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Ocelot Print Shop at 3535 Cass Ave. in Midtown celebrated its grand opening this past weekend. Similar to a makerspace in that paid memberships fund the purchase of equipment and shared space, but also operating as a for-profit screen printing business and design studio, Ocelot is a new kind of community-minded business in Detroit.
Co-founders Kinga Osz-Kemp, Bayard Kurth, and Stacey Malasky envision this as both a business and something of an experiment. It is a collectively-owned business. Interested parties can purchase memberships by the month or even by the hour, which grants them access to all of the shop's equipment, including an automatic screen printing press, a dye cutter, a guillotine cutter, and eventually an "ink bank" that members can contribute money towards and share collectively for more elaborate color print jobs.
"The idea is to share the resources and run it so it's not a nonprofit," says Osz-Kemp. "We decided to further explore the meeting place of arts and commerce." Ocelot will offer design services and commercial screen printing. They plan to offer screen printing classes and to eventually embrace other kinds of printing, including letterpress. In the future they would like to establish a local printer's guild and partner with Detroit youth organizations to teach students print-making and offer classes to people who couldn't otherwise afford them, turning their profit to also support the community.
They welcome artists of all types, not just screen printers. They want to foster relationships with other Detroit artists and build a network that will facilitate design and print job opportunities – again, resource sharing, just in a different kind of way.
This collective makerspace model is, Osz-Kemp says, "indicative of the times we're in: people banding together. The 'I can do it myself' mentality is no longer interesting or sustainable."
The shop is open for the public to browse Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturdays. Hours are extended for members' use.
Source: Kinga Osz-Kemp, co-founder of Ocelot Print Shop
Writer: Nicole Rupersburg
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