The Print Lab is deep in the bowels of Gowanus. It’s a nice stroll from the train, unless you happen to visit during a freak blizzard Halloween weekend like I did, in which case it’s kind of a cold, wet slog. But totally worth the trip! The space is huge and comfy and inviting, with great art on the walls, studio members hard at work at the many tables and machines, and incredibly friendly teachers and staff. I was invited to take the Intro to Screenprinting class, which (thankfully) covered all the basics, and though I’ve got no drawing eye whatsoever and had never even touched a screen before, I totally made a shirt that I’m not at all embarrassed to wear.

all photos by Maximus Comissar

The intro class is only one of many offered at the Print Lab; there’s printing classes for skateboards and posters and stationary, digital classes on Photoshop and Indesign and website-building, there’s classes for kids, classes for DIY weddings, they even had a class on how to jailbreak your iPhone. Of course, they could also do everything for you, offering all kinds of large-format and specialty-ink printing services for fancy projects. Or if you already know what you’re doing and want to DIY it, you can become a member, gaining access to all the tools, paints, supplies, computers, machinery, and anything else you could possibly need. So go print something! But first click through for my interview with Amy, the lab’s marketing director.

screens

brooklyn spaces: What are some of your more unusual classes?
Amy: There’s lots. We have one on printing in repeat, for making fabric or wallpaper, we have a specialty inks class where you get to use flocking and foils and glitter, we have digital classes that are geared toward helping you make your designs appropriate for screenprinting, all kinds of things.

sinks

brooklyn spaces: There are also events here, right?
Amy: Yup. Last weekend we had a Halloween event, where kids got to have characters screenprinted on their clothes. We also do collaborative events; we did a party with Sobe and a craft night with Etsy. About once a month we have an opening reception for the new art exhibit.

screens

brooklyn spaces: Is the art done by Print Lab members?
Amy: Sometimes, but this one was curated by the art collective Six Betweens. Next month we’re doing an exhibit with the Graphic Artists Guild, and after that is a student show called “The Art of Rebellion.” Screenprinting lends itself to protest so well, because it’s really affordable, you can make multiples easily, and you can really deliver a message.

paints

brooklyn spaces: What’s the screenprinting community like? Do you guys get together and talk shop?
Amy: Sure, we’re friendly, we’re fun, we like to get along with everybody. We’re buddies with USA Tees, we have a good relationship with The Arm, a letterpress studio in Williamsburg, and also with the Brooklyn Artists Gym, which is just down the street. It’s really exciting to be in Gowanus right now, part of the growing artist community.

oven

brooklyn spaces: Who are some of your exciting clients or members?
Amy: We worked with one Brazillian designer doing specialty printing, glitter and things like that, and we do some contract work with the fabric designer Scott Hill, who runs Old Village Hall. Two of our long-term members, Anthony Graves and Carla Herrera-Prats, are part of Camel Collective, and they were featured in Mass MoCA’s “The Workers” show. Some other great members are painter Jeremy Penn, illustrator Erin Gallagher, graphic artist Norm Ibarra, and printmaker Andreas Ekberg. The artists here do really amazing things.

our instructor

brooklyn spaces: What’s the best part of working at a printshop?
Amy: I just think it’s exciting to be a part of a space that encourages people to make things, and to work in a way that they might not be able to on their own. I mean, you can screenprint at home, but it’s certainly very difficult, especially in New York with tiny shoebox apartments. So I love being able to facilitate people having the space they need to work and create.

me with my screen

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Like this? Read about more makers: Pickett Furniture, 6 Charles Place, Werdink, Bushwick Print Lab, A Wrecked Tangle Press, Metropolis Soap, Arch P&D, Gowanus Ballroom, Urbanglass, Better Than Jam, 3rd Ward

Even though I live about ten minutes away from them, I’d never heard of Werdink Screenprinting Boutique or Ninja Pyrate. And maybe you haven’t either—but believe me, that’s going to change. They’ve got  an amazing hybrid space, encompassing a high-end screenprinting studio, a boutique shop selling apparel and skateboards (all printed onsite), a multipurpose event space with a rubber floor and an aerial rig, a DJ setup, and a recording studio in a pirate ship. A pirate ship. And they’re really eager to open the space up to the community, to see what people can do with it.

