DARIN HAYTON

Category: Create

  • Making Zines

    Making Zines

    I like making things. Little things. Big things. Lately, I’ve been having fun with an 8-page zine. Printed from one piece of paper, folded, and cut, it is to me the ideal format for a short outing, or for a case study of a place. Or, I can look back through photographs I’ve taken to find a group of 8 that make a good theme.

    A color photograph of zines I have made recently.
    Some of the zines I have been making lately.

    They are easy and relatively quick to print and to fold. I use 11″x17″ sheets of paper, so that each page is about 4″x5″, large enough to showcase the photographs but not so large as to be bulky. I tweaked the layout a bit so that the cover image wraps around the front and back covers.

    Color photograph of the “Vienna at Night” zine, before I folded and cut it.
    The “Vienna at Night” zine before I folded and cut it.

    This format also gives a place to print a large photograph on the back side. It’s sort of a surprise for the person looking at the zine, and a puzzle — it seems unfolding and refolding the zine presents something of a challenge for people, which I didn’t expect.

    A color picture of the Glorietta in Vienna, which is the central image in my zine.
    A picture of the Glorietta that is the central image of the zine “Vienna at Night”

    When it is all done, trimmed, folded, and cut, the zine is the perfect size for my guerrilla art projects. I have given them to friends and handed them to people I don’t know, left them on tables and shelves in coffeeshops, stuffed them between books in libraries and bookstores, and left them on seats in buses.

    Color photograph of the cover of the “Vienna at Night” zine, showing half of the Hofburg.
    The cover of the “Vienna at Night” zine.

    I don’t know what happens to those I abandon in the world. And I don’t really care. The point, for me, is in the making and giving away (not, I stress, “sharing” which has become an essential part of the economy of likes, has become entirely transactional, and depends on knowing what happens to whatever you make).

    Color photograph of two pages in the “Vienna at Night” zine, after I folded and cut it.
    Two of the pages in the “Vienna at Night” zine, after I folded, cut, and pressed it flat.

    Sometimes I leave the house, camera in hand, looking for a coherent set of images that work well together. That was the case with the “Walking in Sacramento” or the “Alone in Philadelphia” zines — I knew an afternoon’s walk would produce at least 8 scenes I could cobble together into a zine. Other times, I draw from a few trips out and about, as in the “Vienna at Night” zines (there are two of these zines, gathering together the photographs from a few nights wandering the city late at night). In other cases, a zine emerges when I’m looking back through photos I’ve taken over a number of trips out. “Alone in Jefferson” is that type — the central image is part of a collection of photographs I’ve taken usually in Jefferson Station that highlight the loneliness of the modern world.

    Color photograph of the central image in the “Alone in Jefferson” zine. A man stands alone against a blue tiled wall. He looks towards his feet.
    The central image for the “Alone in Jefferson” zine.

    Any group of 8 photographs that cohere can become one of these little zines. Inspired by Alexey Titarenko, I took a bunch of photographs of people in a local cafe (see Ghosts in the Cafe). Turns out I have 8 that work well together, so I printed them as a zine. Seems appropriate that I left a handful in that cafe.

    Black and white photograph of a spread from the “Ephemeral” zine, showing ghost like figures is a cafe.
    A spread from the “Ephemeral” zine.

    Like all of my projects, this one will last as long as I find it amusing or interesting. I will continue to print copies of these zines, and cast them into the world. If you’d like to receive a few, send me $10 and your address. I will send you three random zines. Or, offer something in exchange.

  • Ghosts in the Café

    Ghosts in the Café

    Lately I have been inspired by the long-exposure photos of Alexey Titarenko. I think his “City of Shadows” is beautiful and haunting. To be sure, some of my fascination comes from my fascination with 1990s St. Petersburg. Nonetheless, I find the images lovely. So I thought I would try some long or, in this case, multiple exposures

    Black and white photo inside a cafe. All the patrons are blurred out.
    Urban #230911.

    The local café is convenient and has reasonable coffee, so I am practicing there. I like the look, but need to find a better location. I should head into the city one night. Maybe if we get snow this winter. I have some places in mind that will, I hope, look good.

    Black and white photo inside a cafe. All the patrons are blurred out.
    Urban #230916
  • Fragments Red

    Fragments Red

    I recently finished another book project, “Fragments Red.” This volume will be the first of a seven-volume project, each pairing photographs with reflections of different sorts.

    Color photo of a booklet, partially open to the photo of a cliff.
    Working on the first volume of Fragments. The fourth draft.

    A handful of drafts, each with a number of changes. Then there was the layout and design issues, where to put gatefolds, how to bind them, solving pagination issues. It was all so much fun.

    Color photo of a a pile of draft booklets, and some final pages, showing a man in a subway car.
    A pile of drafts of volume one of Fragments, and some early printed pages.

