Bean makes zines

I'm going to introduce you to three zines I've created, in order of creation. Two are cut-and-paste zines, which is exactly what it sounds like: I cut things out with my scissors and paste them onto some cardstock. The third was made on my computer, using InDesign to layout digitized film photos I've taken.

Zine the first: BODY SWAP

poem /

collage /

zine /

A poem of mine, illustrated using analog collage, turned into a zine. My personal favorite is the tree-trunk page.

As this was the first zine I made, I went about it a strange way, and had trouble with the layout initially. Scanning and getting it reprinted was a process! I don't have any copies left besides the original, and I'm not sure if / when I'll get more printed. But I do love this little zine - I love the imagery, and I love the poem, and I love that I tried something new.

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Zine the second: INK

It's a bit hard to read, I know. On the cover it says:

a poem about a tree-climbing girl

a zine by mckenna lynn

a small gathering of photos

The images are all photos taken on my 35mm film camera (scanned when developed). The poem was inspired heavily by the novel The Overstory - specifically Maidenhair, one of the characters in the book. (If you haven't read, I highly recommend - Richard Powers' The Overstory won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2019 and changed my life. And if you're reading this in August 2026, do you know about the current sit-in happening in Grandmother Tree?) I don't have any leftover copies of this one either. I think I'd spruce up the design a bit and make a few edits before I'd print this one again.

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Zine the third: TRIED & TRUE HISTORY

This project is special to me. It's a zine I crafted using photos of my grandparents during their youth. It tells the story of their first date. I made a ton of copies of this and brought it to a family gathering, handing one to each of my 12 cousins, the grandkids. That I was able to give each of my cousins, my aunts, and my uncles their own individual copy of a sweet family story to cherish forever brings me so much peace.

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If you have a treasure trove of family albums, documents, records, photos, baubles, and you want to turn it into an organized archive of your family's presence in this world, I would love to help. As a public historian and trained archivist, I can get your family's memories preserved and safe for the future - and as a collage artist and writer, I can create fun, beautiful, and shareable pieces of your history from your history.

This is the kind of art that brings me the most joy - I would love to create heirloom and heritage art for others, for you, art that is imbibed with the history of your mother and her mother and her mother's mother. Art that makes you think of those you love, that reminds you of their humanity, that makes you smile at the thought of them, that you are a piece of their lives, their stories. That makes you feel that much closer to them, when their presence is no longer physically felt.

I've sort of - leveled up, I think, from zines. What I mean is - I've started making what I am calling "Memory Menus." They are mixed-media, analog collage art pieces that stand vertically on their own, like a menu, and are filled with photos and artwork surrounding a specific event, theme, or memory. I made one for my 30th birthday party, and the most recent one I crafted is perhaps one of the best gifts I've ever made - it's for a couple whose wedding anniversary is coming up in three months. I hope they love it, and that whenever they flip through their Memory Menu, they are whisked back to the day they said "I do."

(I'll share that with you after it's been gifted, obviously. It pairs with a framed collage piece, too. Both were made using 35mm film photos taken during their wedding last November. I've included an envelope stuffed full of loose prints of the photos, too, in case they want to frame any of them or share!) (I'm pretty excited.)

There is one other zine I'm proud to have my name attached to - it's one I co-created with my friend Tristan of Quill Nook Farm. I don't have any pictures of it at the ready, but there are a few posted on my Instagram, which you can flip through here.