The short version:
IS Projects, located in sunny Fort Lauderdale, is an all inclusive print and book arts studio providing the facilities and assistance to make books and fine art prints from start to finish. The facilities include letterpress, book binding, and screen printing equipment and are accessible through workshops, affordable hourly rentals, and membership. IS Projects provides workshops for the public as well as private assistance to artists working on specific projects. The studio also houses Nocturnal Press, a commercial letterpress print shop. The founder, Ingrid Schindall, has years of experience running letterpress shops as well as fine art collaborative studios. She started Nocturnal Press in a small basement studio in Baltimore, MD and has since expanded the business to fulfill her long terms goal of establishing an all encompassing print and book arts center. South Florida's growing art scene is teeming with grassroots art collectives, individual artists, and arts organizations. IS Projects provides a supportive, communal working environment for artists looking to make fine art prints, letterpress prints, zines, and books.
The long version: (interview feature from VoyageMIA)
I’m a local, born and raised here in South Florida with a brief interlude to study Fine Art Printmaking at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, Maryland. I opened Nocturnal Press the summer after graduation. The name came from my tendency to be in the print shop until the sun came up. My letterpress professor and I joked that if I ever opened a press that I would have to call it Nocturnal Press and once I was out of school and starting to sell handmade books and paper goods I couldn’t resist making use of the, still very accurate, name. I ran Nocturnal Press out of my living room for a year then moved into a studio space in a small, dank basement in Midtown Baltimore. I stapled plastic sheeting to the ceiling to prevent the dust and dirt from crumbling down upon the work area and moved some newly acquired, old equipment in. Nocturnal Press remained in that basement for a year before the urge to do something bigger turned into a feasible option.
Printmaking and bookbinding require big, heavy equipment that is unreasonable for many individual artists to own, so when I put the deposit on a Vandercook printing press, the plan was to find a way to set up a public access space rather than keeping the beautiful press all to myself. I researched studios in Baltimore and other nearby cities with thriving printmaking communities, but nothing seemed to fit. I noticed that South Florida, where I’m from, lacked accessible printmaking resources, so I started researching arts districts in the area. I came across the FATVillage Arts District in downtown Fort Lauderdale and found the perfect place to put a public-access fine art printmaking studio. The studio needed a new name to match its new breadth of capabilities, so I decided to give it a name that had lots of room to grow, IS Projects, while keeping Nocturnal Press as the commercial printing and boutique bookbinding side of the operation.
I opened IS Projects in an 860 square foot space during the September Artwalk in 2014. I had one big press, three little presses, and an active Kickstarter campaign for a large etching press. The Kickstarter Campaign was successful, and we added an etching press to the collection of equipment available to local artists. Each month the FATVillage Artwalk brought more and more people to the studio. Visitors always leave the print shop with a little taste of what fine art printmaking is and an expanded appreciation for what goes into making handmade paper goods. Workshops were added to the schedule featuring different printmaking techniques as a way to further public engagement and activate the space.
Soon IS Projects outgrew the small two-room studio and the space adjacent serendipitously became available. This was also the same time that Jessica Condon, a fellow MICA grad, joined on as the manager of Nocturnal Press, and took over all of our commissioned letterpress printing. We were able to double the square footage of the studio and create a proper gallery space to show artwork that emphasized the importance of the marriage between process and concept in art. With the additional square footage, we were also able to add screenprinting facilities and take on larger and more varied projects than ever before.
The team has continued to grow, we now have a staff of four fabulous art minds managing different aspects of the business. I am the director, big picture gal, bookbinder, and lead screen printer. Jessica Condon is our Nocturnal Press manager and queen of all things letterpress. Sammi McLean has joined on as our gallery coordinator and workshop coordinator, making sure that our schedule is packed with opportunities for the public to engage with ISP and finding new opportunities for us to highlight and collaborate with local artists. The most recent member of the team Melissa Vargas has joined on to handle markets and online sales as well as assist with studio production. It takes a village to raise a studio like this, but I’ve been incredibly fortunate to be surrounded by a supportive community and a focused, hardworking group of collaborators.
South Florida presents a lot of challenges when going into an arts-related venture. One of the main hurdles for IS Projects was coming to a place with no printing history and virtually no established scene for printmaking and still finding a way to thrive. Our biggest challenge is also a large part of our mission — to educate South Floridians about the process and cultural value of fine art printmaking and spread the love of these traditional mediums.
When I chose to be a part of FAT Village, I did so knowing that the district would act as an incubator for the studio by bringing hundreds of people through the studio during the monthly Artwalks to see our presses and learn about the hard work that goes into fine art printmaking. Another facet of that same challenge was finding our people and bringing artists in the scene together. Artists come into the studio and say, “Wow, I’ve been making prints(or books) in my own studio for years! I had no idea that there was a place like this in South Florida. No one else does this here.” I must have met 30 printmakers in the first two years, and it was rare for them to know about all the other printmakers in the area.
In an effort to bring everyone together I teamed up with Sarah Michelle Rupert, of the Girls’ Club Collection, in 2016 to put together the first Small Press Fair Fort Lauderdale (SPF.) SPF is an opportunity for local and regional artists, printers, booksellers, publishers, authors, poets, bookmakers, designers, zinesters and cultural workers to share ideas and showcase new work related to printmaking, and zine creation.
In its inaugural year, SPF’16 brought together over 50 exhibitors and introduced them to a crowd of interested patrons and fellow art enthusiasts. Our exhibitor participation and audience has grown each year along with our surrounding programming. This year’s SPF’18 was our biggest and best year yet, with steamroller printing, an exhibitor market, printmaking demonstrations, visiting artists, workshops all over Broward County and an ambitious printmaking exhibition, Pushing the Pull.
By creating a platform for artists to share and profit from their print related projects, the amount and diversity of print work being made in South Florida have noticeably expanded. It helps that our efforts with SPF have developed concurrently with other print and paper related projects here in South Florida. It’s so encouraging and exciting to see the print aspect of the community growing so fast!
The studio is open to the public 11 am to 7 pm Tuesday through Friday, so if you ever want to stop by and take a peak, please feel free!
07/19/2022
