Small Press Fair Challenges Idea That Print Is Dead

Print is dead. At least, that's what everyone's been sold since the dawn of the Digital Age. But Sarah Michelle Rupert isn't having it.

"Print never died, and it never will," the native Miamian artist tells New Times. "As our world grows more and more digital, I think our yearning for tactility grows hand in hand."

Not long into her fledgling photography career, Rupert grew jaded with the long hours she was spending bogged down with Photoshop in front of a computer screen. Her mounting disenchantment with the digital tools of the trade would see her gradually pivot to physical book art and zines.

"Getting off the screen felt so good, so refreshing," she says. "Instead of glaring at a screen for hours looking for micro-inconsistencies, I was diving into collaging books and magazines, experimenting with watercolor and colored inks, making Xerox transfers. I think that switch in my creative process really helped fuel my drive to push SPF into the world."

The Small Press Fair (SPF) was first launched in 2016 by Rupert and Ingrid Schindall, another local artist whose print work aims to draw attention to the act of making and question the authority of the printed mark.
"Ubiquitous printed matter, paper, and imagery have created a world in which the production of such items is assumed to be done by a machine, in some factory, in some other country," Schindall muses. "My work is successful when it causes a viewer to ask, 'How was this made?' or to think about the hand in the act of making."

For eight years now, SPF has provided South Florida with a singular forum where small regional presses, independent publishers, artists, designers, zinesters, and "the similarly afflicted" can converge to celebrate all forms of printed matter and swap ideas with wild abandon.

"All we really want to do is get everyone in the same room," Rupert says. "See what happens when a graphic designer is sitting next to an illustrator, or a writer is sitting next to an artist specializing in intaglio, or a high schooler making patches is across from a retiree making multi-block woodcuts. I have loved seeing the artwork and friendships that have resulted from artists being near each other at SPF."

"Our sunny subculture of creators is kind of like the paradoxical paradise that is South Florida," she adds. "It's tough to define, but you feel it when you're here, and it feels like nowhere else. And while the heart of SPF is South Florida artists, the event has increasingly attracted folks from outside the area. This year, we have exhibitors from Brooklyn, Chicago, North Carolina, and Texas, along with our fellow Floridians from the north: Gainesville, Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville."

While everyone's busy debating whether it's dead, print media is acquiring an undeniable political resonance in the wake of recent book bans across Florida school districts by Gov. Ron DeSantis' administration and the state's Republican-dominated legislature. "In Florida and most of the country, book bans are the hottest topic of this year, hands down," Schindall says.

"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one," she quotes the legendary journalist A.J. Liebling. "All of our exhibitors technically own a press. Whether it's a 2,000-pound letterpress from the 1800s or a digital publication that they sell merch for at the fair, they are taking the freedom of the press into their own hands. The widespread book bans that are cropping up in the country are horrifying to anyone who has found solace, validation, or comfort in the written words of a stranger. The continued expansion of these bans only confirms the power that books have to bring people together, make people feel seen, and give people confidence to be who they are."

Of course, SPF attendance is not limited only to artists and creators but is open to anyone yearning to be freed from the tyrannical hold that screens have over our attention. "We are so screen-dependent," Rupert laments. "Work, art, news, communications, it's all behind these pixelated screens. I love breaking out of that screen stronghold and bringing folks with me."

"Print is no longer solely burdened with the heavy weight of the mass dissemination of ideas and information," Schindall says. "Now we can choose print when the project really calls for it. We can revel in the smell of ink and paper. We can cherish the feel of paper that was touched by other human hands. We can enjoy being unplugged from the digital world while reading a novel outside in the breeze. We can marvel at the saturation of pigment, the gesture of a line, and the relation of an artwork's size to the size of our bodies. As artists, we can benefit from all of the printing knowledge that was developed for industry and then take all of those expectations and turn them on their heads."

"I don't believe that print is dead or dying," she stresses. "Print is going through a transformation, and we get to decide what it becomes."

Small Press Fair. Noon to 6 p.m. Saturday, November 11, and Sunday, November 12, at Mad Arts Space, 481 S. Federal Hwy., Dania Beach; spf-ftl.com. Admission is free.