Shop and community space empowers people with print
Outlet, the print shop co-owned by Kate Bingaman-Burt, associate director of PSU’s School of Art+Design, and Leland Vaughan ‘19, contains multitudes. It is a print shop, yes, but also Bingaman-Burt and Vaughan’s studio, a space for workshops and pop-up events, a zine library and a hub where artists can build community and work for social justice.
Nestled in a postage stamp-sized space off of NE Sandy Boulevard, Outlet is an oasis. Enter Outlet’s large garage door and you’ll find striking art and protest posters of every style imaginable, reams of colorful paper and vibrant inks. A large red table invites you to make new friends while you try your hand in creating your own masterpiece. Barbara, Janet, Corita and Lil’ Tina can help.
Barbara, Janet, Corita and Lil’ Tina aren’t employees or store pets. They are risographs (or ‘risos’ as they are affectionately called), machines that look like copiers but use real inks to make eye-catching prints.
“One of the first things that spoke to me [about risography] was the vibrancy of the fluorescent pink, fluorescent orange,” says Vaughan. “You just can't print with those in any other medium, except maybe screen printing and that requires a lot of equipment and space.”
Vaughan discovered a fondness for the technique when working with riso in PSU’s Rad Lab.
When I opened up Outlet it was very much with the intention of having it be a community workshop space, a resource space.
“I call myself a recovering perfectionist,” Vaughan says “Riso has all of these inherent quirks and a lot of things can go wrong but part of what I love about it is that it's an exercise in letting go. Sometimes the end result is better than I could have imagined it being for the imperfections and all of the struggles that happened along the way.”
Outlet employees, almost all PSU students or alumni, use the risos to print online orders and help trained customers to make their own prints in the shop. Outlet’s bread and butter, however, are the popular riso workshops that Bingman-Burt and Vaughan hold each month, converting the riso-curious to riso-fanatics.
An evolving space
Outlet didn’t start out as Portland’s destination for risography. When Bingaman-Burt opened Outlet in spring of 2017 the space was her “public studio.” For years, she had been actively involved in organizing events both inside and outside PSU while also doing freelance illustration work. The new studio space was a chance to combine these two elements of her creative professional life.
“The idea of having more of a public studio space has always been really enticing to me,” she says. “When I opened up Outlet it was very much with the intention of having it be a community workshop space, a resource space.”
Outlet was also a place to share the thousands of zines—self-published magazines—that she had amassed while giving zine workshops across the country.
But she wasn’t sure how a public studio and zine library would translate to a business. She started to experiment, inviting friends to come in and use the space for different kinds of events. Through the spring and summer of 2017 Outlet hosted everything from book release parties to drawing nights to plant care workshops.
In August 2017, Bingaman-Burt delivered her first risograph workshop, enlisting “Barbara,” who had been rescued from a church basement in Beaverton by one of her friends.
It was a smashing success.
“The true identity of Outlet didn’t really come into vision until we gave our first risograph workshop,” she says. “That was where I was like, ‘this is a business model.’”
Outlet has given between one and four risograph workshops every month since.
It turns out risography is the perfect fit for a space committed to bringing people together. “One of the things that I've always loved about printmaking is it takes a community,” says Bingaman-Burt. “These are machines that are not meant to be owned by just one person. They are meant to be used by lots of people.”
Printing partners
Vaughan, like many PSU students, was a non-traditional student. They didn’t go to college right after high school and dabbled in community college for years before moving from California to Southern Oregon to get their associate’s degree. They originally wanted to go into social work until they discovered graphic design.
“I realized that graphic design can be applied in ways that are similar to social work…my creative practice is very much oriented around community and accessibility and fostering that kind of support system for other artists and designers,” says Vaughan.
They moved to Portland to attend PSU’s graphic design program and immediately got to work. “I hit the ground running as soon as I got PSU,” they say. “I knew how important it was to me to build a community, especially in a place I just moved to.”
At PSU, Vaughan took classes with Bingaman-Burt, who also heads the graphic design program, and started working with her at A+D Projects, a design studio incubator housed in the graphic design program. “It’s a nice way to get that real world practice in terms of design and working with clients,” they say.
Vaughan also helped organize Good Market, an annual event where PSU students sell their artwork. It was this experience that made Bingaman-Burt approach them about working at Outlet, which was getting busier and busier.
“I saw their spreadsheets, and I was like, ‘holy cow, what an organized and attention-to-detail human this person is!’” says Bingaman-Burt. In 2018, Vaughan started working part-time at Outlet and soon became indispensable.
