Independent Publishing Resource Center

The results are in! Hold on to your masks!

First Place: Becca
Second Place: (Tied) Luna and Matthew
Third Place: Joel
Honorary Mention: Patrick

Here are some examples!

Our hosts!

Justin:

Moe (on the far left):

Some of our participants and our guest judge Carrot Quinn (on the far right):

Whew, what a weekend.

IPRC volunteers and staff spent all of Saturday and Sunday under the cruel lights of the Oregon Convention Center, tabling for annual book revival Wordstock. The crowd at Wordstock is a funny mix ranging from very established literary celebrities to young kids in trenchcoats who tack the moniker “Published Author” onto the front of their name when they introduce themselves.

We explained the IPRC to these passerbys until our voices were hoarse and in the meantime we ate a lot of pretzels. It was the perfect chance to show off the hot new things the IPRC is able to produce thanks to our wonderful perfect binder, the Bindfast 5. Check out this stack of journals created like magic by B.T. Livermore that caught lots of wandering eyes during the festival:

Saturday night was the first real cold night of the year—dark early and windy, too—the perfect setting for our annual costume party fundraiser, the Text Ball. Under the warm lights of Gallery Homeland, dozens of individuals fabulously dressed to the theme of “Novel Idea” mingled, listened to accordion music and completed giant crossword puzzles.

Of all the Novel Ideas in the house (including an adorable DaVinci Cold and two Wrinkle in Times), the top prize ironically went to the lovely Farenheit 451.

Check out this post on radrobot.org about Perfect Binding. The article was written by B. T. Livermore and features pictures of the IPRC’s Perfect Binder in action. Livermore will be hosting binding hours on Friday nights from 5 to 8 p.m. and will also teach some Perfect Binding classes at the IPRC.

Read his article here.

Why, it’s the book Hidden Portland by local artist Carye Bye!

Accomplished letterpresser Carye was the first person to churn out an entire little book on our new perfect press binder. It has real glued edges, real beautiful color illustrations and real details on some of Portland’s hidden places. This premiere issue is all about hidden museums — weird places like Portland’s vaccuum museum and 3D Art Center that showcase particular Portlander’s peculiar obsessions.

Stop by Reading Frenzy to buy your own copy or swing by the IPRC to read the copy in our library!

Oh man, you should have seen it last week. Member Matt Ocasio has been in the workrooms ceaslessly, it seemed, for the past couple months. And finally last week he showed up right at the beginning of the night for the final step in the creation of his new literary zine <i>The Matter</i> – the meticulously letterpressed covers. Luckily, he brought a posse and with two friend stationed at the long-armed stapler and paper cutter, the team whipped out hundreds of copies in one night. By closing time, fresh short stacks of zines covered our long work table. Victory!

mmmm... the sweet taste of being done.

Check out The Matter at the Zine Symposium and in stores around town.

Yes, we’ve joined the craze.  Now you can keep up with the latest news at the IPRC by following our Twitter page.  We’ll be posting upcoming events, new zines and more!

This summer’s first Print Camp was a huge success. Each participant learned Letterpress, Relief Printing, Altered Books and Mimeograph.

We are hoping to offer a Book Arts Camp in the fall with a focus on creative zine binding. Stay tuned in to find out more.

Thanks to Debbie, Dan, Jake, Katie and Ashley for being awesome print resources!

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Times are tough for “analog,” or non-digital, media these days.  Last year, Polaroid announced it was ending production of its namesake cameras and film.  As supplies run thin, many enthusiasts are racing to find the last caches of film, and paying hefty prices for them.

Photo: Gretchin Lair

As personal computers make a easier and cheaper tool for self-publishing, enthusiasts are saying goodbye to another lesser-known, but equally-cherished product: Gocco.  The Gocco is a tiny printing machine brought to us by the Japanese Riso company and a favorite of DIY printmakers.  To find out more about the device and its demise, I spoke with two master Gocco printers at Portland’s Independent Publishing Resource Center, Gretchin Lair and Shu-Ju Wang.

“It’s a very easy to use silkscreen printing system that uses flash bulbs to expose pre-coated screens,” says Wang.  “You can go from artwork, through exposure and inking, to print, in 5 minutes or less. It’s also very portable and suitable for small workspaces.”  “I say the Gocco is magic!” adds Lair. “Its many geniuses include using non-toxic materials to print & clean up and the ability to print with multiple colors on the same screen (which avoids registrations hassles). ” (more…)

Copyright lawyer  Kohel Haver stopped by tonight to talk us through the zine he made with his daughter, “The Law and the Zine Artist: Free Speech and Copyright.”

“I want to teach you how to protect what’s good and also the value of stealing everything in sight,” he said, launching into the basics of what’s legal and what’s not when it comes to pilfering others’ work for your own art. The law bascially comes down to protecting intellectual property but also protecting the right to free speech by allowing zinesters and others to reprint people’s work if they’re making some sort of scholarly commentary about it. The most fantastic song of my 6th grade year, for example, ws Aqua’s “Barbie Girl” which later won a copyright lawsuit filed by Mattel because their use of Barbie and Ken had been pure satire.

Haver also spelled out that you can use only as much of copyrighted material as you need to prove your point – including a picture of Mickey Mouse to talk about musophobia in modern society is fair game, but including an entire old Mickey comic in your zine would be pushing it.

To those that disparage copyright law as one of the many evils of capitalism, Haver acknowledged that some people and businesses exploit the system but that there are many benefits to copywriting your work – it’s insurance that someone (say, Disney) doesn’t rip off your brilliant idea. And a lot of brilliant ideas start small. “Giving people the tools to make zines is an important part of what makes this country work. Thomas Paine’s Common Sense was a zine,” noted Haver.

Stop by the library to read Haver’s little zine in full. As a quick copyright primer for those of you too lazy to read, Haver points to this creative cut-and-paste video a Fair(y) Use Tale.

Check out this great video of an IPRC member making her wedding invitations in the letterpress studio.  She uses a combination of lino block relief printing, letterpress and hand stamping, all of which you can do right here in the Center.  We have letterpress classes scheduled through August 2009 and plenty of space left; to register click here.

Betsy&Brian: Wedding Invitations