Target reached!
If we reach the stretch target, we can develop some of our plans sooner and invest t...
Save Spike Print Studio
Bristol, Bristol City, United Kingdom
Aim
Help keep our community together making prints. We’re asking for your help to raise funds to enable our print studio’s survival.
We’re asking for your help to raise money to enable our print studio’s survival. We want to invest in our studio, building a stronger and better facility to continue supporting our members and the wider print community in Bristol and beyond.
(all photographs by Jo Hounsome Photography)
Despite having to close our studio in the lockdowns, we survived, thanks to the amazing hard work of our staff, the kindness and understanding of our community and members, and supportive financial grants. But over the last two years, we’ve lost significant funding for the studio. Along with this, our rent and service charges have increased, as well as utilities and materials, and this has impacted our financial stability. We’ve taken a hard look at our situation and have come up with a credible plan to help us through. This is where your support will make a big difference.
How you can help
You can help by pledging towards one (or more) of our rewards (keep scrolling for images of rewards below). You can also donate to the studio without pledging for a reward. Thank you!
Our print members have generously donated time and work as rewards for this campaign and we’ve been humbled by their kindness and generosity so a HUGE thank you to them! We all want the studio to survive and are so grateful for your help.
About Us
Spike Print Studio is a non-profit charity, meaning that everything we earn goes straight back into the studio. No shareholders, no-one profiting personally.
Since it was founded in 1976, (previously Bristol Printmakers Workshop) SPS has been dedicated to supporting budding and professional printmakers. We provide specialised and affordable facilities for members to print, as well as offering courses and workshops. We have around 122 members and run a broad range of courses every year. Our studio is within an arts centre in an old tea factory! We’re lucky to have a calm and light-filled space overlooking the river for etching, relief, letterpress and Screenprinting. We love our studio and would very much like to remain here.
We are a small charity and everyone working within SPS goes the extra mile for the studio. We have seen the power of our community to pull through together in times of crises. Many of our members’ creative businesses rely on the studio facilities; artists making and selling work through shops, online stores, galleries and fairs. This is our print family.
What we offer
We offer excellent open access printmaking facilities for members, and our learning programme is inclusive and diverse.
We know that printmaking empowers people. We have a strong family of members who form a supportive community. We extend our love of printmaking into our outreach programmes where we hope that we can help people learn more about print, or just give them a break from whatever else they have going on in their lives. We’ve run creative print sessions with refugee groups, young homeless people and young carers.
Learning opportunities include our year-long portfolio courses, practical process workshops, artist talks and our annual Peter Reddick bursary for relief printing. Many of our tutors are also members, and are enthusiastic about sharing their knowledge and passion for print.
We want everyone to have the opportunity to take part, learn and experience the extraordinary world of print and see where it can take them!
What the money will go towards
We’ve got some exciting long term plans we’d like to make happen and the money we raise from the Crowdfunder will help kickstart these projects and grow our community further.
- Continue to maintain our excellent facilities
- Development of a residency programme in our studio
- Increase our mentoring opportunities
- Increase our membership
- Continuation of outreach programmes
- Increased staff hours- we are currently operating with a huge volunteer taskforce, while we get back on our feet. We are so grateful for the support of our members and community, but we need extra staff for support and direction. We have a dedicated team, but we’re stretched. We’d like to fund more opportunities for people to work with us.
- Website - to streamline and develop the website, booking system and online shop for our members.
- Marketing and promotion, to help advertise our courses, membership and projects, and to help our members gain exposure
Before you go
We’d like to say a huge thank you for reading this, and an advance thank you if you decide to pledge for one of our fabulous rewards….
Rewards
We’re printmakers (obvs!) so we’ll be offering lots of amazing prints from members - old and new - as well as some surprise rewards from friends and supporters of the studio. Thank you all!
Our campaign finishes on 2nd December and we have a volunteer team ready to pack and post - we’ll do our very best to get prints with you before Christmas! (mince pies and Quality Streets for all the packers!)
Rewards - Images of prints (most photographs by Jo Hounsome Photography). Paper for special fundraising editions kindly donated by John Purcell Paper
This project successfully funded on 30th November 2023