Who are these amazing people? Matthew is the Werdink screenprinter, and his sister Krisstina and her boyfriend Jeff are still figuring out more amazing ways to use the Ninja Pyrate space. Plus they’re all well connected to the crazy Brooklyn creatives: Werdink did a screenprinting truck for the first three Lost Horizon Night Markets and shares tips with Bushwick Print Lab; Krisstina pals around with one of the girls from House of Yes and Lady Circus who started Make Fun; their space is literally downstairs from Shea Stadium.

Scroll down to hear more from these awesome people!
[all photos in this post by Alix Piorun]

brooklyn spaces: Okay, tell me about Werdink.
Matthew: It’s a screenprinting studio and retail shop, based on high-end development for independent fashion and artists. I work with people who are looking to broaden their horizons, make their stuff bigger. I take my time with my clientele, and I build relationships with them and bond with them and become part of their creative process. I’ve been doing this for years, and I do a wide range of printmaking, so I have a lot to offer. It’s not just making t-shirts; I also do tip-to-tail skateboard printing, and lots of other things. I spent a period of my life working with high-end, bigger names and brands, and I want to be able to give more independent people that same experience.

brooklyn spaces: Who are some people you’re really excited to be working with?
Matthew: My friend Ian Hurst, he has a company called 333Theory, and we’ve been working together for three years now, developing his line. Right now we’re making a bunch of t-shirts, but the t-shirts are a side project for his graphic novels, which are coming out later. There’s Connie Wang, from Iconartistry, who I got to know through Ad Hoc Art. She worked with me here for a few years and has since moved on to start her own print studio. There’s Hannah, she interns here, she’s started a brand called Helplessly Happy. There’s Hull, they’re a metal band, they were actually my first intense project in this space. A lot of those guys work at the Anchored Inn around the corner—we love that place, it’s awesome, everybody should go there and drink. Our friend Tara McManus has a company called 3rd Earth Designs, she has some stuff in my boutique and is always expanding her line. It’s hard to pick favorites, I love everyone I work with.

brooklyn spaces: Okay, so let’s switch to Ninja Pyrate. You guys are doing a bunch of different things in here, right?
Jeff: Yeah, we have a lot of interesting hobbies, so we’re trying to do as much as we can. We want to do different yoga classes, like dubstep yoga, costume yoga, pirate yoga. We have a friend who wants to teach capoeira, and we have an aerial rig. On top of that, we have a lot of friends who spin fire, so we’re going to do some poi and spinning classes, and we’re working on making new kinds of fire-spinning tools.
Krisstina: And also stuff like craft nights, clothing swaps with live screenprinting, skill-building workshops, movie nights.
Matthew: We did a release party for a book I helped work on, Gutterfish, with some people reading poetry and a couple of DJs. We’re also planning to put in a little tea and coffee bar.
Jeff: And the space isn’t just for us. We’re going to have an open house soon, because I want to get people imagining, coming up with ways they could use the space.
Matthew: We’re starting to finish up the projects on the inside, so now I’m thinking about the outside. I want to do a party to get some graffiti up on the wall outside.
brooklyn spaces: The landlords don’t mind?
Matthew: The landlords are so cool! I walk over there and I’m like, “Hey, I know you just spent thousands of dollars putting in this new sidewalk last year, but is it cool if I have the city come tear it up and put in some trees?” And they’re like, “It’s you’re place, do whatever you want. You want trees, get some trees.”

brooklyn spaces: Whose is the recording studio? Is that Ninja Pyrate?
Krisstina: Yeah, I do music recording. And our band, Yar, uses it.
brooklyn spaces: And why a pirate ship?
Krisstina: The pirate ship is all found wood. I found it in the hallway of my apartment. I almost walked past it, because, you know, bedbugs. But then I was like, “Wait a minute! I’m a pirate, those are skeletons, this was meant to be.” I called Jeff and said, “Honey, I got you a present from the garbage.”
Jeff: It was the best present I’ve ever gotten.
Matthew: About 80 percent of this place was built with recycled materials. Everything in the boutique is reused. Build It Green is freaking rad. I can’t go there without wanting to spend hundreds of dollars.
Jeff: Krisstina really wanted a playground floor, and I was like “We’re never going to find that.”
Krisstina: And then one of the times we were at Build It Green, I was like “You wouldn’t happen to have rubber flooring here, would you?” And they totally did. We had to dig it out from under the snow in the back parking lot. It was filthy.