“It’s always been important to me that the Outlet assistants are kind, helpful, nice people first, and they also know how to help you make a kick-ass print,” she says. “Leland completely embodies that and completely understood the ethos that I was trying to put out there.”
After graduating in 2019, Vaughan began working full-time. Just as they were getting their bearings, the pandemic hit. Bingaman-Burt and Vaughan were forced to make a big pivot.
“We built an entire business on things being super hands-on and super in-person,” says Bingaman-Burt.
Before they knew it, the two had essentially moved into Outlet, spending long days at work in their pandemic pod. Bingaman-Burt taught her PSU classes from her studio space in the loft above the store. Her teaching became the soundtrack for the shop as Vaughan started figuring out how they could start offering remote printing services.
The biggest challenge was learning to deliver the riso workshops over Zoom. They soon found they could offer engaging lessons introducing the printer and technique to the students, have the students complete a piece of digital artwork after the workshop, print the pieces Outlet and mail them to the students.
Even offered remotely, the workshops were a hit and kept the shop afloat.
“We’ve never had a workshop that wasn’t sold out, even through the pandemic, even coming out of the pandemic,” says Bingaman-Burt. “I’m proud of the fact that we were able to navigate those waters pretty dang well and so thankful to the hundreds and hundreds of people all over the world that signed up for our workshops.”
Protest printing
A commitment to racial justice and supporting disenfranchised communities has always been an important part of Outlet’s mission. Bingaman-Burt and Vaughan set aside free tickets to all of their workshops for BIPOC, trans, queer and disabled folks who would otherwise be unable to attend, and they offer special rates for Black, Indigenous and AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) artists and creatives wanting to print their work.
When the George Floyd protests began in May 2020, still in the height of the pandemic, Outlet printed hundreds of free protest posters that anyone could come by and pick up.
“There were days where it was just a non-stop stream of people,” says Vaughan. “We would have a line down the sidewalk.”
Over 60 artists submitted poster designs, which can be viewed on Outlet’s online archive.
I’m really, really, really insistent that we have good community spaces, that this building is not only for PSU students, but it’s also for the PSU community.
“It was a lovely thing to be part of,” says Bingaman-Burt. “It also helped people that might have felt like they weren't doing anything or couldn't do anything. They could put their pen to paper, and they could come to Outlet, and we could make a pile of prints for them to hang up.”
Print has long been a tool for political change, notes Bingaman-Burt.
“It is a powerful thing to be able to have an idea and then quickly be able to make a pile of copies of that idea and to distribute it to people you don't know,” she says. “Hang it up in windows. Get it into the hands of people that need to have it in their hands. Get it in front of the faces of people that need to be seeing it.”
Future forward
Despite the success of their online workshops, Vaughan and Bingaman-Burt were relieved to be able to start offering in-person workshops again in 2021.
“It was just so intoxicating to be around people again and to remember what this space was supposed to be,” says Vaughan.
People who took the online workshop have come in to experience the in-person version. People from out of town have even made attending a workshop part of their Portland vacation plans. And some people just can’t get enough.
“In our last workshop on Saturday we had one person who had taken the intro workshop three freaking times, which I think is great,” says Bingaman-Burt.
After spending so much time on screens, Vaughan says workshop participants have a hunger for tactile work. “There's nothing quite like working with your hands, and also having a tangible thing to hold that you've made,” they say.
With the shop continuing to bustle after the return to in-person workshops, Bingham-Burt asked Vaughan to become part owner of Outlet in 2022.
“I can't give them the massive raise that they deserve for what we've just been through,” says Bingham-Burt. “So we are official partners.”
The team looks forward to expanding the events hosted at Outlet. They want to have book readings, film screenings, parties and other pop-up events like they did before the pandemic.
“I'm excited to get more people in the space,” says Vaughan.
Bingaman-Burt is also busy applying what she’s learned from Outlet in the design of the new home for PSU’s School of Art and Design.
For example, the current plan is to have a publication studio on the first floor as well as an archive and library. Of paramount importance to Bingaman-Burt are places in the building where groups can gather. She’s learned from her time at Outlet just how important those spaces can be.
“I’m excited about the space being able to host and support other organizations that are doing meaningful creative things out in the community that don’t necessarily have a space,” she says. “I’m really, really, really insistent that we have good community spaces, that this building is not only for PSU students, but it’s also for the PSU community.”