Zine Fest Houston 2023 Entry for Simmer Projects

Simmer Projects is a collaborative curatorial initiative that produces exhibitions and zines with emerging contemporary artists in Houston and across Texas. Houston-based co-curators Kelly Johnson and Christopher Beer marinate slow-cooked creations, stirring sustainably-sourced ideas and ingredients together until the art soup is ready to be served.

For Zine Fest Houston 2023, we'll be exhibiting zines documenting exhibitions curated by Simmer Projects with local contemporary artists. These zines vary in format, size, production process, and content. We are currently working on producing 3-4 new zines to share with photography and collage from the collaborative.

The Simmer Projects table will also feature a section of zines and artist books made by Texas-based collaborators. Work will include new zines by Houston artist and HSPVA teacher Ellen Phillips.

Information about featured zines is shown below.

Exhibition Zines by Simmer Projects

Interior Interruptions exhibition zine
5.25x7.25”, 24 pages, bound with prong fasteners

Interior Interruptions (2019, Sabine Street Studios) presented new work by Marisa LaGuardia and Ellen Drew Phillips, transforming printmaking into expanded sculptural forms. Inspired by self-guided exploration, fractals, and reoccurrences, the exhibition highlighted the concept of multiples and varied perspectives. Printmaking emphasizes duplicates, echos, and overlaps. Interior Interruptions created a visual and conceptual dialogue between the repetitive ritual of printing on a flat surface like paper, and the act of replicating imagery across three dimensional space using mixed media.

This zine features a fold out cover, essays, poetry, and images of featured artwork printed on translucent vellum pages.

changing states of matter exhibition zine
4.5x6”, 16 pages, staple bound

Changing States of Matter (2018, BOX13 Artspace) featured new sculpture and installation work by Houston-based artists Hillaree Hamblin and Grace Zuñiga, who explore the embodiment of memory, narrative, and time through the methodic manipulation of materials. The artists interweave artificial substances like plastics, foam, and resin with raw materials like wood, metals, and thread, distilling poetic qualities from within. Animating these materials through ritualized processes of dipping, spraying, stretching, and molding, the artists carefully guide selected matter into new states of being. 

This zine features essays, poetry, quotes from the artists and collaged imagery from the work featured in the exhibition.

dimpled, twisted & buried exhibition zine
8.5x11” classic 1-page fold with interior poster

Dimpled, Twisted, and Buried (2016, Fresh Arts Gallery) considers and embraces the strange, absurd, and excellent experience of inhabiting and maneuvering a physical form—one that absorbs and oozes, stretches and breaks, can be cuddled, molded, stitched, costumed, stripped, and shriveled. Though highly adaptable, our bodies require constant maintenance and care to endure weirdness daily. Ailments, injuries, secretions, ingestions, and urgent and lingering emotions compound with years of repeated bending, binding, twisting and grinding.

This zine features artwork from the exhibition along with a short curatorial essay, as well as a signature poster on the interior of the zine when unfolded.

breathe in gold light exhibition zine
2.5x4”, 14 pages, folded with interior essay

breathe in gold light (2015, New Door Creative) featured work in a range of media by twelve Mid-Atlantic women artists visualizing female bodies as conduits for transcendent spiritual experiences. The exhibition included figurative and abstract images of the female form, concentrating on portraits of individual spiritual practice, scenes of partnership, and depictions of communities unified by ritual.

This zine features artwork from the exhibition along with a curatorial essay.

Zines by Collaborator Ellen Phillips - Work in Progress

Zines by Simmer Projects - Work in Progress