About

A question for many artists has been the question of physical space. Where will we rehearse our music? Where will we make our messy paintings? Where will we show our art? Renting studios is unaffordable, art galleries are exclusive, and the housing crisis is only getting worse. For many, the first necessary step to art-making is using their creativity and resourcefulness to create a new space for their work to exist in. The large majority of these spaces that I have cherished, worked in, and held open have been basements, warehouses, places with mold, no heat, lead paint, and difficult or non-existent landlords. We made these spaces beautiful with how we inhabited them, decorating ceiling pipes, painting murals over mold spots, late night musings, quiet co-creation, mess-making, and dancing. There is a long tradition of filling unloved concrete rooms with warmth, life, and creativity. Even though the communities they supported still exist today, the spaces themselves were not destined to last.

Paper Ghost Print Shop is the next step in the journey toward creating lasting rooms for fantasies to emerge from. Screen-printing is something that many artists have experience with but the process requires space and materials that are often inaccessible. I am not the first to believe that working artists (and workers in general) should have a say over their labor and what they produce; that idea is one of the foundational values of the studio. Through grant funding and community support our studio provides the materials and space needed to create affordable, high-quality prints. This type of access could be what allows an artist to sustain themselves and build a career selling handmade prints. The idea of communities sharing resources is reflected in the natural ecosystem all around us. We do not use harmful cleaning chemicals, we minimize the use of disposable supplies, and we filter all wastewater.

Sharing creative space, providing access to resources, and caring for the land around us are all roots of our studio’s approach to building solidarity. Subcultures, online spaces, and artistic communities are becoming more fractured than ever as social and economic rifts widen. The scarcity created by capitalism turns community into competition, sustainability into exploitation, and resources into hordes. Paper Ghost Print Studio seeks to banish the phantom of scarcity and live into a dream of a communal creativity and solidarity. We have enough if we share.

Shop Values

We have enough if we share
Through grant funding, community support, and shared responsibility, we create abundance for each
other so that everyone can thrive in their personal and collective endeavors.

Shared creative spaces have revolutionary potential
There is something magic and intangible that happens when artists are working in a shared physical
space. This intangible energy results in tangible collaborative works that could not have occurred if those paths
had not crossed. We value these real-world, offline, community spaces as integral to collective liberation and
creative fulfillment.

Access to the means of production
Paper Ghost Print Shop is a humble offering to the local community of a more affordable and DIY way
to produce quality prints of their work toward building their artistic careers.

Respecting land, water and the creatures we share it with
We minimize use of toxic cleaners and disposable supplies. All our waste water is filtered and disposed
of properly.