From the creator of Variations Zine is Nickel95 a new art and poetry zine from London Ontario. Run by poet, photographer, editor and chocolate enthusiast Melissa Upfold. ​

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Making a zine can be very cathartic. Right now, I am in need of delving into some paint and words.

In the past, I have turned to making zines to get through things that trouble me. For three years after returning from school in Ottawa, I ran and created Variations Zine while my brother struggled with a brain tumour. It was my outlet.

Now that I am in London and struggling with my new surroundings, I feel it is time once again to delve into making art with these two hands and to promoting the work of people I respect.

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So, you might ask, what is a zine? Is it just short for magazine? Well you are right to some extent. Zines origins are in fan fiction back in the day when people still mailed people things. Mailing lists developed and out of this so did zines: zines about trains and skies and poetry and everything in between. A zine is basically a limited run, simply put together magazine that a person (i.e. me) gets full creative control over. I can have whatever I want in my zine and that is exactly what makes it so special. A zine is essentially a cheap way to share an opinion in a beautiful way.

So with this zine as with the last, I intend on doing all of the artwork by hand. If you are new to who I am, I have been known to handpaint over 200 sheets of paper, make potato stamps with friends for hours, use printers in new and exciting ways and hand dyeing paper with tea leaves all over my parents house.

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Well that isn't going to change. If anything, I have learned a lot more about art since my last zine. If I do choose to have another artist come and join me in creating, they would have to understand the undertaking involved in create original products. So if you are and artist and you want to apply, you might want to hole up with me for several weeks to get the work done. Since this probably isn't possible right now, I will most likely be doing the artwork. Though, I do encourage artists to submit. Just understand, I will not be printing this on glossy paper and I do not like to spend a lot of money to make this. I like the challenge of using techniques from childhood, a real DIY approach.