    After I spent a evening or two printing the pages, I made a jig to make drilling the holes in the pages easier and consistent. Then I painted some covers, found some matching thread to use for the binding (a version of “Japanese stab binding”), and sewed them up. Soon I had a dozen or so booklets.

    Color photograph of a couple booklets with red covers. One is open to the title page.
    Final copies of Fragments Red, with hand-painted covers and hand-stitched binding.

    It took a long time, but I find something so satisfying about making something. Now off to start working on volume two, Fragments Orange.

  • Just Create

    Just Create

    Consistency is important. Consistency not in the sense of making the same thing or even the same type of thing, but in the sense of making something. Doing something with my hands. Anything. Lately, I have occupied my hands and my mind by using books as an inspiration for a type of drawing, something called “entopic graphomania.” I came across it in Playing with Sketches, by Whitney Sherman, though there are lots of other accounts, e.g., “What is entopic graphomania.” It is quiet and feeds a certain type of creative need.

    Black and white photo of pages from Catch-22 that I drew on.
    Creativity need not be profound. Here are a couple pages from a copy of Catch-22 that I used for some “entopic graphomania.”

    Like so many creative practices, my approach changes over time. These early examples seem now, to me, to be rather rigid and spare. More recently I tend toward busier drawings. I have also found ways to add layers to the process. So now the drawings within a book speak to each other.

    Image of the title page of René Descartes’ "Discourse on Method” with lines on it, connecting some letters together.
    Descartes “Discourse on Method” was a handy canvas for some entopic graphomania. I ditched it in a bookstore.
    A photograph of a shelf of books, with Descartes’ “Discourse on Method” highlighted.
    A modified version of Descartes’ “Discourse on Method” waiting for somebody to find it.

    And as with all my creative efforts, the process doesn’t end with the making. I cast them into the world. Little Free Libraries, bookstores, libraries, benches are just some of the places I have left copies. Maybe somebody else will stumble across them and try to make sense of them.

    Photograph of a Little Free Library, with two copies of John Hawkes’s “The Cannibal”.
    Two copies of John Hawkes’s “The Cannibal” stashed in a Little Free Library for somebody to find (both have since gone away).
  • PBα

    PBα

    I often think of photographs in collections or series, linked to a single subject (e.g., an idea, place, time, experience). Given my preference for printed, physical photographs, I increasingly try to imagine a project in the form of an artist’s book. Artist’s books are not restricted by the format of a traditional book, sequential pages glued (or sewn) together. Instead, an artist’s book gives me the chance to play with form (accordion books, folding books, etc.). By taking advantage of these different forms, I can encourage people to imagine different ways to think about the relationship between photographs.

    PBα #0. A photograph of a “panel book”, a series of duotone photographs bound into a small book.
    PBα #0.

    Recently I was playing with what I’ll call a “panel book” (“flap book” or “flag book” might be good terms as well, but let’s not dwell). In this initial experiment, three series of eight photograph-sentence pairs are arranged so that the reader can flip through each panel individually. The reader creates the series by flipping between photograph-sentence panels.

    PBα #1. A photograph of a “panel book”, a series of duotone photographs bound into a small book.
    PBα #1.

    The book is an unusual shape, very narrow and tall at 2.75″x16″. The pages are stitched together inside a heavy stock cover. The paper I used for the pages was a bit thick (fortunately, I have since purchased some thinner paper). It took some planning to get the layout correct so that the printed pages would be in the correct order when folded and sewn. But now that I’ve figured it out, I’ll certainly be making more — I’ve already got PBβ planned.

    PBα original #0. A color photograph of the page images used to print the booklet PBα.
    PBα original #0.
    PBα original #1. A color photograph of the page images used to print the booklet PBα.
    PBα original #1.
  • For no public

    For no public

    I do not write for the public.

    G.M. Hopkins

    I don’t quite know how Hopkins meant this comment. His poetry suggests, to me, that he meant he didn’t write popular verse. He wrote for an audience of one or maybe for no audience. He wrote what he needed to write and didn’t give any thought to how people might read it.

    Urban #231223. A black and white photo of a table with two chairs in a darkened space.
    Urban #231223.

    Hopkins’ comment pairs well, I think, with a poster I saw the other day:

    it’s not always about what you make, but the fact that you are creating.

    Simone Salib Studio

    Today’s economy of exposure demands that we create in the hopes of gaining validation from some imagined audience of potentially thousands. Succumbing to that demand prevents us from making the things we want to see and risks constraining our collective creativity.

    Repeat as needed: Be comfortable enough with yourself to create what you need to create. That’s what matters.

  • Series of Images

    Series of Images

    As I make more books and things (collections of postcards are in the works), I increasingly think of photos in series. I don’t deny the power of a single, amazing photograph, but there is a value in seeing photographs as part of a collection of related images. I have long appreciated the powerful work of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Series can be as short as a pair of photos, a diptych, or much longer series, such as 52/4.

