with Leslie Vega, Art Editor, and Yuly Restrepo Garcés, Editor-in-Chief
Kaitlin Crockett is the proprietor, printmaker, and artist at Print St. Pete, a letterpress and risograph printshop in Gulfport, Florida. As a small business operating in a thriving arts scene and challenging economy, Tampa Review was eager to see what’s up with the state of printmaking in Tampa Bay.
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Leslie Vega: Could you talk about the origins of your collaboration here [with Bridget Elmer]?
Kaitlin Crockett: I co-founded Print St. Pete with Bridget Elmer, who was originally my first Book Arts instructor in college. She was the professor who introduced me to making zines and letterpress, and that this was a legitimate art form. Because I was a creative writing major, I was really into the idea of self-publishing my own chapbooks, and I was making little books on my own, but I didn’t even know that Book Arts was a thing. And so I was just kind of like, sewing them haphazardly with yarn, and I was friends with art students, and they were like, you know, you should look into this class that’s being taught. I had to get permission because I wasn’t a BFA student at FSU. Bridget was the teacher [of the Book Arts class] and she was just so great because she was classically trained. And she’s also a librarian!
And so she just really kind of got me into this. And I went off; I graduated, and I went and took a letterpress workshop in Asheville, North Carolina, which at the time was the closest place to here where you could do a community-based, open-to-anyone letterpress workshop. And so I went and got obsessed, and I came back and I got a little press and was printing here in St. Pete for a couple years, just kind of like teaching myself and making stuff for friends and local businesses. And then she [Bridget] moved to town because her husband got a job teaching art at St. Pete High. And we reconnected and both had our printing presses at our houses at the time. So originally, we got this space in 2011, or 2012, just as an affordable place to have the equipment out of our houses, where we could share resources.
And shortly after that, we started going out and doing little markets and artwalks, and we would sell our cards, but we would bring a little printing press, and do printing demos for people. And what we found was that people were super into doing it and interested in it. And they were like, “how do we do this? Do you do classes?” Bridget and I love to teach, of course. She was an educator, and I was working on my MLIS (Master of Library and Information Science) at the time, and was working at a library. So, I was super interested in sharing my passion for this with other people. And there wasn’t really another press that was open to the public at the time here in St. Pete.
So we started doing kind of these casual “Paper and Pints Nights” is what we’ve called them. We would open up the shop and you would have local beer from Cycle Brewing and you could come and print your own little postcard, and just get a friendly intro. Graphic designers and other artists and writers came to us. And so, we started offering more intensive workshops, where people could come back and use the studio because we both had full time jobs outside of this as well. We wanted the equipment to be used instead of just sitting in here collecting dust, you know, nine to five during the week. Since then, we’ve just been going and there’s been continued interest in people coming here with the growing arts community and literary community now. It’s great! I think people are super interested in this like, really tactile art form, especially when we’re all in front of screens all day, every day.
Leslie: What’s unique for you about printmaking as a medium?
Kaitlin: I think it is kind of that tactile nature to it, like you can see the human hand in it; it doesn’t look perfect. I’m drawn to work where you see little imperfections. It’s really process based. And I’m also drawn to that, you know, really getting into the process of it and not so much just to make a product and allowing the process to shape my work. The thing with printmaking sometimes is you’re working within these really strict limitations. Like with letterpress, you are limited to literally the letters we have in the drawer. And you might be limited to a certain number of colors or size.
I find my creativity kind of sparks somehow within those limitations, because when I have endless options, I get overwhelmed.
Leslie: Oftentimes I hear people speak on how limitations actually open doorways. Starting with a blank sheet is terrifying.
Kaitlin: I think it’s just really versatile, because letterpress might not be the most accessible form of printmaking, but we offer other ones that are like simple relief printmaking, where you are able to just carve a stamp, and it takes 10 minutes, and you still get that excitement of seeing something that you made with your own hand.
And sometimes the print and even the little imperfections just end up making it. You know, I feel like people try to get things perfect. And they kind of stress about it. Their perfectionist tendencies come out when you’re working in these types of mediums, but then you see the little graininess on a wood type letter, and to me that’s what I end up liking about the piece the most.
