Diamond Facets

The Story of Rhizo Magazine
By Sue Hunt

It starts in the mid-90’s when my little sister was obsessed with the camera feature on the first Game Boy. I wasn’t much into “techy” things as a kid, I was building forts and romping in the forest. Meanwhile, Diggy (or Ducky as we called her back then) was obsessed with the Game Boy camera, the video camera and the Blu-ray DVD player, if something piece of low-fi tech broke in the house in the mid-90’s we would scream up the stairs “Ducky, come fix this.”  

Her obsession then morphed into film and technical lighting, when she started photographing me in our teens. I have always been down for a weird adventure outside so I was game for these creative endeavors. 

We thought we were so clever and making powerful political statements about femininity. Looking back makes you appreciate the untainted, give no fucks attitude of a teenager and their budding creative process. Slowly, overtime, the indoctrination into a visually stimulating commercial culture bombarding us with images from every angle, robs us of that unique drive to create for the sake of creation.

Both Diggy and I have always had our own unique spark to create, no matter what the end product looks like, it takes so many amalgamations of failure to land on something authentic. I went on to pursue writing and Diggy photography and design. Decades later, I find myself in the commercial publishing pool trying to stay afloat; honestly, fighting tooth and nail to publish my first book. It took four years to bring it to press. 

I became very disenchanted, and a bit jaded. No problem though, anger is a great vehicle of creation for me. I was coming to the realization that many authors don’t even write their own books, and it’s a pseudo-celebrity rat race. Oftentimes it didn’t even come down to the quality of work, but more about the size of the sales and public relations platform as the benchmark of what gets published. This was dream shattering honestly, but I pushed on.

It’s no secret, social media has totally changed how we consume on every level, we are reading less as a culture, and being an “artist” and a “content creator” are tragically being confused as similar roles in society.

Amidst my publishing and marketing book process, even though I was writing so much. I started to miss the actual process of ART.

That chaotic spark that rises, with sometimes no reason, and you get weirdly obsessed with it, so you follow it. You give it so much energy, trying not to hold it too tight to snuff the flame of its uniqueness. I missed that no rules, no end game, no ads, no promotions — just “making shit” kinda vibe. 

So in my antsy, angsty state, I started madly talking about the “Rhizo Idea” to Diggy. Trust me I can get very annoying and overbearing because it’s all I can talk about. I love the brainstorm phase and so does she so we both leaned into it.

We didn’t have a name yet, but we knew it needed the following: 

No themes because that limits the artist, a collective voice, not one voice, art across mediums, no ads, and open submissions. We wanted ART for the sake of ART, IN PRINT, not in the 24-hour social media scroll of numbness. And…Rhizo was born. Each volume would tell its own story and we would support it.

For us, the ART is not even really about the end product, or how many views it gets, or where it’s published. It is truly about the PROCESS, the way we shape our entire lives to give ourselves a creative voice and outlet. This drive changes the way we see out of our own eyes, look into the vastness of the world and the details of others. 

This is truthfully a VERY HARD thing to do in a world obsessed with over-production and the demise of organic space that gives rise to the creative spirit. 

And if you make art, you know what I am talking about…

You have to make that time, you have to allow yourself to invest in yourself. To invest in an idea that has no legs yet, it’s in its infancy and you have to trust yourself to see it through. 

You consume media a bit less, so you can hear your own voice and desires. 
You schedule that untouched time so you can create spaciousness in your body. 
You go hard in the paint when it comes to exploring your emotions and giving them a vehicle to sing. 

We wanted the readers and artists of Rhizo to feel this process in its pages. 

This took us two years to figure out, and now Rhizo is free to the reader, and print publications still remain our focus. This was also so important to us here at Rhizo — to get off the screen, because there is a longer format process that happens when you know your work is going to be published in print. More care, more love, more secrecy, more time to marinate on its genius when you know it will live physically in the hands of others. 

In the pages of Rhizo you will find creatives and artists of all types: Career writers, authors, painters, printmakers, photographers, sculptors and poets. You will also find mothers, bankers, nurses, athletes, business owners, bar tenders, nomads, doctors, chefs, entrepreneurs — you name it. Creatives from all over the world have been published in these pages and we hope this unbridled spirit of art continues, and Rhizo is here to kindle it.