The Fifth Annual Elm City Small Press Fest

On Saturday, November 15, Greene Block + Studios hosted the fifth annual Elm City Small Press Fest. The event showcased independent publishing as well as contemporary print and publishing culture in the Maine region. This years’ Elm City Small Press Fest was produced by Colby Libraries and The Colby Arts Office, with around forty artists and presses participating in the event, selling their zines, artists’ books, prints, and more. Two workshops also took place. One was a cut-outs and pop-outs workshop with Evelyn Wong, and the second was a zine making workshop with Kim Schwenk. 

I spoke with multiple of the local artists selling their work, including Lanna Antebi `28. Antebi has been making zines since early high school, but lately she has not had a lot of time to make them. Last semester in a creative writing nonfiction class with Writer-in-Residence Anne Elizabeth Moore, Antebi made zines for her final project and later decided to sell those zines at this year’s Elm City Small Press Fest. “I’ve been waiting around for a chance to distribute them, and this [event] popped up,” she said. 

Maggie Fiori was another local artist at the event. Fiori is based in Portland, Maine. She began in fine arts but ultimately found her passion in printmaking. “I was making sculptures and fiber arts, and I kind of fell into printmaking by accident when somebody asked me to make posters for my summer camp,” she said. “I found out I really liked block printing, and then I just kept making more and joined a print shop […] I really like that it’s easier to make a lot of work that you would share easily with people, as opposed to […] making one sculpture and maybe it gets to go in a gallery once.”

I also spoke with Chris Moody, an artist who makes “a bunch of zines, as well as prints and collages, and frame pieces.” He said, “I’ve been making zines for a while. My first official one was in 2013, and then I really just started making a lot more. I do a blend of just strictly my photography, and then also kind of one-on-one formal, unique, collage mixed media found imagery.” Moody showed me some of his pieces where his photography is taped in or pasted in, as well as some of his additional pieces where he prints them with just his photos. 

While Moody currently lives in Rhode Island, he has previously lived in Portland, Maine, where he made zines and did fairs. While he has done fairs in bigger cities, he said printing is “nice in Maine. It’s smaller, and a little bit more niche.”

The last local artist I spoke with was Maya Skylark, who mostly makes zines but is also a writer and poet. “I like to play with paper forms, and I’m a textile artist, too,” she said. “I work in a lot of different forms, so I do little bounds. I’ve got a perfect bound bug, but I have folded zines, and I make stickers.” Skylark further said, “I just got into it because I like to write and I like to share my work with people.” As she enjoys sharing her work, she went on to say how self publishing and making zines is an easy way “to get your work in front of people.”

Regarding independent publishing in Maine, Skylark said, “We have a lot of book fairs and there’s a lot of artists in Maine, and even this year there are new book fairs being set up in Maine, so I feel like it is pretty robust. I don’t know much about the small presses, but I know there are a lot of independent artists, too.” She further said how there are “really cool book arts programs” at some of the colleges in Maine. 

The fifth annual Elm City Small Press Fest was full of creative and talented artists, original and compelling works, and a vibrant atmosphere with passionate artists and engaged visitors. Each artist’s table was unique and beautifully done, showcasing what Maine has to offer in independent publishing and printing. If you missed the Elm Small City Small Press Fest this year, you may want to check out next year to see and buy local Maine artists’ original and striking works. 

 

 

~ Haley Hegarty `28