The studio at twenty: an oral history

The studio turns twenty this year. To mark it, we sat down with three people who have been here the longest — Mira (founder), Jun (master printer), and Ana (archive) — and asked them to tell the story in their own words. What follows is lightly edited, but the detours are theirs.

The beginning

How did this place actually start?

It started because I could not afford to frame my own work, so I learned to do it, and then friends asked, and then strangers. There was never a plan. There was a kettle, a guillotine, and a very cold room. — Mira

Jun, you joined in year three. What was it like walking in? 

Chaos, but generous chaos. Mira handed me a press I had never seen and said "it likes to be warm, be patient with it." That was the whole training. I am still patient with it. It is still warm. — Jun

The years that almost ended it

There was a stretch where this nearly closed.

Year eleven. We took a wholesale deal to survive and it nearly killed the thing it was meant to save. We were making product, not prints. The deckle edge does not survive a forklift. We pulled out, lost money, and somehow felt rich again. — Mira

Ana, you run the archive. What did that period look like from your corner?

I was cataloguing things faster than we could sell them, which sounds bad but meant we kept everything. That archive is now half our value. The slow years filled the shelves that the good years sell from. — Ana

On craft and stubbornness

What is the most underrated tool in the building?

A soft brush and twenty quiet minutes. Most of what people call restoration is just removing what should not be there. The brush does more than any machine. — Jun

And the most overrated?

Anything with the word "workflow" in the manual. The work flows when you pay attention. It stalls when you automate the attention away. — Mira

Twenty years in three sentences

Make one good thing slowly. Then make it again. Then teach someone else to. — Mira

Last question. Where is this in another twenty years?

Smaller, probably. Better, definitely. Still cold in the mornings. Still warming up the press first. — Jun

Thank you to everyone who has had a print from us, sent us a frame to repair, or just stood quietly in the archive on an open day. Twenty years is a long time to do one thing slowly. We intend to keep going.

Watch: a walk through the press floor