We're making a local co-ops zine!
INTRODUCING COMMONPLACE ZINES
Commonplace Zines are the analog extension of Commonplace.Coop’s digital magazine. The purpose of this series is to publish artful and informative texts that investigate different aspects of the cooperative movement, while also being accessible and engaging to people who might be hearing about it for the first time. Future issues might feature travelogs, interviews and profiles, tutorials, art, and poetry.
Cooperative Rhode Island, Commonplace’s first zine in this series, seeks to reveal the cooperative ecosystem in Rhode Island through conversations with some of the individuals and organizations who are giving shape to this unique story, from grassroots organizers and policy advocates to legal experts and entrepreneurs. The zine’s introduction, a brief overview of recent developments in the local worker-owned cooperative landscape, serves both as a record of the co-op community’s history and successes, and an introduction to cooperatives for those unfamiliar with the concept. Cooperative Rhode Island will also feature beautiful hand drawn illustrations and original photography.
We recommend this publication to anyone already involved in advancing the solidarity economy cause in Rhode Island, as well as folks interested in learning more about this movement. Worker cooperatives are gaining numbers and strength in the state, as evidenced by the surge in cooperative businesses (thirteen out of the sixteen - a whooping 81.25% - of local cooperatives we are aware of were established post-2020); the launch of the Rhode Island Worker Cooperative Alliance in November of this year; and the upcoming rollout of cannabis dispensary licenses, six of which are reserved for worker-owned cooperative operations.
Lastly, anyone who enjoys art, photography, design, and Rhode Island botanicals should check out this first issue. It will be beautiful!
A PEEK BEHIND THE SCENES
So what goes into making a zine? We ourselves are figuring that out as we go.
We’ve nailed down our concept - a collection of interviews with people pushing for a cooperative future adorned with photographs and illustrations - and have begun taking steps towards making it a reality. Here is what we have done so far:
Interviewee selection
This book’s heart will be the interviews with individuals engaged with the cooperative scene… and there are so many people! From organizers and advocates pushing for specific policies, academics, lawyers, and politicians who are advising on and supporting these efforts, to the worker-owners and entrepreneurs who are operating cooperative businesses, there are many, many approaches we could take to these interviews that would result in completely different experiences for its readers. In choosing who to interview, we’ve taking into consideration questions such as
Who are the people who have been involved with this movement the longest?
What kind of interviews might be most compelling to readers? What are people curious about?
How can we provide a comprehensive and diverse sampling of voices, without the narrative becoming disjointed?
We hope that our selection will give readers a broad and interested sample of the kinds of work that is going into making Rhode Island a more cooperative place to work and live at, although we are aware that within a zine’s constrained space, we will not be able to feature all the voices we would like to include.
Cover and motif sketching
Last Tuesday, Commonplace’s illustrator spent the morning at the Peace Dale library in South Kingstown drafting motifs to include in the zine. Because interviews and other text has not been fleshed out yet, the sketches are either intentionally small - illustrations that might embellish page corners - or generic - what proper book about Rhode Island doesn’t have space for a drawing of the Providence skyline?
We have decided that our first issue will be printed in black and white (classic!), as reflected by the illustrations - the images rely on line weight and strokes, rather than color, to capture depth and shadow.
Thus far, the designs have been heavily inspired by nature. Beyond being fun to draw, we are aiming to ground this zine in its local context as much as possible - the jupiter shrub and pitch pine are both native to Rhode Island and can be found in diverse landscapes across the state. Furthermore, Commonplace maintains a firm belief that solidarity networks must extend beyond our human communities - by highlighting our native flora, we hope readers will be reminded that the” natural world” is impacted by humans’ decisions and actions and is thus a stakeholder whose needs and priorities must be factored in.
The pine tree is an ancient symbol of endurance, abundance and immortality, many of the qualities we see in cooperation. In mythology, the pine tree and its symbol the pine cone represent life and the perpetuation of life. The pine tree symbolizes the enduring quality of cooperation.
More than one pine tree is used to represent the mutual collaboration at the heart of every cooperative. The trunks of the pine trees continue into the roots, forming a circle—another symbol of eternal life. The circle in our emblem also represents the world, of which cooperation is a part and which depends on cooperation for its existence.
The color of the two pine trees and the circle is green, the color of chlorophyl which is critical to the process of producing life-sustaining oxygen. The background of the circle is golden yellow, representing the sun—the giver of light and life.
Stolen from here.
Lastly, we’ve also chosen to illustrate a cannabis plant entwined with a tomato cutting to tie into existing and future cooperatives. The tomato represents Nuts & Bolts Nursery, a cooperatively owned farm based in Smithfield that has been cultivating nut trees, fruit trees, and other edible perennial plants since 2020. The cannabis plant represents the upcoming cooperative dispensaries - a model that has not yet been attempted anywhere else in the nation.
We still have many questions to answer (we don’t even have the interview transcripts yet!) and we’d also love to hear what questions you have about the zine-making process. What would you like to see more of? What would you like to know?
THE DEETS
Cooperative Rhode Island will be published in January 2025, the first month of the UN-declared "International Year of Cooperatives."
Cooperative Rhode Island | Zine
Our pilot zine seeks to reveal the cooperative ecosystem in Rhode Island through conversations with some of the individuals and organizations who are giving shape to this unique story, from grassroots organizers and policy advocates to legal experts and entrepreneurs.
There will be both print and digital issues available for purchase. If you’d like to follow the production of our first zine, visit Commonplace.Coop every week to track our progress, behind-the-scenes pictures, and thought process as we work on this project. And if you’d like to receive updates on its publication, subscribe to our newsletter here.
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