Yesterday Koyama Provides announced a grant to Toronto-based publishers Paul+Wendy Projects.
"I love artists’ multiples,” wrote Annie Koyama in the announcement, "and what I've observed is that those who choose to work with artists to produce multiples, largely do so as a labour of love. I'm drawn to the work of a lot of the artists that Paul and Wendy have published. Their careful, considered approach to each project is admirable. I'm very excited to be able to fund one of their upcoming projects."
Annie Koyama is a publisher and philanthropist like few others. After surviving a terminal brain aneurysm diagnosis almost twenty years ago, Koyama left a successful career in film and advertising in order to concentrate her efforts on promoting and supporting artists. She is the founder and publisher of alternative comics powerhouse, Koyama Press, which was operational from 2007 to 2021. The press funded the publication of a variety of artist's projects including comics, ‘zines, art books, exhibitions, and prints. In 2011, it won the Joe Shuster Award for Outstanding Publisher.
Her next initiative was Koyama Provides, a radical form of giving that formalized her formerly discreet philanthropy. Koyama Provides aims to provide necessary funds for artists when and how they need it.
"My goals here are to bring attention to the need for financial help for artists everywhere, to support projects that would not see the light of day otherwise, to enable people to try something new and hopefully expand their worlds and to urge others to pay artists for their time properly,” she told the Comics Journal in 2022. "If I can inspire others to do this kind of thing, that would be amazing.”
She has been honored with the Bob Clampett Humanitarian Award, Broken Frontier’s first Hall of Fame Award and an Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Ontario College of Art & Design University.
Her advice following the devastating election results last week was “Tell people you’ve got their back and mean it”. She means it.
Read more about her press and philosophy at Quill and Quire, here.
Paul + Wendy Projects is based in Toronto and was founded by Paul Van Kooy and Wendy Gomoll to publish prints, artists' books, editions and multiples. Koyama is correct that the venture is a labour of love - Gomoll and Van Kooy have self-funded each of the seventy-eight works they have produced thus far. They have published prints, books, sculpture, hats, pins, posters, puzzles, postcards, jewelry, rubber stamps and other affordable editioned artworks.
Fans of Factory Records, the pair number everything that the press produces, from their yearly holiday greeting cards (always designed by artists) to artist window displays they have curated.*
Paul + Wendy Projects have published work by some of my favourite artists: Kay Rosen, Micah Lexier, Michael Dumontier & Neil Farber, Jonathan Monk, David Horvitz, Vanessa Maltese, David Shrigley, Roula Partheniou, etc. etc.
I think every room in my house has something they have produced
In an Instagram post they described meeting Annie in a way that reminded me of my own experience:
"We met Annie Koyama in 2013 at the Mercer Union Small Press Book Fair. At that point we hadn’t published a lot of things (especially books). She came over to our table and introduced herself, gave us some chocolate, and asked us about what we were doing. Whenever we would run into her over the next eleven years, we would always have great conversations and she would ask about the editions we were working on, and would often offer good advice.
Even though Annie has granted money to many artists we know and whose work we admire, we were slightly taken aback when she asked us earlier in the year if we’d also be interested in accepting one of her no-strings-attached grants. As small publishers, it was nice to know that she likes what we were doing and wanted to support us in continuing to make editions.”
*Factory Records impresario Tony Wilson famously assigned numbers to a meeting (FAC 81), a party (FAC 83), a lawsuit (FAC 61) a cat (FAC 191) and, eventually, a coffin (FAC 501, which Wilson was buried in).
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