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Chesapeake Chapter / Member News


2019


July 2019 – Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti were highlighted along with a group of students from the Waldorf School of Philadelphia on an episode of You Oughta Know on WHYY-TV in Philadelphia. See the episode (5:11).

June 2019 – Casey Smith traveled for a month-long Apexart fellowship in Kampala, Uganda. Click here to see his
journal of the trip.

February 14, 2019 – Mark Samuels Lasner and the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection at the University of Delaware sponsored Love in the Library : Victorian Love Stories from the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection

February 12, 2019 – Mark Samuels Lasner and the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection at the University of Delaware sponsored a talk by James T. Costa who traced the development of Charles Darwin’s personal process of discovery that culminated in the Origin, a book he regarded as “one long argument,” and discover how Darwin’s approach is relevant for how we teach evolution today.

February 3 – 6, 2019 – Jill Cypher & Ray Nichols of Lead Graffiti were among the 220 participants at CODEX VII in Richmond, CA.


2018


November 14, 2018 – Denker Fellow Symposium.

November 2 – Former Chesapeake Chapter Denker Fellow (2015) Na’ama Zussman delivered a talk entitled “The Liminal Experience of the Artist’s Book” to the Chesapeake Chapter and the Washington Area Group for Print Culture Studies. 

February 1 – 2018 Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship in Printing History has been awarded to Jordan Wingate, a Ph.D. student in English at the University of California, Los Angeles.


October 16 – Don Starr of Glyph in Havre de Grace sponsored a talk by Paul Moxon on Vandercook Presses.

October  6-7 – Oak Knoll Fest XX was held. Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti sponsored a tour of Lead Graffiti and offered a free H.N. Werkman workshop along with staffing a table showing their work at the Fest. Lead Graffiti also contributed a print to a portfolio celebrating the 20th edition of this important event.

October 5 – Publication of The Itinerant Printer featured major pages of Chesapeake Chapter members at Typecast Industries, Bowerbox Press, and Lead Graffiti.


September 15, 2018 – The Lancaster Printers Fair, led by Ken Kulakowsky of the .918 Club, had tables sponsored by Val Lucas of Bowerbox Press, Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti, and Casey Smith & Chris Sweterlitsch of the Chesapeake Chapter.

September 4, 2018 –  Chesapeake Chapter and the Baltimore Bibliophiles met at the Johns Hopkins Club in Baltimore for a buffet dinner, and subsequently to hear chapter member Dianne L. Roman give a presentation entitled “Unseen, Unnoticed, and Overlooked: American Women in the Early Nineteenth Century Printing Industry.”

August 2018 – Ken Kulakowsky, President of the .918 Club in Lancaster, PA, was awarded the 2018 Kagy/Prust Lifetime Achievement Award from the Graphic Communications Education Association for significant contribution to graphic arts education and the graphic arts industry. Ken is currently spearheading the renovation and preservation of a 1950s Naval Reserve building on the campus of Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology in Lancaster, PA. The facility will house the Heritge Press Book Arts Center.


August 2018 – Chesapeake Chapter’s 2019 calendar participants include George Barnum, Roland Hoover, Greg Robison,  Jim Wilder, Jill Cypher, Ann Lemon, Casey, Lauren Emeritz, Chris Manson, Don Starr, Val Lucas, Zoe Cox, Dave Mensch, Tatiana Shukhin, Ken Kulakowsky, and Ray Nichols. Proceeds from the sale of the calendar ($25 with free shipping) benefit our Denker Fellows program and support many chapter projects.


July 14, 2018 – Longtime APHA Chesapeake Chapter member Stan Nelson celebrated his 70th with a well-attended party. The day was highlighted with a tour of his newly completed studio housing his Studio Atelier.


May 31, 2018 – Chesapeake Chapter member Caroline Duroselle-Melish, curator of the exhibition Beyond Words: Book Illustration in the Age of Shakespeare at the Folger Shakespeare Library’s, guided a group of chapter members on a tour of the exhibition. photos and story

May 18, 2018 – Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher hosted a gathering of FABS (Fellowship of Bibliographic Societies) at their annual gathering, this year at the University of Delaware.

May 15, 2018 – Chesapeake Chapter members and friends enjoyed an excellent presentation at the Library of Congress by Rosenwald Collection Curator, Stephanie Stillo “On William Blake.”

May 4, 2018 – The Printed Walk Gallery Opening Chapter member Lindsay Schmittle reports that she is finishing up her Kickstarter project, with the 22 designs, inspired by her end-to-end hike of the Appalachian Trail, rolling off the press. Also, there will be The Printed Walk gallery exhibits in Birmingham, AL, Atlanta, and Elkton, MD. Lindsay plans to distribute prints to the project’s backers during the summer.

