ARTISTS TALKING

Karen Lubbock is the creator of Karen magazine, which delights in the ordinariness of everyday life, providing an antidote to the mainstream celebrity and lifestyle magazine world. As it says on the website: “Karen is more interested in the weather than what to wear;, in sell-by dates than celebrity.” Distilling elements from her everyday life in a small Wiltshire village, Lubbock has succeeded in creating a sensitivity, humour and poetics that have a cross-cultural appeal, earning her a following in the UK and US but also in radically diverse locations such as Brazil and Lebanon. She comments that “I want my work to celebrate the everyday and the mundane, to try and communicate a kind of quiet pleasure in the shared experience of ordinary human existence.”

Each issue is composed from extracts of conversations, photographs of participants or places, found ephemera and personal observations. A typical issue of Karen magazine might feature: thoughts on looking for four leaf clovers, the diary of a housewife 1946-1998, Tina’s top ten breads (number one Soda – brown or white, number two French Stick), a conversation with the coalmen who are “waiting for it to get cold” and several bold double page spreads declaring snippets such as “Mum’s feeling much better, she’s started to do the crossword again”.

Working with people

Lubbock has always been interested in people. On moving to London from her hometown of Grimsby she became a community service volunteer and went on to work as a social worker, specialising in mental health. She worked in this field for about thirteen years primarily managing the needs of people who were being moved from institutional care into the community. “It was really just about being able to talk and listen to people” she remarks.

This would seem to be a characteristic which runs through Karen’s work, an interest in people and an aptitude for conversation. It is perhaps this egalitarian notion of conversation where both of the participants have equal status which is key to the tone of Karen magazine. Lubbock notes that it is important for her not to take on the role of observer, recording the lives of others at a distance; instead she positions herself as more of a filter, letting her own experiences accumulate until significant moments or images emerge. While she evidently feels a responsibility towards those who appear in the magazine – always seeking their permission and making sure they get their complimentary copies – at the centre of the publication is Lubbock herself, strangely absent in all but name, her presence is felt throughout by her choice and framing of content.

After moving away from London and her career in social work to the Wiltshire countryside Lubbock describes having the space and time to begin to think differently, she comments that “a complete change of direction felt possible”. She began a foundation course because: “I wanted to see what I had to say, to see what I was thinking”, which led on to a period of six years of part-time study as she completed back to back BA and MA courses in Graphic Design and Communication Design at the University of Western England, while continuing to work full-time for a graphic design business.

Beginnings

During her studies one of the projects she embarked upon was The Rodbourne Magazine, named after Rodbourne Bottom, the tiny village where Lubbock has lived for thirteen years. This modest publication was not really a magazine at all but an A4 sheet, laminated against the weather and pinned up on a telegraph pole in the village.

Lubbock set herself the task of every Sunday going out into the village and taking a walk around to see what was happening – working with the idea of ‘something happening’ in its loosest sense. She performed this ritual for over a year, collecting material and distilling it into a regularly produced magazine. In addition to the laminated sheet she also attached a plastic envelope housing comment cards which readers of the Rodbourne Magazine could fill out in response to this new addition to the village. Rather than the suggestions, contributions or criticisms that Lubbock had expected, the only feedback she received from these cards were cheering words of encouragement such as “keep it up!”. It seemed that the villagers and visitors to the village had taken The Rodbourne Magazine to their hearts, and soon Lubbock was asked if she would include a needed/wanted column when one of her neighbours needed to borrow a sewing machine. Not long after that a dog walker from another village asked if she could contribute some “nature notes” to the magazine, which mainly consisted of things she had seen when she had been out and about with her dog. Perhaps the most notable endorsement of the magazine’s standing came when a villager spontaneously made a notice board especially for it.

