This weekend brings a landmark of sorts for Portland’s independent
publishing community: The Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC)
celebrates their 10th anniversary, with a two-venue rock show featuring
a stellar lineup of local musicians (more on that in a minute).
Ten years ago, when the IPRC first staked out its offices on SW Oak,
zines were the self-publisher’s medium of choice. You remember zines.
Staples, sloppy lettering, and hand-drawn comics, Cometbus and
Ben Is Dead, intensely idiosyncratic missives produced on paper
in an era when self-publishing meant a stolen Kinko’s card, not a
Blogspot account. But lest you think that zines are “so 1998,” driven
to obsolescence by a LiveJournal-fueled blogsplosion, it’s important to
note that self-published zines and comics are alive and well in
Portland, thanks in part to the efforts of the IPRC, a local
institution devoted to “encouraging the growth of a visual and literary
publishing community by offering a space to gather and exchange
information and ideas, as well as to produce work.”
Now, no one’s trying to take away your blog. They’re not even asking
you to choose. In actuality, IPRC Executive Director Justin Hocking
tells me over coffee (for me) and a soy sugar-free vanilla soy steamer
(for him), “There’s a really cool cross-pollination going on between
zines and blogs. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.” Zinesters like
Jack Saturn (recdel.com) have embraced
the internet as a way of distributing their work more widely, while the
IPRC is planning a redesign of their own website (iprc.org) to foster a more interactive online
community.
There’s more to the IPRC than zine-making, of course: Workshops,
outreach, and an extensive small-press library are among their
offerings, all based out of a small space above Reading Frenzy.
Under the direction of Hocking, who took over as executive director
in the fall of 2006 (after a stint in the New York publishing world),
the IPRC’s workshop program has expanded from three workshops a month
to between
12 and 15. Letterpress (in which individual lead type
blocks are used for printing) is their most popular workshop, filling
up months in advance. “People,” Hocking says, “really like having a
tactile experience. You’re not in front of a computer all day, you’re
working with your hands, in a room with other people.”
Letterpressing is a natural fit for graphic designers, as well as
anyone who wants to class up their business cards or wedding
invitations. Increasing the frequency and variety of workshops (on
topics that range from copyright law to tutorials on InDesign and
Photoshop) has increased the variety of people that take advantage of
the IPRC’s offerings—from your stereotypical zinester to “older
folks coming in and being interested in bookbinding and letterpress.
It’s like a very inclusive kind of clubhouse.”
This sentiment is echoed by musician Tara Jane O’Neil, one of the
performers at the IPRC’s anniversary show this weekend: “Zine library,
letterpress, Xerox machine sans Kinko’s vibe, scrap-paper pile, paste
that smells like kindergarten…. It’s one of the best playgrounds
ever. And the kids don’t beat each other up.” (Hocking tells me that
popular zinester and former IPRC Outreach Coordinator Nicole Georges
calls it a “safe space for nerds.”)
This inclusiveness, and a core belief that “the sharing of personal
stories, artwork, and publications is an important means of fostering
community,” also underpins their outreach program, which brings zine
workshops and lectures to schools, libraries, treatment centers, and
homeless shelters.
“A lot of these young people don’t feel like their experiences are
represented in the media—zines are one places they can find
narratives they can relate to,” Hocking says. “We do a lot of work with
homeless kids. That was one of IPRC’s original objectives, to give
disenfranchised groups a voice.”
That’s a lot to take on, but the IPRC continues to expand their
offerings: In the past year, they’ve started a new outreach program,
put out an audiozine, and continue to branch out and partner with other
organizations (as with the Triple Dare Reading Series). There’s also
talk of future involvement with Milepost 5, a new artists’ living/work
space in outer Southeast Portland, as well as more immediate plans to
add two more letterpress machines, and hopes of eventually freeing up
more workspace by moving their administrative offices out of the small
Oak Street location.
All of this is worth celebrating, and now’s the time to do it: This
weekend, the IPRC commemorates their 10th anniversary with a two-venue
rock show called the “Superstar Open Mic,” featuring solo sets from
folks like O’Neil, Brandon Summers of the Helio Sequence, Sarah
Dougher, and Sam Coomes of Quasi, all performing at the Someday Lounge,
plus an all-ages Hutch and Kathy show at Backspace. It’s the biggest
event the IPRC has ever sponsored, and the impressive lineup speaks to
the affection that members of Portland’s artistic community feel for
the IPRC.
As Quasi’s Sam Coomes puts it, “Independent press is free
press—it’s obviously essential.” Or, in the words of O’Neil:
“IPRC is a community. It seems kind of like the heart of the Portland
DIY creativity machine. IPRC is the best.”
Superstar Open Mic, Someday Lounge, 125 NW 5th (21+), and
Backspace, 115 NW 5th (all ages), Fri May 9, 8 pm, $10 (includes entry
to both venues), tickets available through brownpapertickets.com