My name is Stevie Thomsen (20) 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.
Now, over two years into this project, I am as immersed as ever. I knew going into college that art and being involved in a community of creatives would always matter to me, and I have kept that promise to myself. I have been lucky enough to have tabled at New Haven Zine Fair last February, and similarly this winter at the Newark Zine Fair. Through working as a photographer and designer for my college’s student run fashion and culture magazine (Gray Area Magazine) as well as pursuing a minor in studio art, I’ve met people with the same artistic vigor as myself and have been lucky enough to collaborate on numerous zines and full length magazines with like minded individuals.
With every new work I produce comes new discoveries, both about my art and about myself. Over the past 8 months I've been focusing on different forms of printmaking and mixed media, helping to found the basis of my newest zine, which incorporates many scans of my hands-on cyanotype and textile experimentation. This latest piece visually encapsulates my relationship and queries on religion, queerness, ancient text, and g-d. As always, so excited to bring it into the world.
All my love,
<3 Stevie