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Who here is interested in reading and seeing some delightful, serious, beautiful, cryptic, heartbreaking, and hilarious writing and art from mainly LGBTQ+ and BIPOC artists? If you answered yes, Moody the Zine is about to be your new favorite obsession.
Moody, run by Milwaukee artist Melissa Mursch-Rodriguez, began just a few months ago in 2020, yet it is already starting to build traction. Like The Workbench, Moody came from the need to do something while quarantining for the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Mursch-Rodriguez, “Moody is meant to cultivate a community and give a platform to primarily BIPOC and LGBTQ+ creatives to fill the void from the disappearance of these spaces due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
When asked why a zine instead of other artistic platforms, Mursch-Rodriguez said “I have always loved zines. They can be accessible to many people and are pretty easy to make and distribute.” A zine (coming from the word magazine), is a small booklet made up of a collection of poetry, songs, creative writing, photography prints, drawings, and any other type of two dimensional art imaginable. Rising to popularity in the 1990’s punk movement, zines were known for bluntly and openly expressing opinions, beliefs and ideas through art. “I think the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ movements have a lot of similar personality traits as the punk movement of the nineties,” Mursch-Rodriguez continued. “It doesn’t matter if every piece of art in its pages is revolutionary, the history of the zine itself is radical, meaning present-day zines still hold that radical concept.”
This idea of creating anything: writing, art, crafts, meals, music (honestly anything), is strongly related to the concept of wellness. When your mind is able to work on a physical project in front of you instead of a conceptual problem relating to work or life, you begin to use different muscles both in your body and in your brain. Letting your mind wander is so important to mental wellness, because it allows you to become more self aware. It’s like working out only your left leg and never your right. After a point, the muscles in one leg will be very weak, while the muscles in the other leg will be overworked. Your brain is very similar. Working on a project that doesn’t use a whole lot of the left, rational, side of your brain, allows your right, creative, side to get a necessary workout.
“Creating is a good way to work through what you are going through. Its like a type of therapy for me” Mursch-Rodriguez said. “In college, diving into fibers artwork helped me work through finding my identity, even when I didn’t want to talk about it with other people.”
When asked what she wanted people to know who are thinking about starting to write, Mursch-Rodriguez urged people to
“write more; just do it. Start off with a journal that you don’t show anyone, and write just for yourself. Don’t put any restrictions or rules about when you need to write because it should always be something that you like to do. However, always be honest about yourself in your writing, and never lie in your journal.”
Moody’s first issue is out now, with the second currently in the works. And the community has definitely shown up for it. According to their website, enough people have submitted their work to fill the pages of Moody for the next year.
As for the future, Mursch-Rodriguez isn’t quite sure where this idea could go. Since the project came specifically to give a stage to people when so many stages were closed down, she is planning to take the project month-by-month. Mursch-Rodriguez passion has always been to give a platform that helps others grow. If possible, one day she would love to make Moody a physical location, filled to the brim with multiple art mediums and performances.
To support this goal of Moody’s or just to read more, pre-order the second issue here. To follow the organization, sign up for their newsletter here.