The magazine format

Lubbock acknowledges that she works both with and against the magazine format. The name of course also references the traditional women’s magazine titles; Karen rather than Marie Claire or the slightly less glossy Bella. In some ways the magazine is also a direct response to celebrity-orientated or sensationalist ‘real life’ titles. This is particularly evident where sensational headlines are splashed across double pages, followed by a quote from the victim or survivor, except in Karen’s world these pages sensationalise the slightly less dramatic events of ‘real life’. A recent example reads: “Jackie picked up all the fallen pears that were in her garden today”. Followed by “We just couldn’t eat them all”. However, Karen magazine also differs from the traditional format in that there is no hierarchy of information, and Lubbock expresses no opinions. The conversations, images and texts are presented without comment or context. She adds: “I’m not telling people what to think. I’m inviting people to put their own meaning to it.”

In the future, whilst Lubbock is keen to continue producing Karen magazine, she is also interested in using the material she collects in different contexts.

Getting it out there

Before publishing issue one of Karen, she decided to get some feedback from potential readers. The fact that she chose the foyer of the ICA and her local library as the two locations for gathering vox pops, speaks of the two worlds which Karen magazine inhabits. Lubbock comments that the feedback she received in the two different locations varied enormously, with local library users recognising some of the characters and places featured in the magazine. The two different samples of readers related to the magazine in very diverse ways, but what seemed to be evident was that on some level there was a recognition and perhaps an empathy with the ordinary or everyday subject matter which generated a broad appeal.

The first issue of Karen was produced by a local printing company, in an edition of five hundred, and each one was signed by the artist. In managing the distribution of the magazine, Lubbock again favoured the personal approach, directly phoning the bookshop managers at the ICA, Tate Modern, Magma and the Serpentine Gallery, and on occasion simply turning up with her magazines and introducing herself. All of them agreed to stock Karen and through word of mouth issue one completely sold out. She now laments the fact she didn’t keep some archived copies for herself, saying that she only has one or two copies of the first edition she can show people.

Distribution challenges

After the success of the first edition, which went on to win the Emap Fanzines Award for best lifestyle magazine in 2005, Karen’s next aim was to sign up with a magazine distributor. This move would increase the magazine’s presence in bookshops and take on some of the administration involved in the getting the magazine out there. Lubbock approached Central Books who distribute magazines to most gallery bookshops throughout the UK necessitating an increased print-run, a big leap in production and one that was not without financial implications. Whilst having a distributor undoubtedly has advantages in terms of sales and visibility, there are drawbacks for small-scale artist-produced publications. For example, distributors take fifty-five per cent of the cover price of each magazine sold, and with no advertising revenue to finance the magazine, sales represent the major source of production funding. This means that sales through Lubbock’s own website became increasingly important. Another challenge to be negotiated when working with distributors who are used to working with large-scale publications is that when magazines remain unsold on the bookshop shelves, rather than returning them to the distributor, it is more economical for bookshops to just rip off the cover of the magazine (proof that it will not be sold) and simply post this to the distributor to claim a refund. For mainstream publications this makes perfect sense but for limited edition Karen the thought of these mutilated copies is heartbreaking.

When issue three came out earlier this year Lubbock was approached by an international distributor who had apparently been asked by the vice president of the giant American bookstore chain Barnes and Noble wanting to supply Karen magazine to his stores. This news amazed Karen: the idea that an awareness of her work was building in places she could never have anticipated. This means that in addition to UK, mainland Europe and all Borders bookshops, Karen is now available in countries such as Australia, Oman, Taiwan, Brazil and Lebanon, testament perhaps to Karen’s belief in a shared experience of ordinary human existence.

Links

www.karenmagazine.com

The writer

Rosemary Shirley is an artist and writer based in near Winchester. She is editor of the artists' fanzine Leisure Centre www.leisurecentre.org.uk

Rosemary Shirley

I am an artist and writer. I write regularly for AN Magazine, I have had work published in several international journals and I have written numerous catalogue essays. I am editor of the artists' fanzine Leisure Centre. I studied MA Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths and my research interestsinclude: The Everyday and Non-Urban Artistic Practices. I am based in Winchester.

www.leisurecentre.org.uk