This artist created a zine to celebrate an intergenerational friendship between neighbors

KJZZ | By Amber Victoria Singer

This Valentine’s Day we’re thinking about different types of love. Ryan Avery is a local artist, musician and the brain behind Related Records. They recently put together a zine called "please, celebrate me while i am alive." Here’s Avery reading part of the first page of the zine:

“A few months before my friend Fatima passed away in their sleep, I was having a great conversation with them about death. Fatima said something to the effect of, ‘I really don't care what happens to me after I die, or how I am remembered, I just want to be celebrated and enjoyed by others while I am alive.’ So this is my first attempt at celebrating the lives of people that are important to me and sharing that with others while they are still alive.”

Volume 1 of "please, celebrate me while i am alive" features Avery’s 80-year-old neighbor Cia Lorde. They first met around six years ago, and Avery says Lorde is one of the "coolest and most interesting" people they’ve ever met.
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RYAN AVERY: My neighbor that lived behind me was doing some sort of neighborhood party, and she was like, “oh, you should meet Cia. You two are going to get along great.”

And, we did get along great. My wife and I invited her over to our house after talking about art, because she said she wanted to see all of our things that we had in the house, and she just, like, lit up when she saw. Our house, and she was like, “you have to come see my house.” Our house is kind of like an art gallery or a museum, and Cia's house is the same way, but it's all like wood and concrete and recycled pieces.

All of the art in her house is amazing. She does some painting, she does photography, she does collage, she does sculpture. My favorite pieces that she does is her collage. She'll do collages with her own photography. Just like cutting the photos into odd shapes, and then fitting them together into different things.

I used to be on the board for the Trunk Space, which is an all ages music venue. I asked Cia if she would be interested in having an art show there, and at first she said yes. And then, like two days later, said no. And that began the discussion of like, “why? why don't you want to share this with other people?”, and she said, "I just don't care to. Like, I don't care if other people like it or see it. I enjoy sharing it with people like you, and I enjoy, you know, sharing it with other close friends that I have.”

I visit with her, probably on average once a week. Sometimes it's just for a few minutes, sometimes it's for hours. Sarah and I will invite her over for dinner like once a month, and whenever we make too much of something, we share it with her.

Cia and I will talk about everything. It's such a natural flow, like, the way it is when you stay up late with your best friend or something. I went over there the other day to bring her something, and she just asked me about how often we're using our heater, and that led to a discussion about the way people think about heaters, depending on the way they were raised. Before I knew it, I was talking to her for over an hour, and I was like, “oh well, this really was supposed to be just like, you know, a three-minute drop-off,” but I just enjoy talking to her so much.

Almost every time I see her, I'll ask her about her day, and I'm so jealous. She's just like, “I woke up, you know, whenever I felt like it, I took care of my plants. I started making art while I drank coffee. I did some organizing. I read a book.”

In August, Sarah and I had Cia over for dinner, and I knew the whole time that I wanted Cia to be the first person I make a zine about. We were talking about birthdays, and we're like, “Cia, when's your birthday?” And she's like, “oh, it was last week,” and we're like, “oh, happy birthday. Did you do anything?” And she's like, “no, I didn't tell anyone about it either.” We're like, “OK.” I asked her how old she was, and she said 80. And I was like, “well, I should get going on this project.”

I didn't ask her first. I just made like, five copies at first, cause I also didn't want to go forward with making more until I knew how she felt about it. But yeah, so I just made a few, gave her the first one, and she was like, “this is amazing, this is so cool. I'm so lucky to be involved with you this way.” So then I went ahead and made 30.

​I have a few other people that I have in mind to do profiles about, but I mean, really. Everyone should be celebrated more before they die.

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