Leslie: Yeah, I found that with printmaking. I’m very much not a perfectionist, though, and it was sort of a detriment too. You have to balance that out, right.
Kaitlin: Yeah, otherwise, things are covered in ink and aren’t registered. And that was me at first!
Leslie: A broader question. From your standpoint here as a print shop in St. Pete, what’s the art scene like? How has it changed? And if you can speak to the larger Tampa Bay area, please do since we [Tampa Review] are in Tampa.
Kaitlin: The community here has been great, in St. Pete, Gulfport, in Tampa, and Sarasota; we have students or clients that will come from pretty much anywhere in south and central Florida.
People are right now, I think, really conscious of where they’re spending their money. And they’re drawn to spending it in local businesses, or, like, working with other humans, and connecting with them in that way. And so, you know, I end up getting more people that want to work with me than I can even take on, and so I’m having to send them to other places or just say, I’m sorry, I can’t take that on, because I have my other full-time job outside of this, so I have limited time.
There’s no shortage of people that are finding out about us which is really cool. And Tampa specifically has been really welcoming to us. I think some of my favorite art shows and exhibitions have been in Tampa. We did one [an exhibition] at the Department of Contemporary Art in the Kress building that was like my favorite show ever. And we sold out of a lot of the different artists prints at that.
And so, I think it’s just really cool. You can do so much with the power of a collective and a community. And so what I really like about this space is yes, I could probably take a few custom jobs to be able to pay my rent here every month and not open up the space to other people, but that’s not fun. I can do big projects and do huge shows and collaborative zines and things when I involve other people, so I think the community here in this area is hungry for that opportunity to kind of like get inky and work together and do something DIY.
Leslie: Since you started, do you see it [Print St. Pete] growing? Do you see more and more, maybe say recent grads that want to use your equipment?
Kaitlin: Yeah, that’s really who I love to work with, the students and recent grads who no longer have access to all the equipment. I offer internships and trade opportunities so if they want to come help me, then they can get reduced or free studio time. I have a USF intern this summer, a graphic design student who I’m super excited about, who’ll be my first official USF student intern. If it goes well, I’m hoping to take on more in the future. Because I think there’s a really unique and cool opportunity for them to learn in a community print shop space versus a more traditional graphic design firm or something like that.
Leslie: Do you see a difference between what’s going on in St. Pete and in Tampa? I know they’re right next to each other, but from what I recognize from living here for a decade that it’s still pretty separate in people’s minds.
Kaitlin: Yeah, it is it’s separate. It’s interesting. Like I organized a zine fair in February, and there was one in Tampa the weekend before, which ended up being cool, because I had back-to-back zine fairs. But it was like, we could have worked together! We could have had one big one or like we could have, I don’t know… it seems like there is still a disconnect. That bridge really is hard for people sometimes.
Leslie: Yeah. A literal bridge.
Kaitlin: Yeah, the literal bridge! But I do know, and I’m sure it’s the same in Tampa, the rising costs of living and the housing crisis here is pushing a lot of artists. You know, a lot of friends and collaborators have moved. So really, it’s bad.
Leslie: For sure, yeah. So, we’re both librarians. I saw on the website, I think it was for Zine Fest, the quote, “What’s more punk rock than a public library?” I want you now to talk about libraries, pretty please. The importance of libraries and how it intersects with what you’re doing.
Kaitlin: I always loved libraries. Of course, I’ve always loved books and the printed word, and sharing stories, but I think libraries are this really amazing place because they’re open to anybody. It’s an even playing field, you don’t have to spend any money, everybody is welcome. I’m really drawn to those democratic ideas that the public library stands for.
I’m at SPC (St. Petersburg College), and I work with the students there, but we’re a joint use library so we’re also part of the St. Pete Public Library systems. We have a collegiate program there, so we have students that are 16-17 years old; we have all the non-traditional college students that SPC serves, you know, single parents, all that stuff. And then we have our community members. There’s a children’s story time; there’s people that are working remote, and they come to use our study rooms to get out of the house. It’s just such a cool environment because it’s not just students and it’s not just a public library, which I’ve worked in. I really like that. Students are exposed to double the resources really, because they have access to all the public library stuff. And then we have our public patrons and the community that come and then there’s [a] really cool thing that the college is putting on like Jazz in the Stacks, where there’s a live jazz band playing in the library.
