June ‘26 Studio Updates

Updates on my work, my life, and my favorite memes and media.

This month, I took a road trip around Colorado and New Mexico with my family. My highlights were going on a guided tour of Mesa Verde and drinking a flight of pre-Columbian hot chocolate in Santa Fe. My lowlights were when my mom dropped a knife on my leg and stabbed me, and when I almost threw up in a field of snakes.

Teaching Update

I am very happy to share that I’ll be teaching Experimental Animation at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in the fall! If you are an experimental animator, consider sharing exercises that you enjoy and films that you think I should show my students.

The Pleasure-Dome Trailer

I am in the torturous process of submitting my latest film, The Pleasure-Dome, to festivals. This is my first time participating in the film circuit without releasing my project online first, and it has been an unpleasant experience, as I don’t know where it will land and who will see it and what the overall reception will be. My resolution for July is to extract myself from the stranglehold of Vimeo analytics, that false comfort. That all said, I did make a trailer.

Website Update

I redesigned my website! I’m using Cargo and really enjoy how versatile it is. Here is my homepage, a collection of curios:

Freelance Work

A few editorial illustrations I created this month for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

“Georgia’s three signers of Declaration of Independence: ‘Unlikely patriots’?” (for AJC)

“Flight attendants accused instructor of harassment. Delta gave him a new job.” (for AJC)

“America at 250: Civic hygiene can save election integrity in Ga. and beyond” (for AJC)

From the Studio

I am using my current sketchbook as a space for collage, mixed media drawings, and self-portraits, which I will post once I develop a larger body of work. In the meantime, I’ll share some acrylic marker drawings I made last summer, which I enjoy and think turned out well, but I cannot recommend the medium—acrylic markers are rich and opaque for only a short period of time, after which they become useless plastic sticks.

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And finally…

Memes & Media with Marcie

Book (for Reading)

I’m currently reading James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain, and I love it so far. A quote:

Yet, if he could not play their games, he could do something they could not do; he was able, as one of his teachers said, to think. But this brought him little in the way of consolation, for today he was terrified of his thoughts. He wanted to be with these boys in the street, heedless and thoughtless, wearing out his treacherous and bewildering body.

I read Giovanni’s Room last year and enjoyed that as well.

Book (for Looking)

I impulsively bought a sticker book (conveniently called Sticker Book) for my sketchbook and to decorate my (slow-to-fill) commonplace book. It’s surprisingly beautiful and thoughtful, and I’m having a lot of fun with it.

Turning Are.na Channels into Websites

Star Star uses Are.na Editorial’s API¹ to turn channels into websites. Their free version comes with one free website and a few fun templates. Here’s mine, a wiki of my sketchbook channel:

Repellent Meals

In Colorado, during our precious vacation time, brother showed me a horrible video of a man who created a homemade sausage with aloe Vera (which he reviewed as tasting “fresh”).

I have also been following a man on TikTok who has maintained a perpetual stew (“Stewtheus”) for, as of today, over 400 days. According to the comments, this stew is being kept in his bedroom. I am fascinated and repelled, and, against the wishes of my loved ones, I’d like to try it.

@zaq.projects#perpetualstew #stew #soup #easymeals #slowcooker

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Until next time,

1. I am so sorry, I don’t know what that means.