‘you are a gift’ is a single-page zine, with a looping 8-page poem and a full-color Risograph fold-out 11” x17” illustration. This project was born purely out of a need to remotely, asynchronously, safely communicate in the loneliness and isolation produced from staying safe and doing right by your community during the pandemic. Inside the unassuming black and white, more minimal poem comic is an explosion of abundance and joy to be shared. Here I touch on the colorful and frame-filling practice of internet Tarot reading, which often adorns and celebrates each reading with colorful plants, trinkets, and natural elements.
It is important for us as human beings to be able to touch each other; until we can again, we can touch each other from a distance with art, with zines, with paper becoming our transcendental medium.
‘you are a gift’ is a zine available to everyone and anyone (while the edition lasts!) in the TWP store. This zine is pay-what-you-can, with a recommended range of $0.53 cents (to cover postage) to $5. Any reader who wishes to order the zine or send it to a friend for free will have their postage covered. Large orders (over 5 copies) should also reach out directly by email to facilitate shipping or delivery.
The tarot cards referenced are the Eight of Wands, Temperance, Three of Cups, and Strength, all re-imagined through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic, the racial reckoning in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and climate grief that dominated 2020.
The following interpretations of the cards are shared from Biddy Tarot:
Eight of Wands - Movement, fast-paced change, action, alignment, air travel
Temperance - Balance, moderation, patience, purpose
Three of Cups - Celebration, friendship, creativity, collaborations.
Strength - Strength, courage, persuasion, influence, compassion
‘you are a gift’ was drawn digitally and printed on a Risograph SF 9450, using Fluorescent Pink, Yellow, Blue, and Black, using Finch Digital Opaque from French Paper.
The outside of the zine is actually a ‘Möbius-strip’ format, meaning there is no official beginning or end to the poem, and can be read as a continuous loop that feeds into itself. That way, however a reader chooses to fold the zine back up, the narrative on the outside stays the same, no matter which ‘page’ is read first.
In summer 2021, the University of Minnesota School of Public Health added a print from ‘you are a gift,’ to the Epidemiology and Community Health Art Collection, as part of an exhibit called ‘Likeness,’ with three other undergraduate and graduate artists.
From the EpiCH Art website: ‘The Likeness exhibit, spanning the 3rd and 4th floor of the division's atrium, is an experiment in representation. The display is comprised of 6 pieces on loan from the Weisman Art Museum and 4 new acquisitions to the EpiCH Art Collection. By more accurately reflecting our community on the walls of WBOB, Likeness is an effort to find the beauty in difference and the power in universality. Learn more here.’
As part of the return to campus, EpiCH will be also offering two hundred copies of ‘you are a gift’ to be distributed to staff and students in September 2021.
