PLEASE PURCHASE the MBIRD Fundraiser FANZINES HERE!

This is an art journal spread I made in response to the first Mockingbird conference I attended, in 2014, at St Thomas Episcopal Church in Houston:

That church is now quite underwater. To raise money for their relief fund, I am going to reopen sales of my Mockingbird Fundraiser Fanzines. 100% of the profit from the sale of the 2016 and 2017 zines I made at the Tyler conferences will go to Houston.

(From here on, all the images in this post come from the Tyler FUNDRAISER fanzines you can purchase HERE.)

That Houston conference will stand out in my mind because it was the first one I attended, so I was “starstruck” (it has taken me until this year – and three other conferences – to talk to David Zahl without stammering.) He came up and talked to me at the registration that year, and I think I remember being unintelligible because of my stammering. But that didn’t stop him from doing some very nice things for me over the years since then, and being a huge encouragement in my life.

Unfortunately I arrived Friday evening, so I didn’t get to hear Sarah Condon, Aaron Zimmerman, or Ethan Richardson that year. The first talk I saw was Tullian Tchividjian, on Friday evening. This was about 6 months before his transgressions were “revealed” (a situation I wrote about here.) As always, I found his preaching both riveting and comforting.

During the dinner (MBird always provides quite a spread) I sat alone, observing, as is my unhealthy habit. I hung around the book table and learned that there was also a Paul Zahl…I cornered DZ and asked him if PZ was still living. Thankfully he was and I had the great honor to hear him speak at the Tyler conference earlier this year.

The next morning I heard the Magills play for the first time, and Megan was gloriously beautiful as always (my drawing does not do her beauty justice).

A bit later I was in line in the restroom, and I chatted briefly with a pretty blonde. I later learned that she was none other than DZs wife, Cate West Zahl, who is a painter extraordinaire. Really, I had no idea at that time just how cool and also how loving and good these MBird folks are. It was, of course, on the Mbird website that I saw the photos of the courtyard we ate in that night, totally flooded.

Which leads to the reason for this post. If you didn’t purchase these zines back in April when they were first released, please consider buying them now. 100% of the profits will go to the St Thomas relief fund (where you can also donate directly if zines are not your thing.)

If you do purchase but haven’t heard the talks from Tyler 2016 and Tyler 2017, you can do that here and here.