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Entering Market Month
Squeezing art into the cracks of life
Hale Mueller
March 16, 2025
Well met, friends and enemies!
As my job search meanders on, I’ve been wanting to wring more creativity from my life. For now, I have the job that I have and I need to work around it, but there are some goals I’d like to work toward.
When the weather starts to improve and I see the sun more often, I start to get a lot of big, exciting ideas that I absolutely do not have the time to execute on. I’m doing my best to take little actionable steps instead and tucking those ideas away for later.
I’ve been trying to do more illustration pieces that would look good when seeking out more professional illustration work. A lot of resources for aspiring illustrators recommend making illustrations with a purpose. So instead of drawing something just to draw it, imagine what it’s for—a magazine, or a beer can, or a book cover—and draw with that in mind. To that end I asked my friend, Fareah, if I could do editorial banners for her newsletter (give it a read!!!), which has been going really well so far!
It’s also really important to me that my work is accessible and as affordable as possible, especially when I’m not relying on it as my primary source of income. I’m slowly working on putting my zines and sketchbook scans onto my itch. So far, just Thistlesweet in the City of Bugs is live on there, but hoping for more soon.
With several zine fests coming up, I have zine pricing on the mind. Zines, especially, should be affordable—their history as accessible ways to pass around information, stories, and experiences in underground an marginalized groups, makes it important to me that anyone can get a zine from me. My hope is to sell all my zines as close to at-cost as I can. If I can cover the printing costs and table fees, I’ll be satisfied, and maybe more people will be able to get zines from me overall!
My work-busyness has dashed my hope of finishing another bigger zine before the market dates, but I think I can have one or two new mini zines available. Taking on smaller projects and trying to be realistic about what I can achieve will hopefully let me make more art than one big unfinished project that I get stuck on halfway!
Upcoming Zine Fests
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Reza and I will be tabling together at Detroit Zine Fest and LICZ in a few weeks! If you’re in the area we’d love for you to stop by and say hi!
Also - this isn’t an art market, but through a twist of fate I will be attending AWP 25! If you’re going and want to meet up, let me know :^)
Top Secret Art
I made another piece for the quarterly art contest at work. This time of Reza and their roommate’s cat, Bawaajigan. Winner gets a Meijer gift card—cross your fingers for me, I want $20 off my groceries lol.
Latest Art
Made this sad guitar knight illustration as a combination of some of my current interests (classical guitar, fantasy, and sad people). I imagine this knight is recovering from the recent battle to tend to their spirit with a bit of music—not at all relatable as someone trying to create art in the current rancid vibes of this world (said with much wry sarcasm).
You can get this knight as a print if you like here and they will be a sticker at both zine fests and in my etsy afterwards!
Crochet Corner
I made this balaclava in January based on Made in the Moment’s tutorial/pattern - super fun project and we even had some really chilly days where it came in handy on my walk to work! If you have a big head like me, you may have to make the hood bigger than the pattern recommends (even taking the measurements into account).
Crochet has been acting as my wind-down activity for the last few months when my other creative pursuits feel too much like work. I am determined to keep this as one hobby I don’t try to monetize—for my sanity.
Recent Faves
Some media recs from the last couple of months:
Ruin of the House of the Divine Visage: Started reading the free webcomic version of this and then couldn’t wait for the updates so I bought the whole thing as a digital pdf.
The Ballad for Black Cassandra: This poem comic you can read for free on the artist’s socials, but if you can spare some money I recommend you buy the pdf!
Carl & the Magic Coin: This comic short story is available for free on the artist’s portfolio.
Hadestown: Saw this live and loved it! Have been listening to the sound track a lot lately
Doechii’s Tiny Desk Concert: I finally watched this and everyone was right it really was THAT good!
Your Turn To Die: I’ve been watching the ShortOneGaming playthrough of this indie “death game” and it rules. If you're a fan of the genre, this game plays with the tropes in fun ways. If you’re new this game is a psychological thriller in visual novel format that (so far) deals in themes of identity and grief.
Gay Pride and Prejudice: This is an excellent audio drama adaptation of Pride and Prejudice taking place in Boston at the time of gay marriage being legalized across the U.S. It’s in an interesting conversation with Austen’s work and explores how marriage makes and breaks connections in people’s lives.
Creative Block: A great creative podcast of interviews with creatives primarily working in comics and animation.