Fund a Communal Risograph Printer for Activism & Mutual Aid

Who?

Rubble Art Collective is a radical art collective, creator space and used art supply store located on Arapaho, Cheyenne and Ute territories (aka Fort Collins, Colorado). We are made up of radical, crafty people wanting to make art with other radical, crafty people in a collectively-run maker space. We are imperfect people working every day to live our values in a society that is increasingly hostile towards those values—we strive to be earth-centered, anti-racist, anti-Zionist, anti-capitalist, and anti-patriarchal. We focus on building creative community and making socially engaged art. We believe in disability justice and in creating art that honors cultural & ancestral expression.

What?

We are fundraising for a Risograph printer, which is a high density printer focused on producing large quantities of printed material. The Risograph Machine, in many ways, is a mix between a screen printer and inkjet printer. Learn more at HERE.

The ink used for Riso is an environmentally friendly alternative made with soy based ink. A stencil is made for each print and at high RPM’s, it stamps and spits out each page in single color. The colors can be mixed as the page is stamped with overlapping prints with each re-pass through the paper. This leads to a unique and artsy design, which can be produced at high quantities.

Why?

Given our values as an activist focused community space, we are seeking for long term cost effective alternatives to create and distribute massive amounts of prints. These prints would include various community made zines, stickers, education material, posters, and flyers. We want to provide the community with a unique form of artistic expression and expand on our outreach to other artists via digital and print mediums. Acquiring a high density printer would allow us to create an immense amount of socially relevant literature to communities across Colorado. Doing so may allow us to build connections with other art and activist communities across various counties and embolden our community to engage in further artistic and activist expression. Our priority for this printer is community access, meaning we want the community to be able to use it for free/donation-based.

Budget breakdown (start up costs)

Machine — SF5130 (single color): $5000

Masters : $43 ($1 each) per month

Laptop:$300

Warranty costs/contract:$384 ($32 month x 12) = 10,000 pages

Ink cartridges (5-6 colors, each @ 1000ml) - 3000 prints per color: $400 ($17 Per Black / $77 per color)

Laminating machine: $100

Cricut: $300

Paper (10K sheets of 8.5x11): $90 per month

Vinyl for laminating stickers (150 sheets of 8.5x11): $80

Drum x2: $1814 (906.10 each)

Total=======================$8,511