Emily and Betsy Sokolosky, born and raised in Charleston, WV, are sisters, designers, artists, printers, and co-owners of Base Camp Printing, a Charleston based shop that specializes in traditional letterpress design and printing techniques. After studying Graphic Design at West Virginia University, discovering her love of letterpress, interning at Hatch Show Print—the longest running letterpress print shop in the country—and then returning to Charleston to work with the local print shop Kin Ship Goods, Emily opened Base Camp in May of 2016. This was made possible when her friends and the owners of Kinship Goods offered her the space next door to start her own business, “They gave us rent free for three years starting out. I worked for them for about a year and then they offered me that space to start my own business pretty much risk free. They helped me find a press; they helped me get the world out, and just make connections and meet people. And gave me the space. So, without their push, or just generosity, I don’t think I would be here—I know I would not be here doing this.”
Betsy joined the team after moving back from Arlington, VA and completing a year of service as an AmeriCorps VISTA for a Charleston non-profit in what was, at first, a temporary postition that quickly became a partnership and, in 2017, co-ownership. When asked what gave them the gumption to open a family owned business in the 21st century Betsy told us that the short answer is “a lot of help.” “With a lot of help is how we were able to start it and keep it going.” And the help continued, in the form of a vintage set of letterpress woodtype from a local printer who had inherited the set from his father. Emily and Betsy’s vision, intuition, and skills were trusted, supported, and resourced by the Charleston, West Virginian, and Appalachian communities that they call home. “There’s just amazing gifts that we’ve been given and we just want to pay it forward because we know that we just want to be able to do that for other people, too,” Emily told us, recounting the day the local retired printer came into the shop, first “grilling” her to confirm her intentions and seriousness before announcing “alright, well I have this collection of wood type and I think it needs to go to you,” satisfied with the knowledge that this equipment that he had saved because he had known it was special was going to be put to good use by talented and enthusiastic young people.
Now, Emily and Betsy have built off of this generosity and community support to create an original and unique collection of work spanning from collaborations with the radio program Mountain Stage to initiatives like Whitesville, WV’s “Turn This Town Around” campaign, all of which features the distinctly textured and tactile quality of their work. They have taken to offering that help right back to the same communities that gave them their start. They have upheld their responsibility to their community by participating in ventures that inspire and excite them, both as artists and as Appalachians.
Though their work is varied in subject, much of it features West Virginian and Appalachian iconography and imagery that celebrate the state and represent it in pride, denouncing outside representations of this place that paint it narrowly or deal in stereotypes of its citizens. A reclamation of the image of West Virginia, their work highlights the wildflowers, the mountains, and favorite local cryptid, Mothman.
Since opening, this mission has only become more clear and central to their work. “I think what has changed the most is just realizing and coming to terms with who we want to be and what we want to stand for,” Emily told us. “I didn't really know how fulfilling this could be, in a way. It was almost like I felt like I was doing this for myself, for a selfish reason. Like I love letterpress, I love printing, I was just so excited to be able to print and now I realize that I can share that with other people. My perspective has changed—I have this press, we have this press, what can we do with it, what good can we do with it for other people? It’s already fulfilling to us in so many ways. We’re able to be creative and make art and not dread going to work everyday, that’s already a dream and I’m so happy we get to do that. And so now we have taken it and thought about “well, how can we make it better for other people, by what we can do for ourselves?” Emily and Betsy collaborate with community partners regularly, living into their commitment to pay that generosity and support forward, finding new ways for small businesses to show up for the communities that support them.
In a way, Base Camp printing is the story of Appalachia, and Appalachia the story of Base Camp printing. As much as Appalachia is anything that national media portrays us to be, we are just as much, if not more, the deep sense of community, the support, camaraderie, and solidarity that Base Camp and their story exemplify.
You can visit Base Camp here: https://www.basecampprinting.co/