MoCCA Recap!
Welcome back to Fluorescent Imprints. Today's issue is one I've been waiting to write for months now. It is the MoCCAfest Recap.
The MoCCA Festival happened this past weekend on March 28-29, and there were over 400 artists tabling at the festival, showcasing a range of works from published books, prints, zines, photographs, etc., and more. It was a feast for illustrators and cartoon nerds alike. It was a magical, very wholesome experience for many people. I would describe it as a self-initiated comic con convention of illustrators and cartoonists, with all mutual recognition, all mutual peers, and all that goes on. Today I'm going to run through today's post, which will cover some of the things I bought and some of the artists and tables that I thought were really interesting and made great use of the Risograph. As you know, to keep it in line with the theme of this newspaper, which is the Risograph and its prints that subsequently come out of artists and creators who use it on a regular basis.
It was also my first time tabling with my class. It felt very surreal this year to walk around and tell other fellow exhibitors, creatives, designers, and illustrators that I also had work on display that they could look at. In previous years, I would go and say, "Oh, I'm a student. I study design." I would have to pull up photos of my work on my phone (if I had taken them)to show it to them.
This year, it felt really cool and really nice to be like, "Hey, I have work at a table that you can look through and browse if you want, if you like it enough." To many people, it's also about having coworkers, peers, and mentors, maybe people you've admired, just look at your work and say it's good, say it's bad. They won't say it's bad; they will look at it and give you feedback, compliments. There's a lot of sharing about processes, how we work through different issues using the same medium, using translation mediums, etc. The risograph balances it all. many of us are drawn to the risograph because of its many, many features to make it great for all of this who don't have a high printing budget. If you're not the ones buying the risograph and you're using it and not maintaining it, you don't pay a high cost to use it, which is great.
At times, if you are a creative, many people still think that our work and our interests, our passions, are irrelevant, just hobbies, non-essential. I'd argue that MoCCA Fest is a celebration and part of that; it's essential. It's how we make our livelihood, but also it's what makes us feel passion, brings us joy, brings us so much humanity, especially when so many corporations are trying to take that away from us with AI and with slop. It feels gratifying. This weekend was so gratifying because it feels like everyone there was celebrating work created by humans, created by people who appreciate and care for each other and care for the work and care for original thoughts and ideas that transcend boundaries, that make people feel connected, that speak to people, create work that people want to buy and make space for in their apartments, on their walls, on their shelves.
I think MoCCAfest is a very gratifying experience for many artists. A lot of professional artists who table there operate online shops, online sales, and storefronts. They ship out their orders a lot, so it's nice to have in-person interactions with people and see how their work actually impacts people. There were two artists that I followed for like five years before going into college. It's so surreal seeing you here because at that time, I was halfway around the world and I would just watch your videos on YouTube. Now I'm seeing you in person in your element, and I get to say that, in part, you weren't the only reason I was inspired, but in part, you inspired me to follow what I want to do in art and design and move to the city to do school to pursue it. That was just one of my personal highlights for me for the year. I know we're early in the year, but it's a personal highlight for me at this point.
Here are some of the artists whose work I saw and got to talk to them!
Ash Rudolph (@altargolart)
Radhia Rahman (@knivesmeow)
Ian Mackay (hi__bred)
jackie Zhu (@zhujackiecreates)
