Pushdot Studio to Close Its Doors in Portland, Relocate to Astoria

The printing resource and gallery space will remain open until mid-January.

Pushdot Studio, photo courtesy of Lincoln Miller.
By Gabriel Granillo

Pushdot Studio—the digital photography resource, printing studio, and gallery space—is closing its doors in Portland.

The studio will close its Southeast 11th Avenue location in the Ford Building in mid-January and reopen in Astoria in early February, according to owner Lincoln Miller, who first announced the news on Instagram on Dec. 20.

Pushdot has been a fixture in Portland for 23 years, first occupying a space in the Pearl District across from REI, then on Southeast Caruthers Street, then finally on Southeast 11th, where it’s been for more than a decade.

“It’s a little bit of sadness for sure, leaving the community that has supported us and we’ve supported them for so long,” Miller tells WW. “We’ve seen a lot of changes in both the technology of what we do and the landscape of the city, but it feels like we were part of it. So there’s a lot of—not grief, but just sorrow in leaving something behind that you’ve been a part of for so long.”

When Pushdot Studio opened in 2002, Miller says the goal had been to help photographers and artists in the wake of ever-changing, fast-evolving technologies. Even its namesake, “pushdot,” is a soft riff on that technology, pushing dots (or pixels) around.

In addition to being a digital image resource, it’s also been a gallery space for artists in Portland and beyond, starting with shows that emphasized that convergence of art and technology, then moving more broadly to encompass fine art, graphic arts, and more.

On moving to Astoria, Miller says he’d been eyeing the coastal town for a while, admiring its burgeoning arts community, but he hopes to keep working with his Portland artists remotely.

“I’m just really thankful to the community here,” Miller says. “I feel like it’s been a very collaborative business that we’ve had, and we couldn’t have done it without them and I hope that they feel the same way—that we’ve helped them. That’s what it’s all about for me.”

GO: Pushdot Studio, 2505 SE 11th Ave., Suite 104, 503-224-5925, pushdotstudio.com. 8:30 am–5 pm Monday–Friday.

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