brooklyn spaces: Do you think places like this are what’s making Brooklyn what it is right now? Or is Brooklyn like this, and people come and find their place here?
Matthew: That’s a good question. I think it’s a bit of both. As soon as I came to this neighborhood, I was like, “This is where I belong.” I never want to leave Brooklyn.
Krisstina: In Brooklyn there are so many creative people who are really motivated, and who all want to share tips and ideas. It helps to pool your resources; you never know how far you can go when you do that. Space is rare in New York, and expensive, so people have to come together to make it work. And people in the Bushwick area are so supportive. People make an effort to check out what you’re doing and help you with it.
Jeff: I love our friends in Brooklyn, and even people who don’t have this sort of space know we’re here, so if they need somewhere to spread out and do something, they can come to us. We’ve got a lot of creative friends who need more space to be loud, and this is a place they can do that. We’re just trying to help people get together and do things.

Like this? Read about more art & event spaces: Gowanus Ballroom, Arch P&D, Hive NYC, Big Sky Works, Egg & Dart Club

I hope I’m not going to have to change the name of this blog; Bushwick Print Lab is yet another space (like Silent Barn and Arch P&D) that is—technically, and only barely—in Queens. But it’s such a neat space, I had to cover it. BPL is a collective silkscreen studio where you can contract printing projects from very talented printers, or rent space and time to do it yourself. They offer basic silkscreening and textile printing workshops, too. Hourly rates begin at $25, monthly at $125, and their equipment includes a 44-inch exposure unit, a coating and drying room, a power washer and back-lit washout, flatstock printing tables, large paper drying racks, four-color tabletop presses, a flash unit, discounted paper stock, t-shirts, and inks—all the tools a screenprinter needs. In addition to being involved in the greater Bushwick art community, BPL does month-long art shows whenever someone wants to curate one. So read my interview with Ray, and then get in touch with him to start doing some projects!
brooklyn spaces: How do clients find you?
Ray: It’s mostly friends of friends and word of mouth, although if you Google “silkscreen” and “Brooklyn,” we come up pretty high. There aren’t a lot of labs like us. We have most of the tools that you need, although it’s not necessarily the highest-end, or the most expensive production. We’re more DIY, for artists. There are a few others, like ABC No Rio is the one that most people know, where you put $5 in the coffee can and you coat your screen and go, but we’re a little more professional, for things that have to be precise, with no fingerprints.

brooklyn spaces: What kinds of clients do you get?
Ray: We’re pretty affordable and open to different people, so it’s a little bit of everything. We have high school kids come here, and we have career printmakers. We get a lot of people from the digital art world who want to do something more physical. We get activists; we just did the plaques for the Ghost Bike Project, and the Yes Men have a screen here right now. We made a screen for Swimming Cities. SVA and Parsons have even had classes come here. And then of course lots people from bands.

brooklyn spaces: Is it just you running the whole thing? Is there a staff?
Ray: It’s sort of a benevolent dictatorship. I’m the one who runs it, and I tend to use the space more than everyone else because I’m doing my own jobs to help pay for it. But there’s a few other people who have been helping out: Kevin from Just Seeds works here one day a week, and Melissa, who’s an assistant for Molly Crabapple and does Dr. Sketchy stuff, she does admin assistance. And we had an intern, Ben, he’s from this Walkabout program in Westchester, he was here for six weeks. That‘s basically the staff.

brooklyn spaces: Why did you pick this neighborhood?
Ray: It’s the neighborhood I know, I’ve been working out here for four or five years. And my friend Todd, he and all these people from Graffiti Research Lab needed to move studios, so we moved in together. I love the building, and our neighbors are great, like Yarn Wire, Regina Rex Galleries, Brooklyn Salsa Company, and Lang Percussion. Plus it’s just a nice area. We’re technically in Queens, which is interesting. You can really tell; it’s industrial Bushwick until you get to Cypress, and then it’s all row houses. It’s a whole other life in Queens, it turns out.

brooklyn spaces: Anything else you want to tell the world about BPL?
Ray: We’re happy to work with people, and we try to do it as affordably as possible. It’s been really nice doing this, everybody who works is here really cool and supportive and interested in each other’s projects. It’s been working out. I’m really happy about everything.

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Like this? Read about more makers: Werdink, Gowanus Print Lab, Pickett Furniture, A Wrecked Tangle Press, Metropolis Soap, 6 Charles Place, Arch P&D, Gowanus Ballroom, Urbanglass, Better Than Jam, 3rd Ward