A little zine I made
Hi, Chynnerio here!
A small encounter with a video about zines had sparked in me some interest, and I decided to spend a whole afternoon learning to make zine, and the one above is one of my first attempts.
It makes me realise how fun it is to just grab a brush, a water colour set and a marker and begins to draw.
And it makes me realise how fun it is to just stay away for a little time from computers, even when what you do on the computer is still creative things like doing art, or writing…
Austin Kleon, on an occasion of texting with Alan Jacobs, have made this poster:
“Hand mind is heart work” - Alan Jacobs.
During the pandemic, Alan wrote a called “Handmind in Covidtude” that quoted a character named North Owl in Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home. She has been spending some times with a potter master:
He thought of very little besides clay, and shaping, and glazing, and firing. It was a good thing for me to learn a craft with a true maker. It may have been the best thing I have done. Nothing we do is better than the work of handmind. When mind uses itself without the hands it runs the circle and may go too fast; even speech using the voice only may go too fast. The hand that shapes the mind into clay or written word slows thought to the gait of things and lets it be subject to accident and time.
I find it really true.
It’s not limited to painting with a brush or crafting a pot, it also applies to writing, too. Just like Susan Sontag, author of On Photography:
I write with a felt-tip pen, or sometimes a pencil, on yellow or white legal pads, that fetish of American writers. I like the slowness of writing by hand. Then I type it up and scrawl all over that. And keep on retyping it, each time making corrections both by hand and directly on the typewriter, until I don’t see how to make it any better. Up to five years ago, that was it. Since then there is a computer in my life. After the second or third draft it goes into the computer, so I don’t retype the whole manuscript anymore, but continue to revise by hand on a succession of hard-copy drafts from the computer.”
Both Jacobs and Sontag touch on the magic of handwork—a sorcery that transforms abstract thoughts into creations that you can feel, can smell, can touch. There’s something grounding about the feel of paper, the weight of a pen, the smell of fresh painting acrylics, or the texture of clay. When your hands are part of the process, the mind slows, ideas take shape, and imperfections—the “accidents and time”—become part of the beauty.
A small statue I made for Peppi.
If art and writing is not your thing, why not just baking?
If you’re unsure what to do, here are the list of things you can do with your hands:
Infusing oils, making jams, or fermenting foods (kimchi or kombucha).
DIY things with trash, like plastic bottles, cartons (remember those old days in school?)
Friendship braclets! (Even if you’re not a swifties, it’s a fun way to make things for friends, or, for yourself)
Learn new crafts like crocheting, knitting,…
Pick a recipe and start cooking
Learn new cocktail recipes
Pick up an instrument
This used to be my room in Vietnam, with my artworks hang everywhere, when I still did traditional arts.
The posiblity is endless. Handwork invites us to slow down, to shape not just clay or cakes, words or works, but our very sense of being. Maybe it’s time we let our hands lead the way.
See you next week!
Chynnerio
Khoảnh khắc tâm trí và thân thể cùng hành động một vấn đề, đó là lúc tâm trí im lặng nhất, tâm trí đang quan sát thân thể để tác phẩm được hoàn mỹ, tâm trí không phán xét, không đi về quá khứ, không nghĩ tới tương lai, đó là bạn đang tận hưởng cuộc sống, đó là con đường đi tìm chân lý.