[flickr id=”10800234046″ thumbnail=”medium” overlay=”true” size=”original” group=”” align=”none”] Before we go into what I call crunch time and I have to start hunkering down to work on final papers and tying up the loose ends of the semester, I thought I would take a little time to talk about the main projects that I have been working on lately.I’m sure that I have mentioned before that I write another blog aside from this one, called Post-Punk Parenthood. This has been the central part of my practice. In the blog I have been relating my experiences growing up in the Chicago punk scene and how that has impacted my role as a parent. It seemed to me that the most logical next step in writing the blog was to transform it into a zine. With the zine I could start rebuilding the community that I missed so much from my youth. I reached out to some of my friends that were now parents and caregivers and all of a sudden I had a writing staff of sorts.

In my Multiples class this semester we have to design and make, you guessed it, multiples. The instructor had a pretty loose definition of what we could make. Some students are making limited edition statue/figurines, one student is making an app. I chose to make merch along the lines of what would be sold at a merch table at a concert. I’m making one inch buttons and vinyl stickers. For the third project in that class I am making a smaller version of the zine to be distributed for free, what I’m calling issue #0.

Issue #0 is going to be a single sheet folded booklet. This structure is pretty neat. You can print on both sides of the sheet and once it’s folded you have eight pages of content with a front and back cover and here’s the coolest part: when you unfold it, you can have a poster on the back! I recently finished a drawing that I have been working on for most of the semester that will be featured on the back. The content will consist of three of my contributors articles, and info on the back cover of where to find more and how to help out in getting more issues printed. My goal is to get a bunch of these printed and folded this week. On Sunday the 17th, I’m going to the Alkaline Trio concert at the Aragon Ballroom (what we called the “Brawlroom”). This seemed to me to be a logical place to hand the mini-zine out.

So, that’s where I am at right now with my personal project and how I am using my classes to work for me. I also recently wrote a proposal through Columbia College Chicago to go to a dad’s blogging conference, Dad2.0 Summit, in New Orleans, which would help advance my project even further. I guess I have been pretty busy. Soon, I will be nose deep in books and typing away at an eight page paper. Then winter break! The second half of the semester always goes by so fast.