MANILA, Philippines – Walk into any print shop in the Philippines and take a look around you. Here’s what you’ll see: a hard-to-miss menu of all the services you can avail, a variety of big machines that look complicated to operate, and of course, samples of everything the shop has ever printed.
You’ll come across t-shirts, mugs, and tarpaulins plastered with sample designs. And of course, there will also be flyers, posters, coupons, campaign materials, and basically any printed matter that’s meant to serve a specific purpose — all printed through risograph (riso). All these seem to be all about functionality, so making art wouldn’t really be your first thought when you see a risograph machine.
However, riso is shaping up to be a desirable art medium — thanks to the vibrant hues, patterns, and textures it can produce. And there’s a New York-based minipress and artist collective that’s looking to introduce it to more Filipino female and LGBTQ+ artists: Kittybug Press.
“The riso machine is a new trendy medium for artwork as it is a cross between the digital and the analog. It is a printing machine that makes stencils from the images sent by the computer and it automatically pushes different kinds of inks into the stencil layer by layer to create a beautiful and vivid image. It’s unique to digital printing as every image is unique with different textures and imperfections,” Kittybug Press explained.
How it all started
Kittybug Press all started with a tweet. Its founder, Anna Marcelo, was learning how to print through riso at the time. They posted an open call on X (formerly Twitter) looking for artists who wanted to get their work printed, but have never been able to due to financial constraints.
“In NYC, it is extremely common to find riso books or zines but in the Philippines, it could cost an entry-level artist half of their monthly salary to create a whole edition run. This isn’t anyone’s fault as riso materials for artwork can be extremely expensive and there are limited official riso suppliers for it in the Philippines. Since I had access to this medium easily, I thought that I could offer my time and effort to print my peers’ work and connect with more Filipino female and queer artists,” Anna shared.
More people began to take Anna up on their offer, and from there, Kittybug Press was born. It had really started out with pure passion and love for the community — with many people volunteering to help out with its operations and buying the riso art Kittybug Press was printing. From there, Anna was joined by their best friend and fellow artist, Rice Gallardo, who now handles the press’ merch and finances, and from time to time, helps out with printing, too.
Since then, Kittybug Press’ free riso project is pretty much now in full swing, with many Filipino female and queer artists’ work taking new shape through riso. Having your work printed through riso adds an almost entirely new feel to it — with much of its new character coming from the layers’ pops of color, and the gritty quality it gives to the entire art piece.
The minipress also has what they call “The Kittybug Pitch,” where artists can send in longer-form projects like zines, art books, or print series for riso printing.
“Once finished and everything is good to go, we split our editions 50/50 with the artist and send their copies to them! We keep our editions for archiving and sell some pieces at art market events to offset production costs,” Kittybug Press told Rappler.
The best part? After Kittybug Press prints these out, it doesn’t end with them. Unlike traditional publishing, Kittybug Press doesn’t claim ownership over the art they print through riso. Instead, they actually encourage the artists they collaborate with to try their hand at self-publishing.
“As a press, we believe that creators should own their ideas and the art they’ve made. Because of this, we do not own any of the art or zines we publish, so the artist can reprint the work themselves! We are definitely influenced by publishers in the US like Silver Sprocket who have the same practice…. Kittybug’s mission is really to keep the independent publishing practice alive so that’s why we do this,” Kittybug Press said.
Rice and Anna have even brought along these Filipino artists’ work to different conventions in the US, like the Jersey Art Book Fair, not just giving them the opportunity to see their art in a new medium, but also taking their work to the global stage.
For the community
As Filipino artists based in New York City, Anna and Rice have been given a new sense of connection to their homeland in running Kittybug Press.
“I get to connect with different Filipino artists while I’m in NYC. I’m extremely grateful artists trust me to print their work and that I get to make something from their pieces! It always feels amazing to collaborate with new or old friends as it gives me a sense of community even from the other side of the world despite all the challenges we have systematically,” said Anna.
“Community and connection is definitely a highlight for me, too, especially after I stopped posting my work online regularly. I’m having a lot of fun promoting Kittybug and slowly becoming more active in online Filipino art spaces again. In a way, it’s comforting after living abroad and feeling disconnected for so long. Getting to make and sell work for the press is scratching an itch that’s been left unattended for a while,” Rice added.
This is something we saw during the first Kittybug Pop-Up and Art Market in Quezon City, where the Filipino art community convened for a full day of workshops, merch, and music. There was a whole table of zines and books for attendees to browse through, workshops all about learning the basics of riso, and artist booths where people could purchase merch from the exhibitors.
It was special not just for the hundreds of attendees, but also for Anna and Rice.
“Overall, we felt an extreme appreciation in seeing everyone who believed in us in one event. We’re usually connecting with people through email or social media when we are in NYC, so it’s hard for us to understand how many people in the Filipino creative community care about what we do! Seeing more than 300 people come in to celebrate women and LGBT+ artists, independent publishing, and riso was an overwhelmingly beautiful experience,” they said.
After the event, Kittybug Press hopes to continue their mission to organize projects in support of the Filipino female and LGBTQ+ creative communities through fundraisers whose proceeds go to organizations that champion those groups, such as Transmasc PH.
“With Kittybug Press, we hope we continue these progressive practices and make a bigger space to highlight female and LGBTQ+ artists through independent publishing in the Philippines and in the Filipino diaspora. We also hope that through our free riso project, we can create interest and investment in it from more artists as an art medium where it becomes more commonplace and accessible,” Kittybug Press said. – Rappler.com