I’ve been sharing about an opportunity to meet, write, talk, make, and co-create with other people in Cojournal for a little while now. Mostly, through only my personal mailing lists for Kismuth and new conversations sparked by flyers, here where I am in Phnom Penh.
The idea of writing together led to making ‘zines’ because, hey, I love publishing, layout, conversation, interviews. And that’s what happened. we made a lot of zines in some tracks of Cojournal, and talked about many, many other things in other ones. Here are the things coming up next: kismuth.com/continuing-guests.
Nostalgia for a simpler time, but hindsight is 20/20, sure
Remember the days when it used to be easy to talk to people? Or maybe I was just lucky, getting training in this from the good people of West Cork, back in the days Akira and I were living there.
That was our first jaunt into the wild forays of life and adventure, three years there then more in Seatttle, then Raleigh-Durham for a while to see things and see what things might get made. I wanted to get together with people in conversation salons. I wanted to talk about existentialism, philosophy, design. I was younger and idealistic, and so was Akira. We took a big step into the unknown and took this optimism on the road, landing somehow in Phnom Penh, and staying for… twelve years.
Let’s get together & share stories
I’m coming back to the Triangle to gather Kismuth and Cojournal’s community members there, interconnect you guys. Long-time supporters of these projects, too, I hope to host in small miniparties so you can meet me, and each other, I hope, too.
ZINE ITERATIONS. There have also been supporters of our zines, S P A C E, and Art & Copy, and now DESK, too. We’ve gotten some press. It has been a massive and validating thing for artists, all throughout history, for people to recognize and support us. Along these journeys, so, so many people have, and continue to, support these publishing and offline engagement efforts. Art projects. Despite the obvious reasons it ‘can’t and won’t work, ever, why not just quit now and get a job and get on with it, like the rest of us?’ Guess who says this the most? (I will tell you.)
Was leaving NC worth it? I don’t know. I definitely want to see what I missed out on, having FOMO and stuff. But, I made a lot of things. And some people liked them.
This summer, I will bring and deliver pre-ordered zines to you if you are in NC and if you’ve ordered before… um, July 5. What do you think? Want me to bring something for you? Do see if something resonates? To order, see the page about that, here: http://chuffed.org/project/art-copy and here… http://kismuth.com/zineclub2026 …. are the zine titles for Art & Copy. I have three DESKs, pictured in the little grid on that page at the top.
Meet new people who care about art, design, and making things
Encouragement, not discouragement, is what the creative individual needs and deserves. Everyone is creative, by the way. It’s just a practice you need to develop, if you want to. You can make by making ,making time and space and prioritizing it. Really. You can. So, let’s get together again and try a Cojournal experience, which is different. It’s about us, talking and writing and doing this before we get together in prson. We weill start online. There’s a lot more to share, but here is the event info page, for now. https://designkompany.com/art-copy/cojournal-raleigh/
- What is Cojournal? This: http://kismuth.com/cojournal
- Apply to Cojournal here: http://kismuth.com/apply2026
- We start on 5 July in virtual space then take it to the 3D realms.
Thanks for reading! Welcome, welcome back, and see you soon.
If you want something more serious and business-oriented, ask me about UNBOXED.