 


February, 17, 2018 – Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti celebrated the 10th anniversary of Lead Graffiti at their Newark, Delaware studio with a celebration which included demonstrations of their Vandercook and Iron hand press along with a hands-on look at hot metal on an Intertype C4.

 


January 1, 2018 – 12 members of the Chesapeake chapter produced the 7th annual Chapter Calendar.

Participants included were   Jill CypherLauren EmeritzSierra FryKen KulakowskyVal Lucas, Chris Manson,  Ray NicholsSonja RossowTatiana ShukhinDon StarrGarrett Varady, and Jim Wilder.



2017


November 20, 2017 – A book collaboration between Ray Nichols and Martha Carothers entitled “Electric Fire From the Clouds,” has been accepted into the College Book Arts Association exhibition. The work was judged by Mark Dimunation of the Library of Congress and John Caperton of the Print Center / Philadelphia. Book

November 15, 2017 – The 2017 Denker Fellows Symposium was held at the Library of Congress, Jefferson Building, 2nd Floor, Rosenwald Room. The podium was shared by the following :

Juss DiSciullo  – using 3D printing in letterpress, incorporating information from a project she worked on last fall called the Printed Press
Sierra Frye
Seth Gottlieb
Alice Keith – book printing in 16th century Lyon, France
Maeve McCool – Methods of Memory: Contemporary Artist Books that Address the Past

Mel Parada – Dutch print trade during the mid 16th – early 17th century

November 4 – Chris and Pat Manson hosted the chapter’s annual Wayzgoose at Crooked Crow Press

November 3 – 4 – The Hamilton Wood Type Museum’s Wayzgoose 2017 included Patterson Clark who spoke on”The Art and Blocks of Alienweeds” and Ray Nichols / Jill Cypher who spoke on “Tour de Lead Graffiti. Ray and Jill also ran two workshops based on the printing techniques of H.N. Werkman.


June 24, 2017 – Casey Smith, former chapter vice-president, gave a lecture to the Chesapeake Chapter and the Baltimore Bibliophiles entitled William Joseph Ibbett Did It: Piquerism, Poetry, and Letterpress Printing” at the Johns Hopkins Club, in Baltimore.


May 2017 – The May 3 issue of Fine Books & Collections published an article on the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection


April 28, 2017 – The 2016 Chesapeake Chapter Michael Denker Fellows gave presentations at the Library of Congress on November 17, 2016 in the Rosenwald Room, Rare Books and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress. Suzanne AllenMalia Balas, and Jodi Hoover gave talks on their interests in printing history and book arts. The symposium can be viewed hereThe Chesapeake Chapter thanks Mark Dimunation, Chief of Rare Books and Special Collections, and Shirley Liang of the Library of Congress IT staff for making this webcast available. It is listed chronologically back in November and here as this is when it was posted.

April 12, 2017The Chesapeake Chapter visited  the Folger Shakespeare Library for a tour of their exhibit 500 Years of Treasures from Oxford, on Wednesday, April 12th, at 12:00 noon. The tour was led by Chesapeake Chapter member Caroline Duroselle-Melish, who is also the Curatorial Advisor, and Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Early Modern Books and Prints at the Folger.


March 2017 – On March 17 and 18, 2017, the University of Delaware hosted a two-day symposium, “Celebrating the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection: Rare Books and Manuscripts, Victorian Literature and Art.” In addition to Elaine Showalter, the speakers will includes Mark Dimunation (Library of Congress), Barbara Heritage (Rare Book School, University of Virginia), Ed Maggs (Maggs Bros. Ltd., London), Joseph Bristow (UCLA), Linda K. Hughes (Texas Christian University), Margaretta S. Frederick (Delaware Art Museum), William S. Peterson (Emeritus, University of Maryland), David Taylor (UK historian and author), and Margaret D. Stetz (University of Delaware).

March 2017 Lindsay Schmittle of Gingerly Press starts herThe Printed Walk: Georgia to Maine trek to walk the entire Appalachian Trail. After the planned 2,200 mile walk she will be producing a series of posters representing each 100 miles of the trip. The project was funded as a Kickstarter project.

March 2017 – For fourteen years our Chapter member Jim Wilder [Wild Apple Press] has printed stories written by Irish writers.  His 2017 brief book is about, Josie McGowan, True Daughter of Éireann, who was fatally injured during a police baton charge in Dublin on September 22, 1918. All of his books, in limited editions, are set by hand in Frederic Goudy’s Deepdene type and printed on a Vandercook No. 3 proof press, and often using Hahnemuhle mould-made papers.