And so I think libraries are this great resource that people don’t really know exist. They have this idea that we’re just books you know, and like, oh, maybe they’ve heard that now they can get ebooks online too. St. Pete library system does free museum passes to a lot of the museums in the area. And they have ukuleles you can check out, or telescopes. So I think there’s so much more that is going on, and it’s just a great place to meet other people and have little community events like the Zine Fest that I did there. I probably could have found a different location to do it, but I liked having it in the library because it brought people to a library that maybe wouldn’t have gotten there otherwise. And then they were like, oh, this is cool. Like, I would come back here, you know, when I need to get some work done. And so I think we got like, 30 or 40 new library cards that day from people that didn’t have one.
Leslie: And it’s nice to show people DIY publishing and that it’s completely doable for everyone. And how that intersects with like, the books, the “real” publishing they see on the shelves. People seem to think it’s inaccessible. I think school fucks a lot of people up so they never return to the book.
Kaitlin: Totally.
Leslie: And so now with what you’re doing, maybe they can return to the book.
Kaitlin: Totally. Yeah.
Yuly Restrepo: Could you expand on how you’re able to financially keep this place?
Kaitlin: It has been a labor of love. So in my early years, when I was starting it, I was just paying it out of my own pocket. And when Bridget was with me, you know, we just split everything. And now the rents and cost of everything has doubled and tripled, basically, since we started 10 years ago.
I started a Patreon during Covid. Prior to Covid, all of the bills and expenses were covered through workshops. So I was doing three to four workshops a month, and that covered the bills. And then Covid hit, and I of course couldn’t do any workshops. But we didn’t get a break on our rent. And so I started a little Patreon and mailed out little monthly print packs. That got us through the pandemic. I’m still doing the Patreon so that gives me $300 a month towards my bills. And then I have pretty much been able to pay the rest of the expenses by doing workshops and then some custom work for—I try to really only work with other artists, local businesses, nonprofits, things like that. I don’t like to do wedding invitations, really, or like any of those types of jobs just because I have such limited time that I really want to be intentional with the work that I’m making. And then other than that, I create my own work. So selling zines, prints, posters, and things like that has been able to keep it going.
When Bridget and I started this, our mission was in line with a nonprofit. I had a friend here earlier today, and we were talking about setting up a 501(c)(3) to protect the historical equipment and maybe to run the educational side through a nonprofit because I think there is a lot of funding out there that I could tap into that would ensure the safety of the equipment.
Yuly: Do you do any grants or anything like that?
Kaitlin: No, I but I really do want to; Creative Pinellas [a Pinellas County arts organization] was really the first grant that I’ve gotten. We’ve worked a little bit with NOMAD Art Bus [a roaming arts educational bus-studio] and some of the other nonprofits in the area like Keep St. Pete Lit [a literacy outreach organization]. I’m just always intimidated by grant writing even though I shouldn’t be. But I think that’s where I should tap into my community because I know that there’s other people out there that can do that for me and with me.
Leslie: The Patreon thing, I mean, that’s how everyone stays afloat.
Kaitlin: Yeah. My subscribers are like my friends, you know, other artists, other owners of local businesses, which I think is just so cool. It’s really like a community-supported effort. Whenever I can, I like to give back and offer free things and do little print pop ups.
Yuly: What do you see for the future of Print St. Pete?
Kaitlin: I really would love to focus more on collaborative publishing and publications. So doing like quarterly little zines. In the fall of 2023, I started a little meetup group called Collates. We’ve had Eckerd and USF students join us, people that have never done printmaking, and they were just interested to see what we’re up to. And so, I think there’s kind of this excitement with people and we could definitely do something, you know, tangible to put out in the community.
I would love to do more of that as well as focus on my own work. So having this time to do the grant, I shut everything off. I didn’t do workshops for the past six weeks; I didn’t take on any client work. And I was just able to make my own work, which hadn’t happened in like years and years. I really want to make sure that I’m still able to dedicate some time to that and try to put out like a publication or two of my own every year.
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