The relationship between apparel decorators and the communities they serve has long been a close one, and nowhere is this more evident than in the efforts of the Ink Kitchen’s Rick Roth and Pam Ikegami.
Brian Potash, of Philadelphia’s Devilfish Ink, with one of his Lucy the Elephant posters. Photo courtesy of Ink Kitchen
In recent years, in addition to the Shop Talk panel discussions the Ink Kitchen runs as part of each Impressions Expo, the organization has raised tens of thousands of dollars to help a number of not-for-profits in the cities where each expo takes place. Recipients have included organizations involved in protecting the environment and helping various at-risk populations, including the homeless.
Central to these efforts have been a series of live poster screen-printing activations taking place on the Impressions Expo show floor, with the resulting posters then being made available to attendees for a donation. The first of these came in 2020, with veteran printer and Squeegeeville founder Andy MacDougall working the Impressions Expo show in Long Beach, California. After that came Brian Potash, of Philadelphia’s Devilfish Ink, doing the printing in 2021 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The posters themselves were designed by Aaron Draplin to benefit the Surfrider Foundation, which works to help preserve the world’s oceans.
In 2022, Potash kept things going printing posters at both the Atlantic City show and at Impressions Expo Fort Worth. The Atlantic City poster featured a rendering of and raised funds for the restoration of Lucy the Elephant, a historic piece of building-sized statuary in nearby Margate City. Posters printed at the Fort Worth expo raised funds for the job-placement not-for-profit UpSpire.
Since then, Potash and MacDougall have continued creating their custom-designed and printed posters at each show. In 2023, for example, MacDougall printed a poster featuring the cruise ship Queen Mary designed by Texas-based artist Alyx Spurrier to benefit the local Care Closet LBC foundation for the homeless, while Potash printed a second Lucy the Elephant poster with the money raised going to Adelaide’s Place.
Alyx Spurrier’s iconic long horn cattle design for Impressions Expo Fort Worth. Image courtesy of Ink Kitchen
According to Ikegami, Potash also “rescued us in Fort Worth when Andy caught covid and couldn’t come to the show, so Brian came last minute and printed the Fort Worth longhorn steer poster.” The Spurrier-designed poster that year was a truly iconic one, featuring a rendering of one of the region’s legendary longhorn cattle.
More recently, in 2024 Andy printed a “nighttime” version of the same Queen Mary poster printed the year before in Long Beach, and Potash printed a diving horse poster in Atlantic City (another Spurrier design), with proceeds again going to Adelaide’s Place. After that came a Spurrier-designed armadillo poster for Impressions Expo Fort Worth.
All good fun in addition to constituting an integral part of the Ink Kitchen’s fundraising efforts, which include gathering up unused blank apparel in the wake of each show to be donated to charity as well. Equally important, Ikegami says, is the direct financial support provided over the years be literally dozens of different companies from across the industry. In 2024 alone, the Ink Kitchen raised $17,500 for Care Closet LBC; $8,000 for Adelaide’s Place in Atlantic city; and $5,976 for UpSpire.
“There are many generous companies in the industry who work with us to make this happen…we certainly haven’t done it all on our own,” Ikegami says. “What I really like about it is that we can recognize that we are a community, not just a bunch of businesses trying to sell things as we come together for the benefit of the communities we visit for the expos.”
For more on the Ink Kitchen’s poster printing efforts at the recent Impressions Expo in Fort Worth, including a list of the industry sponsors that took part in its fundraising efforts, click here. Great work and kudos to all involved. Can’t wait to see what’s in store for Impressions Expo’s three 2025 shows! For more information and/or future updates, be sure and check in with the 2025 Impressions Expo Long Beach resource page. In the meantime, looking forward to seeing you there!
