SPF in the News
Pure Honey Magazine
SPF’24
At the turn of the century, a hive mind of experts infused with cultural edification determined that the Gutenberg Press may be humanity’s greatest invention. This straightforward machine with movable type, born circa 1440, enabled the mass production of previously hand-written materials and the spread of knowledge and ideas at a geometric scale. With access to an abundance of books and literature, the populace became more literate, seizing the means of instruction from prelates and kings, standardizing language, grammar, and spelling in a march towards the breakthroughs of the Renaissance.
Nothing humans have ever produced has been so integral to our growth as a species. So, there’s a rich irony to reading think pieces declaring print dead. However, when talking heads proclaim a technological demise, they are simply missing the rich underground of artisans who have adopted “antiquated” technology to achieve something more significant than publishing at the speed of 5G.
The SPF Small Press Fair has become a robust part of South Florida’s cultural landscape since its inception in 2016 by Sarah Michelle Rupert and Ingrid Schindall. The home base was nestled initially in Fort Lauderdale’s FATVillage Arts District and in 2022 relocated to MAD Arts in Dania Beach…
- Tim Moffatt, Pure Honey Magazine, November 2024
Miami New Times
Small Press Fair Challenges Idea That Print Is Dead
For eight years now, SPF has provided South Florida with a singular forum where small regional presses, independent publishers, artists, designers, zinesters, and "the similarly afflicted" can converge to celebrate all forms of printed matter and swap ideas with wild abandon.
"All we really want to do is get everyone in the same room," Rupert says. "See what happens when a graphic designer is sitting next to an illustrator, or a writer is sitting next to an artist specializing in intaglio, or a high schooler making patches is across from a retiree making multi-block woodcuts. I have loved seeing the artwork and friendships that have resulted from artists being near each other at SPF.""Our sunny subculture of creators is kind of like the paradoxical paradise that is South Florida," she adds. "It's tough to define, but you feel it when you're here, and it feels like nowhere else. And while the heart of SPF is South Florida artists, the event has increasingly attracted folks from outside the area. This year, we have exhibitors from Brooklyn, Chicago, North Carolina, and Texas, along with our fellow Floridians from the north: Gainesville, Tampa, Orlando, and Jacksonville."
- Sean Levisman, Miami New Times, November 8, 2023
Pure Honey Magazine
SPF’23 Small Press Fair ‘23
”Print. Book. Zine.” The Small Press Fair, with its name and laconic tagline, condenses a two-day event and an underlying philosophy into a snappy statement of purpose. The fair is a response to rising screen time. It’s a safe space for printmakers and their tactile wares. It’s a tribute to the nearly 600-year history of the printing press.
“As the digital age thoroughly permeates modern life — communication, entertainment, and culture — perhaps to the point of over-saturation, traditional printed matter has been pushed to the periphery,” SPF co-founder Ingrid Schindall tells PureHoney. “In the outer fringes, it’s there where SPF brings light to the tenacious efforts of artists, designers, writers, and creatives who are keeping the craft alive.”
Born when gallerist Sarah Michelle Rupert of Girls’ Club approached fine art printmaker and book artist Schindall of IS Projects and Nocturnal Press about a collaboration, the first SPF was a one-day gathering in 2016 at FATVillage in Fort Lauderdale. The eighth edition will feature more than 60 exhibitors — Schindall confirmed another one mid-interview — and doesn’t stop at masterpieces on paper: Ceramics, temporary tattoos, buttons and shirts abound.
- Amanda Moore, Pure Honey Magazine, October 22nd, 2023
Pure Honey Magazine
SPF’22 Small Press Fair ‘22
With newspapers across the country ditching daily editions as they struggle to stay afloat, it is in some ways a terrible time for print. But not at the Small Press Fair, an annual expo in South Florida that celebrates ink-on-paper creativity in its many maker forms and just keeps on flourishing.
- Olivia Feldman, Pure Honey Magazine, October 2022
The Sun Sentinel
Paper News
Those subversive kids at Small Press Fair Fort Lauderdale are at it again, tempting you with the idea that all those words and pictures you create on your device might look prettier and feel more substantive when presented on paper. Paper! Heresy. An afternoon of local and regional artists, designers, printers, publishers, bookmakers, zine-sters and live printmaking, Spf'19 takes place noon-6 p.m. Saturday at Projects Gallery in FAT Village (521 NW First Ave., Fort Lauderdale). Visit SPF-FTL.com.
- Ben Crandell, Sun-Sentinel.com, Nov 7, 2019
“Leave the iPads at home, folks. Bookbinders, postermakers and a giant printmaking steamroller will celebrate South Florida’s off-the-grid ingenuity during this weekend’s Small Press Fair in Fort Lauderdale.
SPF ‘18: Small Press Fair Fort Lauderdale returns takes place Nov. 10 at the Projects warehouse in FAT Village. Co-founders Sarah Michelle Rupert (of Fort Lauderdale gallery Girls’ Club Collection) and Ingrid Schindall of IS Projects, a Fort Lauderdale printmaking studio, created the expo in 2016 as a defiant championing of small presses, book arts, postermaking and other literature in the digital age.”
Pure Honey Magazine
Small Press Fair 2018
“There is poetic justice in the marketplace writing obituaries for media such as print: left for dead by the masses and corporate interests, they become the province of creators who step in and take over the means of production.
The Small Press Fair was founded in that spirit of restoration: to support artists and makers and anyone else into small-batch printing, ’zines, comics, posters, books and the like. With the third annual installment, SPF’18, coming up, the investment in a local expo of tactile, non-digital artistry and craft is paying off. ”
““How do we cultivate the local art scene?” Ingrid Schindall says. It’s a question she and Sarah Michelle Rupert, co-founders of Small Press Fair Fort Lauderdale, ask themselves constantly. When Schindall, the founder of the printmaking and book arts studio IS Projects, opened her FATVillage space four years ago, the artist found herself immersed in a counterculture filled with street artists and independent craftsmen. Despite the surrounding art, she felt something was missing—so a subculture to the counterculture emerged, with Schindall leading the pack.
“To me, a well-rounded community is one that has a strong print community,” she says. “And the Small Press Fair is here to marry craft and concept.”
Schindall partnered with Rupert, the director of collections at Girls’ Club, to debut the first Small Press Fair in 2016, a showcase of print creations by independent artists, designers, bookmakers, publishers, poets and the like.”
Pure Honey Magazine
October/November 2017
Culture Designers
November 14, 2017
ArtsCalendar.com
December 2016
New Times
November 2016
Pure Honey Magazine
October/November 2016
Tropic Magazine
October 2016