Claire Hutchinson’s Zines
Photos courtesy of Russell Cothren
Senior creative writing major Claire Hutchinson, from Kansas City, made her first one-page zine during her freshman year. The experience stuck with her, and when she found herself in a creative slump in 2019, she decided to give herself a year-long challenge to create one every single month.
“It kept me creative at least once a month for the whole year,” she said. “It was a really cool experience, and I had a lot of people interested in following. I made copies for them and gave them away every month.”
To create the zines, Hutchinson borrowed an exercise from an early creative writing class. It involved making month-long lists of her favorite words and experiences in a notebook and then constructing a poem around them at the end of the month in order to reflect her mood or “overall vibe.”
Claire Hutchinson’s zines will be on display in Gearhart Hall this spring.
Some zines are exclusively art based, and I’ve also seen zines that are exclusively poetry. I didn’t want the zines to be plain and I do like creating art. I felt like I could merge the two fairly well.
