Hope Rovelto, owner of Little Chair Printing, squeegees ink through a screen while creating T-shirts in her Portland studio. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

In her narrow shop on Congress Street, nestled between walls plastered with colorful posters, Hope Rovelto hunched over the spiderlike screen-printing press, the word VOTE dyed in orange on the shaved back of her head. Using a squeegee, she smoothly guided thick black ink into the gaps in the screen, putting a logo on a previously blank green T-shirt. She lifted up the screen, inspected her work and placed it on a small conveyor belt to dry.

Behind her, a pile of blank green and yellow tees awaited her attention.

Rovelto, who is 4 feet, 10 inches tall, is the founder and owner of Little Chair Printing, and the month of June is her busiest time of the year. Since she moved to Portland in 2018, she says, she has printed T-shirts for local Pride events and organizations.

“I’m in the community,” said Rovelto, who uses she/they pronouns. “I really print for my values. Printing for Pride organizations – the small ones, the big ones – is me helping.”

In 2018 and 2019, Rovelto attended Portland Pride with her live printing operation – a screen-printing press attached to the back of her bicycle. In recent years, she has shifted her attention to newer Pride events in smaller communities. A couple of years ago, she said, the only established Pride celebrations were in the bigger cities in Maine. Recently, they’ve popped up in areas “not used to seeing people like me,” and she’s attended the first Prides in a number of places.

“It’s really important to show up,” Rovelto said. “Going into rural parts of Maine, the smaller communities can sometimes be forgotten. For me, I want to make sure that I see them, I hear them and I’m there.”

This year, Rovelto’s schedule is packed. She went to Hallowell Pride on June 1, the first Windham & Raymond Pride the next day. She brought her live printing to Bar Harbor Pride on June 8 and Ellsworth Pride on June 9. On June 15, instead of attending Portland Pride, Rovelto will be at Aroostook Pride. She plans to print at Bangor Pride on June 22 and Gorham Pride on June 29. When she’s “not insanely busy” at these events, she said, she likes to make the process interactive, letting customers print their own shirts.

Holly Acampora, graphics and merchandise coordinator for Windham & Raymond Pride, said that “offering tees may not have been possible” without Little Chair Printing. The organizers of the newbie event would have had a hard time coming up either with advance funds or with an accurate estimate of the number of tees to preorder. Then they heard about Little Chair Printing from the organizers of Gorham Pride, who had done a preorder with Rovelto last year. She came to the Windham event with her portable printing press and made about 30 T-shirts to order.

Windham & Raymond Pride got 40% of the sales, or $12 from every $30 shirt. That raised them about $360, which Acampora said the group intends to put toward smaller community events throughout the year.

Hope Rovelto, owner of Little Chair Printing, works in her Portland shop. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

As for Rovelto, when it comes to causes she cares about, she doesn’t exactly go for big profits.

She describes her business model as “trying to fight capitalist ideals,” and she wants her services to be affordable and accessible. For social causes and nonprofits, she often gives discounts. In order to balance this personal sliding scale, she relies upon steady corporate clients such as Standard Baking Company and Maine Beer Company. She said she’s working to maintain a sustainable business. But right now she is the sole full-time employee and can afford only two part-timers.

NOT IN IT FOR THE MONEY

“I’m losing money,” she said, with a grin. “I do not make decisions based on money. I never have. If you see me out in the community, it’s guaranteed that I am there because I chose to be there.”

Rovelto is no stranger to economic challenges. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Little Chair Printing “saw business drop down to zero.” She worked for Instacart and painted houses to “see the business through.” At the same time, she printed free Black Lives Matter T-shirts for protesters, encouraging members of the community to donate to the movement instead of paying her.

“I had to help the community,” she explained.

Hope Rovelto, owner of Little Chair Printing, spins her silk screen printing station while creating T-shirts in her Portland studio on Monday. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

Screen printing is a far cry from Rovelto’s start in art. Between earning a BFA in sculpture from Maine College of Art & Design and an MFA in ceramics from Rochester Institute of Technology – neither of which “have anything to do with screen printing” – she discovered her love of the art form. After graduation, she road-tripped to Seattle, and when she first saw Torpedo Screen Printing, a shop that she described as “dingy,” she found herself eager to work there. The owners told her they were not hiring, so she offered to clean the space. After a week, she was hired. Even though she only worked there for a year and started her business more than a decade later, she credits that shop with teaching her all she knows about how to print T-shirts and run the business.

Rovelto, who is 47, started Little Chair Printing in 2013, a few years after a car accident that made it difficult for her to continue working with ceramics. She said the name came easily: little because she’s “always been small” and chair because the furniture held meaning for her and her artistic curiosity. In the early days, she ran the operation out of her basement. “I just started telling people I could print T-shirts,” she laughed. She has not stopped.

In June, when she’s not printing live at events, she completes Pride-related jobs for a variety of customers, including the University of Southern Maine and the city of Portland. EqualityMaine has been a customer since 2017, ordering more than 800 shirts a year. Nem Knight, the program director, said that the nonprofit discount makes it easier for the organization to fulfill its mission of supporting and elevating LGBTQ+ people across the state.

“When we, as an LGBTQ+ organization that’s doing advocacy work on behalf of queer people, are able to then put some of our dollars back into our local community, that just makes sense,” Knight said.

Rovelto’s partnership with EqualityMaine extends beyond business. She has taught screen-printing workshops at the group’s summer camp and has donated private screen-printing lessons to a silent auction fundraiser.

Hope Rovelto, owner of Little Chair Printing, squeegees ink through a screen while creating T-shirts in her Portland studio. Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

EqualityMaine, with a staff of six, tries to attend as many Pride events as possible, and Knight said that Rovelto “is everywhere.”

“She’s at every single Pride she can get to, and she’s just one person,” Knight said.