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such a large set.

This group eventually dwindled down, and
what was left joined up with the letterpress from
Woodward's and others, such as Seccafien, to form
WePress as it is today.

“Somehow, | don’t know how | ended up being
one of the last people standing,” said Uyehara
Hoffman.

Looning to the future

With WePress’s studio not being big enough to house
the Chinese type from He Sun Hing, and with a rather
large letterpress sitting in the middle of the entrance,
space is tight at the studio. Uyehara Hoffman hopes
that WePress will find itself a larger studio someday
soon, somewhere more accessible and visible for
Vancouver's artists to gather.

“We don’t have the room now, but we'd love to
have a space that could be open for whenever, where
people could just drop in and hang out. But right now
we don’t have the resources to do that,” she said.

However, due to the high rent in Vancouver
(for even a small space) and WePress’s emphasis on
being available to those of lower incomes, they are
struggling to make rent and to keep the space open
for those who would be interested in using it.

“We're kind of struggling along, but we’re coming
really close to our drop off point,” Uyehara Hoffman
said. Up until now WePress has existed primarily off of
grants from the city, but they are not able to apply for
more until the spring.

WePress’s volunteers have even been giving
to the organization to keep it running, and they sell
memberships, cards, and 3-D printed products.

“A lot of us are stretched thin,” said Seceafien,

 

 

 

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“but we are super passionate about what we're
doing here, and we just want it to become something
bigger, so we just keep giving until we become self-
sustaining.”

WePress has recently started a GoFundMe
campaign* in the hopes that donations will help them
make it through the winter.

Merging the other with the new

As WePress has both a 3-D printer and a letterpress,
they have been experimenting in creating printing
plates with the former to be used with the latter, a

practice that Seccafien said is cutting edge technology.

“There's only a couple other studios in the world
werking on this, and everybody is doing it in different
ways.”

“A lot of the other studios that are working on
this kind of technology are working with more graphic
elements and less photographic,” she said. “We're
really focused on the photograph.”

Seccafien explained that one of the other co-
founders at WePress, Nina Yafiez, has been working on
software that allows for a JPEG to be uploaded into
the 3-D printer.

“It comes out as a 3D plate, and then you can
print it on the press, which is WePress developed
software, which is really exciting,” Seccafien said.
“We have this small little studio that only a small
community knows about, and we’re doing something
that universities aren't doing.”

WePress also offers workshops on using the 3-D
printer, and have made all sorts of things with it, from
a whistle to a Yoda figurine. Uyehara Hoffman said
that the 3-D printing workshop is among their most
popular, though she hopes that one day soon they will

Photos by Justin Siu

 

be able to offer workshops on the industrial sewing
machine that they have, as well.

“We don’t know how to use it yet, and we’re
scared to use it without someone training us—
someone will be training us, but she doesn’t have time
yet,” she said.

A collective and a community

Seccafien noted that WePress is unique in how they
operate, with each core member having their own
projects, so that many things may be going on at
WePress at any given time.

“We don’t always all know what each other is
doing because we're so busy, and | think that’s kind of
great because we kind of trust each other to run our
own projects,” she said.

The diversity in the members is also a plus for
Seccafien, as it creates an interesting collective that
offers many different viewpoints.

“I'm the youngest member, and then there’s
people in every age range who are involved as core
volunteers who are operating the organization,” she
said. “We're bringing together all these different
communities that we belong to because, not just that
we're different ages, but we're from different worlds
completely.”

Seccafien talked about WePress while working
the letterpress, rolling ink onto the type, inserting a
card, and rolling the press over top. She was making
“Get Well Soon!” cards in blue ink after Ly and her
bookbinding werkshop had packed up for the day.

“We're bringing together these communities
and creating this hub for creative social justice, and
technology, and learning,” she had said.

“| just think there’s nothing else like it in the city.”

*Donate to WePress at www.gofundme.com/fundraiser-for-wepress-2u/7rb37