Images visits Parallel Prints in Glasgow’s East End to find out how Mandy Short keeps creative with manual screen printing
After nearly 20 years as a social worker, Mandy Short was burnt out and looking for a change of pace and career. As she recovered, she thought back to an earlier time when she made her own clothing.
“After leaving school, I did a training programme at a printers, doing the old style of drawing the artwork, cutting out a stencil and printing it that way,” she recalls. “I really enjoyed it.”
At 17, she moved from her native Glasgow to London, drawn by the punk music scene, and ended up selling her “funky” designs at Camden Market. In the 1990s, however, she felt it was time to do “a more serious job that would pay me money”, leading to her qualifying as a social worker in Devon. But after moving back to Glasgow 10 years ago, she reconnected with her earlier self by setting up her own screen printing business, Parallel Prints.
“I needed a job where I was working for myself and wanted to go back down the creative side.”
Moving into a unit at the RogArt Street Campus was the best decision Mandy has made
A print for the fashion brand of a Glaswegian tattoo artist
Flat pack
With the help of her partner Kevin McGowan, Mandy converted the living room of their flat in Glasgow’s East End into a studio, with a compact four-station BWM Hopkins manual carousel. “When it arrived, I thought, ‘Oh my God, how are we going to fit that in’,” she recalls. But they did, albeit without a dryer and just a heat press.
For the past six years, Parallel Prints has been established in a unit in a creative studio and office hub, RogArt Street Campus, in the East End neighbourhood of Bridgeton.
Manual only
The heart of Parallel Prints is the manual M&R Kruzer press which replaced the BWM Hopkins four years ago, and which was supplied by Screen Print World.
“It’s great. I can do up to six colours but, to be honest, I’ve not needed to do six for anybody because of the cost. Four colours is the maximum that my customers ever want.”
She adds that Screen Print World has been very supportive, although she regrets not asking them to install the press as it would have been helpful to have the team show her how to use it. “They are a great company for help. I contact them regularly if I have a question or a problem.”
Mandy has no interest in moving to an automatic press. “When you’re screen printing manually, every print is unique. Although you get a run of T-shirts and they look the same, they have all been individually hand-printed and that to me is what makes it special as opposed to other methods of printing.”
…Read the full profile of Parallel Prints in our December 2024 issue here
