For Chesapeake Chapter 2025 past happenings, click here.

New Chapter Officers through 2026

. . . Lauren Emeritz, President
. . . Casey Smith, Vice President
. . . Chris Sweterlitsch, Treasurer
. . . Jill Cypher, Secretary

PROGRAMMING COMMITTEE through 2026

. . . Eric Frazier
. . . Matthew Kirschenbaum
. . . Val Lucas
. . . Melanie Leung
. . . Ray Nichols
. . . James Quigley
. . . Stephanie Stillo

Casey Smith,
our Chapter Vice President,
has been named
Executive Director of the
Frederick Book Arts Center
in Frederick, Maryland.

Lead Graffiti Solo Exhibition
Newark Arts Alliance
Newark, DE
December 31, 2024 – January 17, 2025
Public reception
Friday, January 10, 6 – 8 pm

Lead Graffiti was formed in 2008 by Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher as an experimental letterpress laboratory. The husband-and-wife team of artists/designers focused on public causes, a love of words and typography, passing historical and technical information forward, and a playful disregard for the usual design rules.

Located in a 2,200-square-foot space in Newark’s Sandy Brae Industrial Park, Lead Graffiti is packed with cases of wood and metal type, printing presses of all kinds, a working hot-metal Intertype linecaster, and all the gear that Gutenberg would have known.

The studio’s letterpress work is included in more than 75 significant collections of libraries and institutions, along with solo exhibitions at The British Library in London, the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, and the American Institute of Graphic Arts in Philadelphia. Lead Graffiti has been written up in Sports Illustrated Magazine and makes a grand entry in printer/author Chris Fritton’s book The Itinerant Printer, where he wrote, “Lead Graffiti is the incorrigible, unpredictable, and uncompromising brainchild of Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher — a shop where the only rule is there are no design rules, and the thing you learn every day is that there’s always more to learn.”

Nichols and Cypher have given dozens of talks and tours to various organizations and student groups and conducted numerous in-house and online workshops related to letterpress and bookmaking. One of the studio’s major projects was an endurance letterpress series of 115+ broadsides produced over five years (2011 – 2015), visually documenting the daily events of the Tour de France in handset type and ink on paper.

For three decades as a professor and director of the visual communications program at the University of Delaware, Nichols helped lead the program to an international reputation. He was also co-director with his teaching colleague Bill Deering of the program’s summer study abroad to London.

Beginning in 2001, the trips were for students in advertising and graphic design to visit design studios, advertising agencies, filmmakers, and museums to provide experiences with design creativity, typography and historical perspectives. A pair of early visits to the letterpress studio of Alan Kitching and the St. Bride Printing Library unexpectedly provided Nichols and Cypher with two life-altering experiences. Their creative focus switched from blink-of-the-eye advertising design to the slow and patient world of letterpress printing and book arts for the next two decades.

In 2002, Nichols, Cypher, and Deering founded Raven Press at the University of Delaware. Over the next four years, it became a new teaching tool. Cypher’s interests in typography, colorful paste paper painting, and exploring various forms of bookmaking also benefited Raven Press externally. Upon Nichols’ retirement from teaching in 2006, the couple formed Lead Graffiti, collecting presses and cases of type to continue their creative work.

In 2006, their first major post-teaching project solidified their intellectual connection to Newark. As volunteers, Nichols and Cypher were tasked with designing, photographing, and producing the 300-page hardback book “Histories of Newark: 1758 – 2008.” The design is highlighted by their photography of a citizen’s band of about 4,000 Newark residents that runs through the book.

Greetings, my thoughtful, creative, politically responsible friends!

Welcome to a riot of obsolescence!

The Impartial Observer is an artistic and literary venture — a quarterly journal — that flies in the face of just about all contemporary trends. Chesapeake Chapter member Greg Robison is the mastermind behind it all. You can get to the website by clicking here.

This simple website is the most technologically advanced element of this whole initiative. I use email, too, of course — I’m not a Luddite — and am always happy to speak to you on the electric telephone. But the Impartial Observer itself is otherwise an entirely hand-crafted, artisanal publication. It’s a physical object you can hold, printed slowly and patiently in limited editions from cast metal type using new equipment and tools 150 years ago. As an artist, I consider it a work of art on paper. You know: “paper,” a traditional, noble material made of natural fibers, not “pay per” as in “pay-per-view.” With reasonable care, such a work on paper will last for centuries without requiring (as everything digital in the cloud does) a never-ending consumption of hydrocarbons. Just as to produce it required the destruction of hardly any hydrocarbons either. Oh, and it’s distributed strictly by hand or through the post. You can’t see it online.

The Impartial Observer is a venture that bucks other contemporary trends, too. I’m not seeking an enormous number of subscribers; I’m producing it only for friends like you. (If I don’t know you, introduce yourself. You’ll probably fit in nicely.) I accept no advertising. The Impartial Observer is not the mouthpiece for any movement or any organization’s newsletter.

Although this work flows from diverse streams of interest and activity in my life — as a visual artist, writer, Catholic, meditator, educator, and letterpress printer since childhood — I don’t intend it to be all about me. I’m inviting you, my friends, to help me write it and thereby form a loose community of reflection, creativity, and action. Specifically, I welcome from subscribers what I call “Paragraphs:” thoughtfully written texts of exactly 100 words (remember, the paper is composed by hand!), anchored in the first-person singular for authenticity, on one (or a combination) of the thematic interests we share, to wit:

• cultivation of a rich inner life through reflection, meditation, prayer, or similar practices;

• living creatively, intentionally and compassionately this one, precious life we share, and doing so with curiosity and good humor; and

• engaging in or supporting responsible social action to promote a more just, peaceful and inclusive world.

The Chesapeake Chapter of the American Printing History Association is now accepting applications for its Michael Denker Fellowships. 

About the Fellowship

Established in the memory of longtime chapter contributor, wood type collector, letterpress printer, and friend Michael Denker, a year-long fellowship, as a one-time award, provides free membership in the national association and the Chesapeake Chapter, invitations to Chapter events such as studio tours, behind-the-scenes museum visits, workshops, and more, as well as discounted registration for the annual national APHA conference and a subscription to the semiannual journal “Printing History.” The fellowship also provides an opportunity to present a body of work or research at the annual Chapter symposium at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

About APHA

The American Printing History Association promotes the study of the history of printing and related arts and crafts, including calligraphy, typefounding, typography, papermaking, bookbinding, illustration, and publishing. The Chesapeake Chapter draws its membership from printers, artists, curators, historians, and collectors in the DC-Baltimore-Virginia-Delaware area. For more information about APHA, visit the national website at printinghistory.org.

To Apply

Send a short statement expressing your interest in the history and practice of printing and related arts and what you hope to gain from joining the Chapter’s diverse community. The deadline to apply is November 15th. Send your statement (or any questions) to the Chapter Secretary (ChesapeakeAPHA@gmail.com) with the subject “Denker Fellowship Application.” 

Applications will be notified in December.

Chesapeake Chapter Notes

Chesapeake Chapter Notes is emailed monthly to members and friends of the Chesapeake Chapter of the American Printing History Association. Contributions are welcome and can be sent to the Chapter Secretary (ChesapeakeAPHA@gmail.com).

We are working on a page that shows some of the best letterpress projects printed by Chapter members. If you print and are savvy about social media, hashtag your in-progress or completed works using  #aphachesapeake.