Evolution Of A Movement
The Do-It Yourself movement has its roots in punk rock of the 1970s where bands would record, produce and distribute albums on their own without the help from the existing corporate structure. That mentality has blossomed over the past forty years to include everything from growing your own food to making your own clothes to fixing your own car.
Some area artists are embracing what seems to be a natural out-growth of the DIY movement: the Do-It-Together movement.
The Bloomington Print Collective is a non-profit community print shop that aims to educate and encourage all people interested in printmaking.
Make Your Own T-Shirts
Collective member Danielle Urschel is standing by the group's screen printing press. As part of a free workshop open to the public, she's helping visitors screen print their own t-shirts.
Urschel feels like she's part of a movement: the general interest in DIY culture and a specific a resurgence in hand crafts like screen printing. "I'm 45 and a lot of things that we just naturally did, people are rediscovering."
Pooling Resources
The group is made up of artists like Urschel who, once they finished their studies at Indiana University, found themselves without a studio and without any equipment. Thanks to donations from some collective members and the general public, the space is filled with all the equipment needed for screen printing.
The dryer for the t-shirts was donated by another member of the collective, Lucas Woodaman. He says members all chip in to pay the cost of renting the space because it's incredibly expensive to get studio space on your own.
"It makes more sense to have a collective come together because you can pool finances, you can pool resources toward space, and then you have something that is available for use on a regular basis."