Hello! I’m Caroline Paquita, a visual artist, musician, bee-keeper, and in general, a maker and “sharer” of things. I live and work out of Port Quincy, in Brooklyn, NY. After many years of self-publishing, I’m officially beginning a small queer, feminist, total-art-freaker publishing house called PEGACORN PRESS. Through your help, I’m hoping to raise funds for new and better equipment to make this easier and all the more possible.

This tiny and unique publishing house will specialize in small-run art books, comics and zines. In the DIY vein of things, I’ve been creating thousands of copies of work, on an extremely “scrappy” budget for a long time now. I’m beginning this campaign to gather funds to buy necessary supplies (a better paper-cutter, folding machine, heavy duty stapler, binding equipment) and WHOA! possibly even a newer and better operating duplicator. Besides the printing, everything I do- from collating, stapling, folding and hole punching- is done by hand. This is a very laborious and time consuming labor of love that can be hard on the body, but I’m hoping to remedy that a bit with some helpful supplies.
For over a decade, I’ve made zines and have regularly had my work printed and shown in galleries. PEGACORN PRESS has been a long time in the making and is informed directly from the DIY punk, queer, feminist, art world that I live and engage in. In 2009, I bought my first Risograph duplicator, which is a machine that looks very much like a copier, but technologically speaking, is one step up from a mimeograph. A high speed machine, a Risograph can print between 60-120 prints per minute. Essentially, the process is similar to screen-printing, except done automatically and all within a relatively small machine.
Different colored inks can be used in dedicated color drums, but due to the fact that my machine is older, quality issues usually start to come up after two colors are printed. At this point, it’s easier to use my machine for strictly one color jobs, though the option to use black, red, burgandy, purple or blue ink is there. Ideally, I wouldn’t have problems, but considering that this beast of a machine is from the early 1980’s (and has made over 2.5 million copies), it’s hard to complain since it’s made it this far and is still working. While I’ll keep working this Risograph til it breaks down for good (said with fingers crossed since that’s all I have to work with right now…), a better working machine would definitely be helpful and would be the “big” purchase of this fundraising. Even if the goal isn’t met, donations will definitely help obtain any, or even all, of the smaller items needed to put everything together without breaking my back any more than it already is!