Taking Up Space

Forever making body positive zines

I’ve been a fan of zines, radical little self-published and handmade books, for years. They came out of the 1960s and the Riot Grrls of the 90s made this popular and subversive way to combine written manifestos, art, collage, music lyrics, poetry and more into pocket-sized collaborative publications duplicated on Xerox machines. Several folks in the fat acceptance movement, including our founders, created booklets and magazines and things like fanzines for years, spreading the word that all bodies are good bodies and that there may be a new way and a better way to live. I decided to try my hand at some feminist zines about seven years ago now thanks to the financial support of my fans over on my Patreon and the help of some very special people, especially youth, in my realm. In honor of the 4th anniversary of the stand for self-love in 2019 I shared volume 1 of “Taking Up Space,” sharing my top ten tips to adding more body positivity to your life, featuring artwork by all three of my kids, including the monster painted by hand on all copies by my then five-year-old son, Arlo (he’s turning 12 tomorrow!).

My teen’s boyfriend even made the credits as did artist Jenny Hefner whose hand-letter coloring “All Bodies Are Good Bodies” page is also included. I gave copies as gifts to the Rad Fatties who came to our Boise Rad Fat Collective 6th birthday party and hid two for lucky attendees at that weekend’s Boise Public Library’s Boise Comic Arts Festival at JUMP Boise. (I do this often as a big fan of craftivist guerrilla art.)

In 2015 I was supposed to fly to NYC to be a guest on the TV show The View but they changed their mind when I refused to appear on stage for my interview in my bikini. Shortly after, I changed my mind about appearing on The Doctors daytime show because it became apparent they didn’t really want to talk to me about my work in self-esteem and shame and feminism but try to twist it and talk about my “health and diet” instead. In hindsight I might have made different choices in both instances but being thrown into international fame and a surprise press hurricane I felt protective of my message and overwhelmed.

At the same time my Boise Rad Fat Collective was bursting with requests to join and we jumped from 30 folks to 1,300 in like one month’s time and so many of them started sharing their powerful and vulnerable stories, too. They wrote me in private and stopped me in grocery stores and it still happens and I’m always so honored to hold that space.

A few of those stories (with permission) make an appearance in volume 2 of my body positive feminist zine Taking Up Space. I asked the women at my 2019 RADCAMP: A Body Positive Boot Camp For Feminists to complete the sentence “I am worthy because....” on notecards to be included and Arya Creates lent her artistic skills to the mermaid on the cover, colored by my children. Also in 2019 Ms. Bossy Boobs and her burlesque troupe in Pocatello created a performance based on my stand for self-love and handmade stickers to give the audience and they are in the booklet, too, along with more about some early stories of mine about the whirlwind that was those early days as a worldwide body image voice.

I sewed all these zines together with my sewing machine and love and completed volume 2 just in time to give a handful as gifts at my 2020 December Radical Reads Feminist Book Club at Curvy Girl Kate’s Plus Sized Consignment Shop.

In celebration of the 5th anniversary of my Stand for Self-Love, I completed the third volume of Taking Up Space, featuring 11 easy tips for raising body positive children and creating a diverse home that celebrates all bodies. The zines also feature super cool stickers The Art of Jaymee Laws as well as cover art by renowned cartoonist Scott Shaw, a design he made of some cute little characters enjoying each other and a pizza party as the advertising art for my Be RAD! Be YOU! A Body Image Workshop for Girls aged 10-12 at the Boise Public Library. And speaking of that workshop, this zine is filled with amazing artwork by the girls who attended - I asked them all to draw an image of something they loved about themselves. The results will blow your mind and fill your heart right up.

The tips and writing I share in my zines are so simple, so effective, so radical and so life-changing. It’s tried and true and stuff I share at all my workshops and lectures and are things I’m asked over and over for my expertise on. Body positive parenting, making your home a more accepting and diverse place, raising little radicals, and learning self-love and body acceptance begins here. They’re handmade, one of a kind, quirky and cute and would be a fun addition to your therapy office waiting room, as a gift to a parent or a teen you know, to put on your classroom bookshelf, or to use as a reference in your own life and art-making.

I made a limited edition run of three zines in 2020 and sold them as a fundraiser for my body image camps and classes and they sold out within hours. In honor of this next weekend’s inaugural Treefort Market (which I am running) at Boise’s Treefort Music Fest I’m reviving a mini version (both in size and content) of my body positive zines! The Boise Public Library is coming to do a fun and free little zine making workshop inside Treefort Market and I want to hide some of these sweeties around the event for folks to find and keep. Guerilla art - especially the hidden and free kind - has always been an important part of my craftivism. I’m currently making them, so don’t have completed photos to share, but please follow me on Instagram to see them completed this next week!