The Foundry At Home: People's Press

The Foundry At Home: People's Press

Extra, Extra, Read All About It! We recently unearthed a SPECTACULAR bit of ephemera from the Foundry Archives: Anna's very own self-published newspaper from 1992, "The People's Press"

As sensational as it is sensational—including a macabre attention-grabbing headline, a hard-hitting lightning-bolt infographic on local candy consumption, and an ad for a giant floppy disk among other gems—Anna's People's Press also serves as a perfect artifact, a rumple-edged snapshot of the sweet life-of-mind of 10-year-old-Anna at that exact time. It's equal parts silly, creative, dark, funny, wistful, and whimsical and it immediately transported us to those kinds of long, inspired afternoons where we might spend an hour (or four) feverishly working on some project we dreamed up. Who doesn't need a little of that right now?

 

 

Inspired by the People's Press and equipped with some amazing just-delivered Foundry zine-worthy art supplies—paper bundles from Papeterie St-Armand, a fresh, square glue stick, and a brand-spankin' new stencil, among others—self-nominated Editor-in-Chief Heather sat down to make her own.

 

Your-very-own-newspaper can be so many things: it can be anything you want it to be! Dramatic! Informational! Funny! All of the above! It can be about the present-day or it can be a fantasia of the "news" that speaks to you. One of Lillian's high school friends produced an ongoing series called "Bill Pullman Weekly", where every week revealed new steamy, sordid, surreal, and completely made-up exploits of t̶h̶e̶ ̶g̶u̶y̶ ̶f̶r̶o̶m̶ ̶T̶w̶i̶s̶t̶e̶r̶ the guy from Independence Day. She now has a PhD and is a professor of journalism. SEE, MOM? You could print it on a computer, you could type it on a typewriter. You could include a real newspaper article about how Lillian's mom potty trained her in four hours (or not) (but yes). If you're going all-Anna, you could write it by hand and festoon it with interesting cutouts from the woodstove kindling pile:

 

 

There is so much to explore and celebrate about our quotidian lives, even/especially now in this current wild moment. What were our days like during this time? What was THE BIG NEWS on the home-front? Did you build a secret fort? How did you feel? What was your favorite thing to eat for breakfast? What on EARTH are the neighbors hammering away on back there? How much candy did you eat?? Once you've put together all the freshest news, copy/scan it and send it to your grandparents! Or take a picture and text your bestie who lives way too far away. Or just put it in a box to be discovered decades later by your co-workers and gleefully recreated! You do you.

 

 

To that end, this is just the kind of project we love doing with young people. We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the potent teachable power—especially for kiddoes—in making your own newspaper. It's a pretty simple and dang great way to model and experience firsthand so many of the larger-than-us forces at work in how we consume media. Hidden alongside beautiful paper cuttings and funny ink stamps are the true powerful tools of self-expression: whose stories get told and how? What is bias? What is the "truth"?

 

 

But Hey, it doesn't NEED to get all serious! It's a self-published newspaper with doodles of puppies and headshots of Sting for goodness' sake! But, with all things, as we work to make sense of this wild and beautiful world, it helps to have something purposeful and lovely to occupy our hands so our minds are free to wander through the very real possibilities of who, what, when, where, and why.

 

Want to get printing? Heather's favorite Art + Newspaper-Making Supplies are right here.

 

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