyone could make. I didn’t know anything like that. I was into magazines a lot so coming across zines was like “Woah” yknow. You don’t need fancy equipments or materials or anyone to vet your work or anything like that. It was just something that you could do with a photocopy machine and some photoshop. So with YLN, I try to adopt that same mentality where the photographer gets pretty much complete freedom in the way they want to tell their story.

Before the pandemic have you published any zines on occasion of an exhibition?

No, I haven’t yet. It’s something on my mind but it’s financially restraining. Organizing an exhibition is not cheap and as a independent publishing group where everything is out of my own pocket - it’s difficult to justify producing a photo exhibition. But it’s something that’s definitely on my mind. Hopefully, it’s something that is slightly more feasible in the future. 

 
What do you find interesting about publishing?

I think the format itself is very interesting. Photography itself is a visual medium. Books/zines are also visual medium but they create a more tactile experience for its audiences. So the meld of these two very very visual mediums together is something that I find interesting. It’s very casual (because we touch things everyday) but also very intimate and dynamic. If you were to view a photography exhibition virtually vs being on the ground and walking through the spaces - it’s very different. Same thing about publishing.

The joy of photography books/zines to me is always my very first experience with it - opening the pages of each book.

 
Why do you find zines important to our society?

Zines are important to our society because it’s not being pushed by any bigger agenda. It’s completely independent. And because it’s much more accessible to produce, anyone with a desire to tell a story can make one. Especially things that are not talked about/taboo to speak about on mainstream media. It’s like how New Media has paved the way for so many unconventional topics to be talked about - something that you previously cannot speak about on traditional media. But I do believe on the other hand zines is a great tool for self expression and experimentation. If you are interested in creating something but don’t know what works for you, making a zine is always a good learning experience! 

Are you a collector as well? What was the last zine you purchased? What was the last photobook you purchased?

Yes definitely. I have a ton of zines that I’ve been collecting since I was 14 years old. And I would keep my zines in plastic and put them in alphabetical folders haha! But space is a constraint at the moment so I try to limit myself to not compulsively purchase crazy amounts of zines haha. Recently I’ve been purchasing quite a number of photobooks though. The last photobook I purchased was by Chinese photographer RongRong’s ‘Bejing East Village’ I think that’s my favourite book at the moment. It’s just so good!

 

 What are your plans for the new year any new projects in the works?

I definitely have my eyes to producing more minidocumentaries. A group zine is something I’ve wanted to do for a while. But it’s hush-hush for now. Nothing is in the works at the moment, but I think with a group zine - there’s more room to experiment and on my part much more collaborative and curatorial works - which is something I’m looking forward to trying my hands on.

Follow
@yourlocalnewsstand

Website
yourlocalnewsstand.com
hudaazzis.com

Julian Lucas, is fine art photographer, photojournalist, and creative strategist. Julian also works as a housing specialist which, includes linking homeless veterans to housing. Julian has lived in Chicago, Inglewood, Portland, and the suburbs of Los Angeles County including Pomona.