    From a recent trip to the Great Sand Dunes I have a number of nice, single photos as well as a number of photos that work well as short series. The images are fine on their own, but work really well as a triptych.

    Landscape #230820. A triptych of color photos of sand and shadow.
    Landscape #230820.

  • The Loss of Idleness

    The Loss of Idleness

    I don’t know quite how to begin. These ideas are just beginning to take shape. Maybe I can start simply, by describing what concerns me, what seems, at least to me, to be a problem.

    The other day, while stopped at a traffic light, the two people in the car next to me were both consumed by their phones; behind them on the corner a pedestrian stared at his phone as he leaned on the light pole waiting for a walk signal. This morning as I stood third in line to order coffee, the person in front of me hunched over her phone. The woman behind me at the market, having loaded her groceries onto the belt, pulled out her phone while I paid my bill. When I look around, such scenes repeat themselves everywhere — we don’t dare spend a single moment in idleness. I worry we have lost something important by filling every instance with an endless source of distractions.

    Urban #230510.2. A black and white photo of a woman standing in 30th Street Station looking at her phone.
    Urban #230510.2.

    Neil Gaimon is reported to have said: “Ideas come from daydreaming. They come from drifting. So if you want to get a good idea for a book, you have to let yourself get so bored that your mind has nothing better to do than tell itself a story.” Gaimon’s point applies to more than writing books. Daydreaming, drifting, boredom are the source of and essential for creativity. In idleness we become bricoleurs, collecting fragments of the world around us that we arrange into something new.

    Urban #230510.3. A black and white photo of a woman sitting in Pret à Manger in 30th Street Station looking at her phone.
    Urban #230510.3.

    Most of the things we create will seem, at first glance, of little value, but upon reflection we might begin to appreciate both the process of creating them and, now and then, the things themselves. Each item will, after all, be something we have made, something we have added to the universe, proof that we have been here. Each will reflect us at a particular moment. Photographs, for example. Through a process of selection and exclusion, each one is an assembly of pieces from the world around me. Each reflects ideas and anxieties, joys and sorrows of a particular moment and a particular place. Each also offers a seed for later reflection, a chance to try to recover what concerned me at the time or opportunity to tell myself a story about what happened to the scene afterwards.

    Urban #230510.4. A black and white photo of a man sitting in Pret à Manger in 30th Street Station looking at her phone.
    Urban #230510.4.

    Bricolage is the process of assembling the fragments of your surroundings into something new — Gaimon’s comment about telling yourself a story. It’s what the bricoleur does, it’s what the author and the creator do. It takes practice to fit pieces together, to grasp how different shards can be combined into a harmonious whole. Idleness, boredom, drifting — these are the times we practice assembling those shards into something coherent and new. If we deny ourselves those idle moments we deny ourselves the chance to have ideas. When we outsource those ideas to algorithms and other people (who are, typically aping something they have seen on their phones), we lose the ability to think and create for ourselves.

    Urban #230510.5. A black and white photo of a woman standing in 30th Street Station looking at her phone.
    Urban #230510.5.

    The world is a fascinating place, if we just take the time to look around, if we lose ourselves in doing nothing. Idleness is, it seems, essential to creation.

  • Creativity Needs No Audience

    Creativity Needs No Audience

    I envy Vivian Maier. Not because I like her work — I have seen too few of her photos to know what I think of them, though I doubt they would appeal much to me. No. I envy Vivian Maier because she seems not to have cared whether or not I liked her work, or had any ideas about it one way or another. She seems not to have given a single thought to any audience. That must be liberating, a particular type of freedom that encourages a more sincere form of creativity.

    Urban #230717. A black and white photograph of a person ice skating alone.
    Urban #230717.

    In my taxonomy, Maier didn’t produce art so much as engaged in creativity. She answered to some siren call that others were not able to or privileged to hear. She made photographs that she wanted to or had to make. Maybe she produced for an audience of one, herself. I am always impressed by that person who strives to do something, to make something, to realize some inner need even when or especially when nobody is watching.

  • Asocial Media

    Asocial Media

    I make things and leave them places (a Little Free Library or a local coffee shop or a local French bakery or stashed amongst the books at a local bookstore) for other people to find. I don’t know what happens after that. It adds a sense of mystery and intrigue.

    Color photo of some hand-made books on a table.
    Parts for some hand-made books — pages, covers, and glue.

    I create things I need to create. I guess in some sense I make things for somebody else, though not for some specific somebody else. For me, creating something and leaving it in the world completes the process. The dopamine rush comes from making and leaving, not from some affirmation or condemnation in the form of likes or dislikes, follows or unfollows, thumbs up or thumbs down.

    Color photo of a few handmade books on a table, two are open.
    Recently finished hand-made books, soon to be left somewhere.

    I guess I would call this a type of a-social media.