Editor’s Note: This is an update of a previously published post.
Today (4 Mar, 2026), we published one issue of Art & Copy, it’s not exactly publishing, I suppose, if there is only one copy of it. It’s called ‘Slow is the Fastest Way,’ a title inspired by some converastions in a group on Telegram I write with people in that I’ve known for some time now, and that group is ‘New Cojournals.’ I don’t know why the making of this issue reminded me of ‘New Baselines,’ the podcast I made with Shalini Verma, a few years ago, but it did.
It could be the earnestness, the freeing feeling of not being tied up with a particular way of doing things that one is tol done must want to do. The conversations in these twin spaces seem to resonate, somehow, for me, and I thought I’d share today what we did with that past issue of S P A C E ,’New Baselines.’ If I’m honest, at that time, it felt like one of the best things S P A C E could ever make. It was honest, raw, and real. It was us, talking: together. It was a place where something got worked out, I feel, and I liked the experience of that. Art can help us, a lot. When you think about it like that, the ‘value’ becomes ultra clear.
Art & Copy, ‘Slow is the Fastest Way’, had a similar kind of emotion, for me. I printed the cover. The photocopy shop was like, “just one page!?’, and I said, yea. Then I came to the studio and started figuring out how to stitch something together from piles of old zines and bits of new papers, some stray writings I’ve been looking at for years, and the like. Blue seemed to be everywhere, so I collaged these things together and made the issue and there it was. Completed. On to the next one. It does really feel the same way that publishuing a weekly paper did, for me. Just scoped down, to focus on the process of making it up as we go. Improvisations, as always. I’m happy with this. The bulk of ‘Slow’ is a mishmash of papers, bits, collages, storied pieces that I have had for some time. The aged pages once distressed me, like when there was water seeping into a place not wel-designed and too new for that to be known yet, and wrecked some of my drawings. This was also an opportunity, as it happens to be, sometimes. The ink ran on the graph papers, and some of it was quite beautiful. The blooms of inkwash are still here, with me, through I think like four or six house moves, since then.
Continuations
Things that have lived in my studio with me for ten years here, in Cambodia’s Phnom Penh. Which I couldn’t let go of somehow, but then, something cool happened: I found a home for them. In a ‘zine’. A zine is a mini-magazine. I’ve been making these for a really long time but not in earnest, and certainly not with brand new others, until about last year in the Art & Copy Zine Club. Then I started inviting people to co-think, and co-make with us. Yes, us, because more is nice. But just a few more. Not a big crowd, not a lot of noise.
One of the things I did for S P A C E sometime around mid-2023 was to start making my versions of audio collages, in the form of interviews with highly creative, well-accomplished people. So that we could have more to work with, at a time I think I may have been part of a trend of people who prefer audio now to reading blog posts. Well, yes. I do enjoy a good dialogue.
I got to interview the incredible Shalini Verma, and it was really fun. Important for me to truly hear her story, as she chose to share it. (See more below). It was great to meet Shalini virtually, and co-make this converastion and this zine.
Here is our conversation, ‘New Baselines”..
This Soundcloud file is part of a download you can get with this issue of S P A C E, titled, S P A C E | ‘New Baselines.’ It’s in the shop.
Shop S P A C E
You can get this issue in the S P A C E online shop.
Here is a link:
https://designkompany.gumroad.com/l/tjxvo
Thanks!