Think Ink was a black-and-white magazine Robert Ford, Trent Adkins, and Lawrence Warren launched in 1987 with the assistance of graphic designer Simone Bouyer.
“Fashioned as a black arts paper with a gay sensibility, Think Ink was an ambitious zine which cost my entire tax refund,” Ford recalled.
The voice of Think Ink is loud and varied embracing cultures and countercultures of thinkers male/female/black/white/straight/gay/etc. Think Ink is to transcend labels & to express reactions, opinions, ideas.
The cover of Think Ink’s “zero” issue featured artist Ken Hare styled (by Adkins) in a camp take on the 1970s television miniseries Roots.
Think Ink’s debut issue, published in November 1987, features a profile of the Kronos Quartet by contributing editor Gerry Fisher; a brief exploration of the emerging acid-house sound that Andre Halmon wrote for a house music column called Real Estate; and an interview with artist, poet, and DuSable Museum co-founder Dr. Margaret Burroughs, conducted by Ford, Adkins, and Warren.
On the cover of Think Ink’s second, and last issue, published in Spring 1988, model Aisha Mays is dressed as a flapper in a photograph by Ernest Collins that evokes both the Jazz Age and the voguing scene of the 80s, bringing together different instances of cutting-edge glamour in African American culture.
Think Ink’s tag line was “participatory enlightenment.” Its print run of 10,000 was hugely ambitious for a new free publication. After the second issue hit the streets in spring 1988, Ford decided to call it a day. He shared in an interview that, “…it never made any money, but it was a learning process. It got me to dive in and get my hands dirty. I learned a lot about putting out a magazine.”
~ Excerpts reprinted from “THE LIFE AND LEGACY OF THING” by Solveig Nelson, first published by ARTFORUM in 2018.