Dear Volunteers, Friends, Neighbors and Supporters,
We have always appreciated every bit of your time, from attending Open Shop to volunteering for gallery shows and events. It is because of your help that we have been able to provide printmaking supplies at cheap prices, teach the community how to screen print for free, and display wonderful prints from artists around the city.
Now, more than ever, the New Orleans Community Printshop needs your help!
We have just been informed that our lease is running out prematurely due to new ownership of our building. We need to be out of our location by July 1st, 2012. – That’s only a few months away. We want to stay open and continue to serve the community, but we have limited time, and have to act fast!
Here’s how you can help:
Donate.
Any donation of money will help. In the new space we find, we will have to spend money to build out the new space while maintaining our current Open Shop before the lease runs out. Our expenses will include skilled labor (such as plumbing and contracting), building materials, insurance for the new space and more, so whether you can give $5 or $5,000 any aid you give us will help!
We will have a paypal donation button on our wordpress account page shortly to make it easy, but if you have cash or check you can contact us or visit the shop’s current location at 831 Elysian Fields to donate to our cause!
We will also likely be doing a kickstarter soon. Once that begins, those of you who have donated to the New Orleans Community Printshop will receive the same incentives and prizes that we will post on the kickstarter website. We will post more on our wordpress site, blog, or through email about this soon.
Advise.
Do you know of a new space? Have you seen a “For Rent” sign on a promising commercial building?
Here is the sort of space we are looking for:
1) A lease for two years or longer: landlord must be OK with this being a print shop, used as a public space for all ages, and with us having 24 hour access to the building.
2) Ability to create necessary structures (walls, if needed, for example) and with floors that are not important, so that spilled ink will not cause issues.
3) A commercially zoned building 1500 square feet or larger, In the ball park of $1600 (or negotiable).
In short, a large space that could be used as a print shop much like what we have right now, but in a more permanent location.
Refer
Do you know a reliable lawyer (to advise on future lease situations), contractor, plumber, person with a truck for moving purposes, or anyone else who would help us at reasonable rates?
Are you one of these people? When we build out our new space, we’ll need all the advisement and help we can get!
Volunteer
Of course, we will need help moving, and building out new space. If you feel you’ll have time in the next few months to get involved, please respond to let us know that you’d be willing to help! As with all volunteering, a single free use of ink and screen voucher is provided to those who lend a hand!
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In short, we can’t let all of our (and your) past work slip through our fingers. We are committed to having a community print shop again for the community to work, learn and create. If you have any resources to help (or know someone who does), send us a line, let us know, get involved!
Thank you all for reading this, and please, spread the word!
-The New Orleans Community Printshop
