Flash Flood Print Studios | Artist Print Series

The Artist Print Series (APS) is a passion project of Flash Flood Print Studios, conceived as a way for their team to work on collaborative and artful projects. Flash Flood is a commercial screen printing shop offering custom apparel and flatstock, as well as embroidery, promotional product, and fulfilment and shipping. Thus, the majority of their projects are very straightforward, “logo on a shirt” type of jobs. “Those jobs are great because they keep the shop going, but the team and I were definitely feeling the creative itch, so we developed APS,” says May, the studio’s founder.

The goal of APS is three-fold; to show the breadth of the screen printing medium, to provide artists a risk-free way to create a print edition, and to provide a lower cost entry point for new art collectors. Selected artists work with Flash Flood’s team to choose a piece for their print edition. They then print the edition, at no cost to the artist, send it to them for signing and editioning, and create a listing for the public to purchase online. Profits from each sale are then split 50/50 with the artist.

APS has been going since 2019, and by the end of 2024, they’ll have produced 37 print editions with 30 unique artists. Typically, the team work with 6 artists in a calendar year, releasing one print a month. May tells us; “When we first started, we didn’t have an established process for how this would work, so we stuck with local artists that were friends (or friends of friends) for both the proximity and the honest feedback they’d be able to provide on collaborating.” Back in 2021and 2022 they held an open call for artists; in 2023 they invited back artists who had sold out editions to celebrate their 5th year; and this year all of their APS releases feature their team and their artwork.

May describes; “Most of my favourite prints have been the more experimental ones, where we’ve had to include unusual materials or other techniques to pull off specific ideas.” For example, in 2022 Flash Flood worked with Morgan Hale who creates weavings that include dimensional plaster elements. They mixed plaster into a layer of the print to try to give it the same textural feel as her original pieces. Another one of May’s favourites was the first edition they printed with Eric Sall. Eric creates large scale oil paintings and incorporates a lot of big pulls of impasto paint. Wanting that same sense of play to reflect in his print, they screen printed the background of his painting and invited him to come in and monoprint the rest of the image.

The process for each release varies depending on the artist and their work, but generally begins with a meeting with the artist (either in person, on zoom, or through email) where ideas are exchanged and May and her team offer up process or materials suggestions to help that idea become a reality. Once settled on a direction, the artist provides the studio with the final artwork, and from there, Flash Flood create custom mixed inks and a digital proof ready for the the artist’s edits or approval. Once approved, the piece goes into production, and the team prints films, burns screens, and screen prints the edition. The edition is curated, and stamped with Flash Flood’s studio seal, and then prepared for the artist to sign (whether in person or mailed). The studio handles all aspects of the sale online through their store, and the profits are split with the artist 50/50.

So what’s in store next for APS? “We’re still determining what direction we’ll take these coming years, but so far, we’ve got an Artist Print Series exhibition planned for Summer 2025 that will include as many previous artists that are able to participate.”

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