Mission & Vision
The IPRC's Mission is to facilitate creative expression, identity and community by providing individual access to tools and resources for creating independently published media and artwork.
Since its inception in 1998 the center has been dedicated to encouraging the growth of a visual and literary publishing community by offering a space to gather and exchange information and ideas, as well as to produce work. The IPRC is an Oregon 501(c)(3) Nonprofit organization.
Watch a Guided Video Tour of the IPRC
We’ve empowered thousands of people to create and publish their own artwork, writing, zines, books, websites, comics and graphic novels.
In our fourteen years of operation, we’ve provided artistic services to upwards of 27,000 Oregonians through membership, use of the Center, workshops and outreach programs. By gathering such diverse people under one roof, the IPRC nourishes an expansive and productive community. In fact the IPRC is at the very heart of Portland’s vibrant “do-it-yourself” (DIY) artistic and literary communities – it’s a creative home for many local artists, and an incubator for the independent creative spirit that makes Portland unique.
We’ve helped community members find their artistic voices – especially disenfranchised youth (including GLBT, minority, at-risk, and homeless youth) whose lifestyles and experiences tend to be marginalized in the major media.
We’ve helped countless individuals to discover themselves through art, and to reach and inspire others in the community by publishing and sharing their work.
We're always looking for volunteers to help our outreach programs. Are you interested in getting involved?
Volunteer with the IPRC Outreach Program!Theo Ellsworth
Graphic Novelist and author of Capacity
“The IPRC has been a huge part of what makes living in Portland so awesome!”
Amanda Huckins
Writer and Letterrpress Printer
“The IPRC is kind of like a fairy godmother, only instead of giving one girl a temporary pumpkin carriage and a pair of dangerous shoes, the center gives a whole community of creatives the means to make, print, publish and thrive. That’s a much better use of magic, if you ask me.”
Lance Linder
IPRC member
"It’s been a little more than a year since I stumbled on your magical rooms and they have allowed me to share my work with others, the ultimate goal of the creative process. I finished five books this past year and have more in the works, my kids even want me to start doing cards so who knows. I couldn’t have done it without you. Whenever anyone asks, I tell them ‘Everything I know, I learned at the IPRC."
Jon Raymond
Oregon Book Award-winning author of Livability
“It’s possible that the IPRC is the future of both writing and publishing—a place committed to the study of prose and poetry, but also the craft of layout, printing, and binding as well. To see the books and zines produced at the IPRC on a daily basis is to witness that the culture of print—i.e. the culture of thought itself—might not be dying after all. Hell, at the IPRC it’s even thriving.”
