“You have to take this class, it changed my life.” T-minus 12 hours before my second ever round of registration, and I had just cracked open the course browser — “vibes-based” has always been my motto when choosing classes. Sometimes the course title alone is enough to convince me; in the spirit of transparency, reading the course description is a rare occurrence. Backups are for cowards. Or maybe I’m just lucky.
“I’m serious, India, I’ve basically turned this class into my major,” my childhood friend, Nora, said with only mild notes of panic over my blasé attitude. With such a rave review from Nora, whom I idolize a very normal amount, my decision was practically made for me. Introduction to Book Studies, here I come.
Little did I know that a class I took on a whim and a prayer (it is famously difficult to obtain a spot) would have such a profound impact on my time at Wellesley. I should have taken Nora more seriously. Although I had already been at Wellesley for a year, Book Studies (aka Book Arts) inspired me to cultivate roots in the community.
After being introduced to the studio and creating our sketchbooks, we were immediately flung into zines. I know I wasn’t the only one thinking, “What the hell is a zine?” Zines (short for maga-zine) are small pamphlets folded from a single piece of paper, made to be produced in large quantities and characterized by their informal nature.
Alison Piepmeier articulates the bookform with greater clarity in her 2009 book “Girl Zines.” She says, “Zines are quirky, individualized booklets filled with diatribes, reworkings of pop culture iconography, and all variety of personal and political narratives. They are self-produced and anti-corporate. Their production, philosophy, and aesthetic are anti-professional.” Particularly salient is zines’ popular use within marginalized communities as a means of self-exploration and self-expression.
Piepmeier argues that “zines created by girls and women … are sites where girls and women construct identities, communities, and explanatory narratives from the materials that comprise their cultural moment.”
Immediately, this wasn’t what I had expected. I have always loved books and reading, a common refrain from my childhood being, “India, put the book down.” I was questioning what a “book” even was. What is a book’s importance? What does it mean to create one? Who owns it? What do we consider – and not consider – a book? Why? The class did what all great education should — it forced me to confront the foundations of my knowledge.
Zines were just the beginning. Professor Ruffin underpinned the course by emphasizing our natural surroundings. Part of the takeaway for me was in the physicality I was bearing witness to, previously unrecognized— the texture and manipulation of the materials we used with their context in the natural world of Wellesley and beyond.
Professor Ruffin took great care to introduce us to our community, not solely as witnesses, but as active participants. We made and indigo-dyed paper with visiting artist Mika Obayashi, and toured special collections, the edible ecosystem and the Knapp Center (which quickly became my second home). We were introduced to the Paulson Ecology of Place Initiative, which “inspires … students … to engage with their natural environment and develop a sense of place.” These opportunities were not only part of the course, but were presented as resources to enrich our connections within and to Wellesley in a way that made me feel enveloped within the community.
This deepened my knowledge of and respect for what comes together to create a book. Gratitude was not only a project theme, but a value with which Professor Ruffin imbued the course. Themes of gratitude and community were not theoretical aspirations, but real practices.
A rapport quickly formed due to the collaborative nature of the course. My friend group was founded on relationships I made in that class — instigated by a particularly stylish hat I wore and an ill-advised initiative to watch Twilight as a class. One day, after over seventy minutes spent locked in with the fumes of the paper-making studio, suggestions for the next round of paper were becoming increasingly frivolous. String had been done. We wanted something unique, something we could truly call our own. What could belong to us more than ourselves? Five minutes later we were stifling giggles as we trimmed tiny clippings of our hair to add to the pulp. Creativity must push the bounds of acceptability. As the paper dried, so too did our laughter. What had we done? Were we geniuses … or something much worse? Also, ew.
Although we later denied the occurrence of any such event, the paper-making incident, as it shall henceforth be known, remains a highlight of my time in the class. The memories of giggles became important because they were the result of the joy and delight that can be found in creation, especially shared. Our experience making paper was one of many we had working with our hands to produce something tangible. The act of physical creation is not only special in its relative rarity (at least in my life) but in the way it grounds you — to yourself, and the process. We had gotten to know each other and our environment, so physical creation evolved from a solitary labor of love to a communal one, love of our work and each other.
