My name is Stevie Thomsen and I’m a genderqueer artist from Sacramento, CA. I started this project back in 2022 around the turn of my 18th birthday. I had been reading zines for years, both those by friends and people I stumbled upon by chance. I had always known I wanted to produce my own work but was always unsure on the way in which I could present all my mixed interests, writing, and media alike in one.
I originally launched Boyish as a way to exhibit my work for an AP Art Studio class, but the second I started working I knew my intentions went deeper than that. Creating zines allowed me to fully immerse myself in the community that I had longingly looked at from afar, and form relationships with incredible creatives along the way as well as experiment and form a deeper relationship with myself and the art I create.
Producing my first three zines was backed with the intention of funding my legal name and gender change, something I had promised to myself since discovering my genderqueer identity in my late teens. Boyish and everyone who has supported it helped back the extensive government process that allowed this dream to come to fruition in early 2024. Being this iteration of myself in full has drastically changed my life for the better.
With every new work I produce comes new discoveries, both about my art and about myself. Over the last two years I've been focusing on different forms of printmaking and mixed media, helping to found the basis of my most recent personal zine, which incorporates many scans of my hands-on cyanotype and textile experimentation. This piece visually encapsulates my relationship and queries on religion, queerness, ancient text, and g-d.
Most recently, my girlfriend Marcia and I have turned a new leaf in my zine-making theme -- introducing The Potty Publication: a zine to be read on the toilet. A lighthearted read and full of humorous art and quips, this collection is aimed to do what we've been referencing as "revitalizing the lost art of bathroom literature". Hope u enjoy!
Thinking up a new zine in the background btw...
All my love,
<3 Stevie