Prvncl Profile - Print Club Ltd.
Print Club Ltd. was founded in 2013 by Sydney-born artist Elizabeth Corkery. She and partner Graham McDougal Co-direct Print Club from their base Northern California. The vision for Print Club is to offer conceptually rich, gallery-quality works on paper that are priced to be a starting point for new collectors and design lovers.
Liz in one of Print Club’s two studios in Sacramento, CA. Photo by Jacki Potorke.
What inspired you to start Print Club Ltd?
I started Print Club Ltd. (originally Print Club Boston) back in 2013 when I had just finished my MFA and we had moved from Ithaca, NY to Boston. During my graduate studies, my personal work had really evolved into more research-heavy, large-scale installations that took a lot of time to conceive of and put together. I found myself missing the more consistent practice of making prints and decided it would be a nice balance to have a commercial print business alongside my own personal studio work.
What values drive you in your day to day business?
The whole business operation of Print Club is very artist-first. Given that I am myself a working artist, I fully understand what makes a collaborative project appealing to another artist and we always work to put their ideas and inquiries at the forefront. I’m interested in how working on a print edition with Print Club can actually enrich the practice or process for the artist, not just viewing them as just a value-add for us or merely a partnership we can leverage. I’m also driven by the fact that we’re making really high-quality, limited edition, collectible work that if taken care of, can be enjoyed by generations to come. There isn’t any disposability or fad-driven decision making to anything we do.
How did you decide on a visual direction for the brand?
The visual direction for the brand is driven by our vision to offer elevated, gallery-quality works that aren’t presented in a way that is overly intimidating. The pieces are priced to be a starting point for new collectors and design lovers and the ease of direct online purchasing rather than the whole inquiry process that is involved with acquiring pieces from galleries helps with that mission I think. I didn’t want to go too playful or whimsical with the branding since these are often really sophisticated pieces and we take the process of working with our artist very seriously, but there is an approachability to the branding that I think is important given who we’re looking to connect with.
How do you see your personal lifestyle reflected in the brand you've built?
One of the things I’ve loved most about running Print Club is how we’ve been able to use the profile we’ve built as a brand as a nice jumping off point to reach out to basically strangers and connect in real life for a visit to their printshop or studio. Whenever we travel overseas I always line up visit to shops that we can then share on our blog. For instance pre-pandemic we had a trip to Copenhagen and visited the renowned lithography studio Edition Copenhagen as well as a smaller intaglio printshop, Printer's Proof where we met the two directors and chatted at length about their backgrounds, what they’re working on and how they run their shops. We love travel and meeting other artists and having Print Club as the reason to forge these connections has been a really special aspect of running the business.
Printing Shape 7, one of the original nine screenprints we worked on with artist Alyson Fox.We have since produced an additional set of six larger prints with Alyson and plan to do more!
Still Life I, one of two prints we produced in collaboration with Uruguayan artist Antonio Carrau.
In-progress shots as we printed our collaborative edition with New York-based artist Amie Cunat. The braided rug design was inspired by her time researching Shaker craft objects.
A group of eight from the nine Shapes screenprints we produced with Alyson Fox installed in the home of a private client in Los Angeles.
How do you balance work and rest?
I wouldn’t claim to have found the secret to the perfect work/rest balance but I have recently been paying closer attention to what times of the month I have more energy and creative drive and using those periods to my benefit. Conversely when I know that hormonally I’m in the midst of a period where I need to ease up on work a bit, I can more easily accept that there are bigger forces influencing my energy and it’s not just me "being lazy”. I’ve also been a very consistent eight-hour sleeper my whole life and I think that might be a bit of a super power; when I’m properly rested at night I can get through really physical days in the studio.
Elizabeth is based in Sacramento, CA and runs Print Club Ltd. with her Co-Director and husband Graham McDougal.