The Trinity Art Collective, Trinity’s foremost all-things-art club, held their inaugural zine-making event at their Feb. 9 meeting in the Jim and Janet Dicke Art Building. “Scattered Zine” is the title of the Art Collective’s new official zine, an independent, noncommercial publication typically devoted to a specific subject.
Spearheaded by club officer Eleanor Perrier, the club supports Trinity students’ artistic expression in a collaborative effort to produce a collection of works organized around the theme “For the Love of Art.” Trinity Art Collective is a student organization responsible for many other popular campus events, including the art markets hosted each semester, in which vendors can to sell homemade items on Trinity’s campus. The zine event is one more creative outlet the Art Collective offers students.
Jacob Iverson, senior art and communication double-major, is the president of the Trinity Art Collective. He identified a few of the goals of the various events that the club plans in order to support the many artists who work in many different art mediums at Trinity.
He spoke to the art markets as the clubs’ primary way of connecting people, not only to the club, but to each other and the larger San Antonio community. “We’ve had people sell sculptural work, prints, photography, drawings, paintings, handmade jewelry, to handmade clothing,” Iverson said.
The zine, in contrast to the art markets, allows artists to showcase their work without the more formal, social interaction of selling. “It’s really casual. We will hold events for [making the zine] and provide cloth materials and other kinds of design-making materials,” Iverson said, explaining the process. “Then we take all of the work if the students are comfortable leaving it, we will scan it and then we upload it.” The first edition will be handed out at Coates Student Center.
Iverson highlighted Eleanor Perrier’s involvement in the club as crucial to helping the zine idea come to fruition. “[The zine] is a part of the Art Collective, a part of Trinity, but it’s a passion project for her,” Iverson said.
Grace Anderson, senior biochemistry and molecular biology double-major, talked about attending the zine-making night, and about participating in the Trinity Art Collective.
“I actually never made a zine before, and I don’t think I’ve ever made a collage actually, it felt really spontaneous. I just kept flipping through things and putting things together and it kind of evolved in front of me,” Anderson said.
Oil painting is Anderson’s primary art form, but she also enjoys ceramic studio, a form she was introduced to at Trinity. “Normally most of my art is very planned out,” Anderson said. “So it was a lot less stressful than a lot of other types of art I’ve undertaken.”
As someone who is typically occupied in the STEM field, Anderson spoke of the Art Collective as providing an important creative outlet. “It’s allowed me to explore my artistic side in a way that I wouldn’t really be able to do just on my own, and I also get to meet other artists, which I think helps develop your own art a lot, too,” Anderson said.
Iverson also spoke to this positive diversity in the Trinity art community. “Having a safe space to grow through expression is much larger than the Art Collective, it’s the campus-wide appreciation for art that makes it feel comfortable,” Iverson said.
The arts community at Trinity supports many different paths of creative involvement and expression. The zine is just one more opportunity for students to grow as artists.
*Eleanor Perrier is an illustrator for the Trinitonian.