Rising Stars: Meet Bailey Winden

Today we’d like to introduce you to Bailey Winden.

Hi Bailey, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself
My name is Bailey, my pronouns are he/him, I’m a queer 19 year old and first year in college and I’ve been an artists since I was old enough to hold a pencil and art has always been a massive part of my life. Last summer, I was really trying to figure out what to do with my life. I knew I wanted some kind of art business, but was fresh out of high school and just thinking ahead. I discovered with a cool way to fold an 11 x 17 sheet of paper so it looks like a small book but can unfold completely with the back being blank, leaving room for a poster. I talked to some of my creative friends about how I wanted to uplift local artists and start some kind of community, and later found out about the world of zines. Ever since then, I’ve been constantly building everything up, creating a mission statement, having my friends volunteer, running booths at art markets, interviewing bands, and making connections with local artists and businesses. I’m now a freshman in college so am still learning to manage balancing school work and the zine while taking graphic design classes along the way to strengthen my skills. I put almost all of the profit the zine makes back into the business and also am currently working towards being able to pay every artist that we feature. I’ve learned so much and met so many cool people and am super excited to continue uplifting marginalized voices and artists and create a sense of community we can all benefit from.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
One struggle we’ve had to deal with is printing. Printing that poster sized sheets of paper in full color and double sided is not cheap. For a while, we were printing at my friend’s school because printing there for students was free, but they ended up dropping out. We are currently printing at my other friend’s school for a decent-ish price but it comes out of their school-given budget so it’s not ideal and unfortunately my school is very expensive to print at. Printing for free was awesome because I would give out the zines for free and put them in little free libraries and such, but now that would mean losing funds. Getting donations from people always helps.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I personally do all of the designing and collaborative work for the zine such as designing the posters, pages, running the Instagram and website, and also recruiting people to submit/deciding what goes in the zine and communicating with local artists and businesses. I have a few friends working as volunteers for the zine who edit, print, and come up with ideas for possible events, partnerships, and marketing. It’s definitely a team effort and I couldn’t do it without them. For those wondering what a zine is, it’s basically a shittily made magazine with a goal of circulation, not income. They are usually meant to spread radical ideas but are also used to create small communities of niche interests. Our zine’s main goal is to give artists who are just starting out good exposure as well as uplift voices that aren’t always heard. We also are creating a community of mutual support where artists and businesses from all over the area can learn about one another and support each other. Also to get some of these artists even just a little bit of funds for their work. It’s amazing to see everyone come together to create this little zine filled with amazing art and ideas and be able to say “yeah I’ve worked with this person, they are super cool”. By buying a zine, you aren’t just supporting me, you are supporting all of the local artists who contributed to it and who will continue to contribute. I think that working alongside your community is super super important.

What matters most to you? Why?
I’m definitely a big environmentalist so I think that if you are going to keep bad spending habits, and it’s not realistic that it will change, you might as well be using that money to support artists in your area rather than these big corporations that are horrible in so many ways. You can find so many amazing things that are hand made even, and so much better for the environment and economy-wise. I feel like we are also kinda saving paper in a way by having a poster be included on the same paper as the zine, since it’s like a two in one with no wasted paper. We also offer full digital versions of all of the zines for free on our website for those who don’t care for an in person copy, but still want to support the community. In one of our recent issues, we talked about the ‘stop line 3’ movement, and stuff like that is definitely stuff that I want to continue doing, especially if it’s a local issue such as line 3. But obviously, my number one goal is supporting all of these artists and helping them get their work out there in the world.

Pricing:

• Each zine is only $5 and the price goes down the more you buy i.e. $5 for one, $8 for two, $12 for three, etc.
• We charge $5 for shipping no matter how many issues are purchased

Contact Info:

• Email: [email protected]
• Website: https://thegreensofazine.wixsite.com/thegreensofazine
• Instagram: @thegreensofazine
• Other: https://venmo.com/code?user_id=3480241821451722127&created=1647810388.149178&printed=1

Image Credits
Bronwyn Simmons