IS Projects Rebrands Itself as Miami Paper & Printing Museum

Though Miami has a plethora of places to view and engage with visual art, Florida ranks last in the nation for museums per capita. As an artist and longtime steward of the South Florida printmaking and zine scene, IS Projects founder Ingrid Schindall could literally write, print, and bind the book on this place — but for now, she's settling on opening the museum.

Schindall has long been concerned with changing the narrative and building a print community down here, mostly through education initiatives at her studio and events like the annual Small Press Fair in early November and the biannual Tropic Bound Artists' Book Fair, which will return to the Design District this February. But as the space reaches its tenth birthday, she is eager to open it up to the broader creative community as a new home for print culture year-round through an exhibition gallery, store, and the newly launched Miami Paper & Printing Museum.

Schindall opened IS Projects when she was 24 and always meant for the name to be temporary. Many of the presses that her team uses for wedding invites and cocktail menus for the in-house boutique letterpress studio Nocturnal Press or various educational programs are named for their former owners, and the rotating cast of interns and students who fill the studio are always told stories about the printers who came before them and the history of the medium. Only one press in the entire space was purchased new.

"We've always wanted to be a space where people can come and make art, buy art, have conversations," Schindall says. "But we've already had a neighbor come in and say, 'Now that this is a museum. I feel like I can come in and ask questions.' We have always wanted to be an open space for people to learn things about art, and that is ideally what a museum is supposed to be."

In this new phase of life, Schindall hopes that the space can continue to be a home for advanced artists pushing the medium of print forward, as well as new students curious about learning the basics from the shop's vast collection of antique equipment. In addition to one-off specialty classes and multiweek intensives on "Intro to Print and Book Arts," it offers artists' membership programs and one-on-one coaching to help individuals realize projects that may be outside of their current skill set. Schindall and her printing and administrative team, Brooke Frank and Amber Frank, are eager to curate the museum store with high-quality printing materials and artists' goods that are hard to find locally. Shoppers can also count on the expertise of the master printers behind the till, who can answer any questions about what they might need for a project.

Florida's cuts to arts and culture funding this year affected IS Projects and its upcoming partner events, SPF and Tropic Bound. Schindall hopes this new identity will help them adapt to that new financial reality and increase the close-knit community of local print lovers utilizing the space for projects and classes.

"Our door is open from 11 to 7. Our goal is to be as inclusive and welcoming to this neighborhood and community as possible," Schindall says. "A one-stop shop, literally with the shop. You can come here to learn the skills from a teacher, buy the materials for your project, exhibit that work, and have a part of that edition included in our permanent collection."

The permanent collection builds on the studio's extensive library of local and national artists' books, zines, and prints with the addition of Hernan Helfer's extensive collection of handmade paper and his series of intricate historical dioramas depicting the history of paper and writing around the world. Helfer's Miami Paper Museum project was acquired after the artist retired to Peru in 2022. As the IS Projects team reconceptualized the space, the pieces were dusted off and hung in the bathroom, creating the most interesting place to pee in Miami since Tâm Tâm downtown added a karaoke machine to its stalls.
Eventually, the bathroom became a tongue-in-cheek home for most of the permanent collection. The team hopes that by placing it there, the museum can function as a kind of art piece mocking the exclusivity and pretentiousness of many art museums. That wall includes everything from Schindall's screenprinted wedding announcement to a poster from Marfa, Texas, made by multidisciplinary artist and writer John Waters. Many pieces reference the specific subculture developed around printing and zines, to which Schindall has dedicated her life to preserving and promoting in Miami.

One could spend hours in that bathroom without ever approaching the toilet. The collection and the current exhibition were curated by Beth Sheehan, an accomplished book artist and papermaker based in Alabama who updated Helfer's collection with several beautiful new displays about specific papermaking processes and a small essay of new information about the history of the medium. The "contemporary wing" takes up the largest wall in the main store space and will rotate with a new artist every three months, giving local printmakers a new space dedicated to spotlighting their projects.

More than two-thirds of the museum is still dedicated to workspaces and education, reflecting Schindall's governing priority, which is to focus on "praxis and the oral passing down of this knowledge." The museum has recently hired a new director of people and community, Ọmọlará Williams McCallister, who originally participated in their joint fellowship with O, Miami Poetry Festival this spring and will help them bring educational offerings to new audiences and mediums. The studio already hosted a papermaking workshop with Latino Outdoors Miami earlier this summer and actively encourages interested partner groups to get in touch.

The staff is currently all hands on deck planning for the latest edition of Small Press Fair, which will take place at MAD Art Space in Dania Beach on November 9 and 10. This year's edition will feature at least 80 different artists and presses from across the state and country, as well as demonstrations utilizing traditional techniques like letterpress postcard printing and Schindall's more unorthodox famous steamroller method. Schindall is excited to combine and contrast the scrappy, DIY world of print with MAD Art Space's leading digital and electronic art collection and its current exhibit of Broward artists.

Miami Paper & Printing Museum. 290 NW 73rd St., Miami; isprojectsfl.com. Monday through Friday 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.