Flooded Houston Printshop
Donazione protetta
We are Sarah Welch and James Beard, a Houston artist couple who make our own zines, comix, prints, as well as doing commercial print, design, and illustration work for clients. Additionally, we both have part time work: James works as a screen printer and Sarah is a staff member at a local community college.
On Friday night, August 25th Hurricane Harvey pushed roughly 15 inches of water into our Houston home / printshop / art studio.
Our building is located in very close proximity to both Buffalo and White Oak Bayou, so we've seen reasonable street flooding before. The building was built in 1903 and housed dredging equipment. It's on a loading dock that is about 3 feet above street level. We never imagined we would see flooding inside the actual building.
We use the first floor of our unit as the Mystic Multiples print shop and live in the back/ upstairs loft. We were able to quickly move small things upstairs, but couldn't save everything. The motor on James' 1920s Kluge letterpress is gone. A huge amount of paper for print jobs and some tools are gone, some artwork, books, records, carpet tile in the back is wrecked, wood furniture is wrecked, we are unsure about the status on our stove and fridge.
The biggest hardship from this will be our displacement / inability to use our workspace. We don't yet know how long we will be out of home and print shop. We both rely in part on income we earn from our respective creative businesses so this is definitely a blow.
Unfortunatley, like a lot of people, our renter's insurance does not cover water damage of any kind. Funding will be used to help us replace materials we need to operate the shop, make repairs, pay to temporarily relocate items that must be stored off site, and help us get by while we can't use the space.
We're very lucky we've been safe throughout the whole ordeal and we're lucky it wasn't worse. Anything helps.
Thank you & love y'all.
-Sarah & James
On Friday night, August 25th Hurricane Harvey pushed roughly 15 inches of water into our Houston home / printshop / art studio.
Our building is located in very close proximity to both Buffalo and White Oak Bayou, so we've seen reasonable street flooding before. The building was built in 1903 and housed dredging equipment. It's on a loading dock that is about 3 feet above street level. We never imagined we would see flooding inside the actual building.
We use the first floor of our unit as the Mystic Multiples print shop and live in the back/ upstairs loft. We were able to quickly move small things upstairs, but couldn't save everything. The motor on James' 1920s Kluge letterpress is gone. A huge amount of paper for print jobs and some tools are gone, some artwork, books, records, carpet tile in the back is wrecked, wood furniture is wrecked, we are unsure about the status on our stove and fridge.
The biggest hardship from this will be our displacement / inability to use our workspace. We don't yet know how long we will be out of home and print shop. We both rely in part on income we earn from our respective creative businesses so this is definitely a blow.
Unfortunatley, like a lot of people, our renter's insurance does not cover water damage of any kind. Funding will be used to help us replace materials we need to operate the shop, make repairs, pay to temporarily relocate items that must be stored off site, and help us get by while we can't use the space.
We're very lucky we've been safe throughout the whole ordeal and we're lucky it wasn't worse. Anything helps.
Thank you & love y'all.
-Sarah & James
Organizzatore
Sarah Welch
Organizzatore
Houston, TX
