Feminist greeting card store Paper Epiphanies is Portland International Airport’s ‘little pink palace’

There's no better way to speedrun the full range of human emotion than with a quick stroll through the greeting card aisle.

A few brisk strides and you've caught a sneak preview of most major life milestones: birthdays, marriage, parenthood, anniversaries, death — all lined up in meticulous categories, all emitting the same predictable mass market glow.

Sure, you might find what you need: A stock photo of a monkey in a party hat alongside the words "Happy birthday, party animal!" always does the trick. But what about those events that can't quite be emulated in a single, kitschy phrase? Where do you find a card that celebrates new mothers without seeming preachy? Or honors a loved one who's died in a way that feels genuine?

Victoria Venturi asked herself the same questions shortly before launching Paper Epiphanies, a Portland-based feminist greeting card company that's been dishing out funny, heartfelt cards for more than a decade.

It started when Venturi's dad died suddenly from leukemia in 2013. Immediately, the condolence cards poured in — standard sympathy notes memorializing his "angelic spirit."

"Did you know my father?" she found herself asking at the time. "This was a man who loved his after-dinner cocktails and loved Bruce Springsteen and loved to crack that inappropriate joke."

His death coincided with a new hobby of Venturi's, something she picked up while preparing to get married earlier that year. To cut costs on a $5,000 wedding invitation suite she'd been eying, she taught herself letterpress, a centuries-old printing technique that stamps images onto paper using ink.

It felt like kismet, Venturi said — and in 2014, she started printing greeting cards out of her one-bedroom apartment in Santa Monica, California.

Paper Epiphanies , PiPH for short, began with a goal to create authentic cards that accurately reflect the human experience, but it's since grown into an international brand that places women at the forefront. After opening its first brick-and-mortar on Southeast Clinton Street in 2021, the store brought its iconic designs and hot pink decor to Portland International Airport in August — one of the first independent greeting card companies to set up shop in a United States airport.

By women, for women Today, PiPH cards can be found in about two thousand retail chain locations and mom-and-pop shops across the world, everywhere from Hong Kong to the United Kingdom.

It's a brand Venturi built basically from her bedroom — first in her Santa Monica apartment and then a Los Angeles work loft with her husband — and one that quickly took a feminist turn.

"I realized women are overlooked in a very unique way in the greeting card industry," Venturi said. "Cards were created for specific moments of our lives that we're supposed to have: You get married, you have a baby, you stay in line. And I was like, 'Well, all the women I know are not really doing those things.'"

The cards you'll find on the shelves of one of PiPH's physical stores are raw, honest and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, a nod to Venturi's brief stint on the stand-up comedy circuit.

Birthday messages are candid and uplifting ( "And on her birthday, she continued to do whatever the (expletive) she wanted" and "Swagger never ages" are two bestsellers.) Sympathy cards range from reassuring ( "Loss dismantles us. And that's okay" ) to witty ( "Well, this blows." ) One of the most popular sellers at PipH's airport store simply reads, "I like banging you."

After Venturi gave birth to her first child in 2017, she created "The 4th Trimester Collection," a series that celebrates new mothers during a transition that, while beautiful, can also be challenging and complicated .

"I want a card for me after the baby's born," Venturi said, "not just for the baby."

Supporting women is at the core of everything PiPH does, from its cards to its aesthetic.

When planning the PDX location, Venturi deliberately chose a construction firm that was willing to provide a woman project manager (Women make up only 10% of the country's construction industry.). The flagship store's signature look — a stationery dreamland spanning all shades of pink — was reimagined at the airport by Arielle Weedman, a Portland-based interior designer.

The design also includes works from the Clinton Street store's artist-in-residence program, which invites a new creator to showcase their art and participate in a card collaboration each quarter. It adds an extra splash of color to an already vibrant, inviting space.

"When you come into an airport, the thing we've realized is that a lot of people are anxious," Venturi said. "To find this little pink palace in the middle of their day is truly delighting and inspiring them."

Taking flight at PDX PiPH may have found its roots in Los Angeles, Venturi said, but it was Portland that gave it its wings — literally.

After realizing the company had grown comfortably beyond her upstairs work loft, she began searching the West Coast for a city to house a PiPH warehouse. In 2016, she picked up and moved to Portland.

"We didn't have any family here. We didn't have any friends here." Venturi said. "I wanted a city that believed in and supported entrepreneurs."

The goal for the company was always to find the best ways to directly reach consumers. And when it came to foot traffic, she said, nothing could beat the airport.

PiPH's PDX location catches traveler's attention before they even walk in the door: The entrance is illuminated by a massive sign bequeathing it with the title "coolest card store in the world" — huge block letters bordered in (what else) a bright pink background.

The table legs are pink. The shelves of bags, neck pillows, candles and other eye-catching trinkets are pink, and so is the pillar segmenting off the store's book corner. The neon light glowing above the iconic card wall is hot pink. The speakers vibrate with Beyonce, Charli XCX and other pop powerhouses — and if pink had a sound, that would be it.

Beyond cards, the store overflows with stationery: highlighters, stickers, notebooks, markers and an entire wall of different colored writing utensils.

It's one of the only places in the airport where visitors can buy a pen, something Venturi quickly learned when black pens started flying off the shelves. Before a routine flight to Guadalajara, Mexico, she'll sell up to 40 plain black pens to travelers looking to fill out customs papers.

Venturi also collects and sends out mail as part of the company's "Mail High Club." Not just postcards, either: In PiPH's first couple months, it collected thousands of pieces of mail, including stacks of election ballots and a letter addressed from a veteran to his bride.

"The airport is so full of humanity," Venturi said. "I have thousands of new card ideas every day."

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