March 2017 – Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti participated in the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair. They showed off their newest book from their “Moments Carved in Paper” series, “Book no.4: Endurance Letterpress” which focuses on their Tour de Lead Graffiti project, a daily poster journal following the 2011 – 2015 Tour de France.


February 2017 – In celebration of the collection and the gift, the University of Delaware Library will host an exhibition, titled “Victorian Passions: Stories from the Mark Samuels Lasner Collection” and curated by Margaret D. Stetz, Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women’s Studies and Professor of Humanities — on view in Morris Library’s Special Collections Gallery from February 14 through June 3, 2017.

February 2017 – Lead Graffiti hosted a  middle school tour where the students got a first-hand experience printing on a 1928 Albion iron handpress. Click this link to see it in action.


January 2017 – At The American Printing History Association’s Annual Meeting the Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship award was conferred to Amanda Stuckey and the institutional award was conferred to the U.S Government Publishing Office and accepted by George Barnum, current president of the Chesapeake Chapter of APHA.


2016


November  17, 2016 – The 2016 Chesapeake Chapter Michael Denker Fellows gave presentations on November 17, 2016 in the Rosenwald Room, Rare Books and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress. Suzanne AllenMalia Balas, and Jodi Hoover gave talks on their interests in printing history and book arts. The symposium can be viewed hereThe Chesapeake Chapter thanks Mark Dimunation, Chief of Rare Books and Special Collections, and Shirley Liang of the Library of Congress IT staff for making this webcast available. It is listed chronologically here and also in April 2017 when it was posted online.

November 2016 –  Lauren Emeritz‘ “Hand Carved Alphabet Book” has been acquired by the Library of Congress’ Rare Books Collection and is scheduled to be exhibited there on November 4th in an abecederian book exhibition from the LoC collection.


October 2016 – Chris and Pat Manson hosted the chapter’s annual Wayzgoose at their home and letterpress shop, Crooked Crow Press. Once again Chris put together a wonderful keepsake that each attendee could print for their collection.

October 2016 – Chapter member Lindsay Schmittle announced her Kickstarter project entitled The Printed Walk, a letterpress-printed chronicle of an artist’s 2017 thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail.

October 2016 – A broadside produced by Lead Graffiti was included in an exhibtion, “Shakespeare Through the Ages,” in Special Collections at the University of Delaware Library.

October 2016 – Chris Switerlitsch presented the story of the APHA Chapter to a gathering at Pyramid Atlantic.

October 2016 – George Barnum with James Cameron (Making the Invisible Visible: War time Wonders at the U.S. Government Printing Office) and Casey Smith (Ibbett Did It: Piquerism, Poetry, and Letterpress Printing) are delivering talks at the annual national conference of the American Printing History Association.

October 2016 – Ray Nichols was on a panel of private press printers, “Discussion of the role of illustration, copyright, physical book size,” at Oak Knoll Fest in New Castle, Delaware. Ray and Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti also had a table at Oak Knoll Fest.


September 2016 – Longtime member, Bob Fleck, owner of Oak Knoll Books, passed away after a short illness. Oak Knoll Books has focused on books about books, book collecting, book arts, the history of printing, and bibliography. 2016 marks the fortieth anniversary year of a company that has made an immeasurable contribution to the history of the book. Bob was a past president of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America as well as the past president of the International League of Antiquarian Booksellers. He will be sorely missed.

September 2016 – Mark Samuels Lasner was a major element in a Parenthesis 31 article entitled “Three Kinds of Collectors.” Mark’s comments also included a mention of the work of Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti.

September 2016 – Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti, in Newark, DE, presented 4 talks on their work and letterpress printing to the Graphic Design History course at Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA.

September 2016 – A photo and lockup of the handset, metal type work of Lindsay Schmittle of Gingerly Press was the opening image on an article on letterpress printing in Pennsylvania Magazine.

September 2016 – Ken Kulakowsky of the .918 Club in Lancaster, PA announced the start of a $250,000 capitol campaign for the refurbishing of a 3,000 square foot building on the Thaddeus Stevens College of Technology campus in Lancaster, PA. The facility will be used to house a wide array of letterpress-related equipment, classes, workshops, and tours.

September  2016- Helena Wright spoke to the The Washington Rare Book Group (WRBG) and the APHA Chesapeake  Chapter  with a curator-led presentation of: “George Perkins Marsh (1801-1882) and His Collection of Books on the History of Engraving.” Helena Wright is the Curator of Graphic Arts for the Smithsonian Institution.

September 2016 – Stan Nelson, a member of the Chesapeake Chapter of the American Printing History Association, and a Museum Specialist Emeritus with the Graphic Arts Collection at the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian Institution, attended the Inaugural Meeting of the International Association of Printing Museums, held from August 31st to September 5th in Cheongju, Korea. | article & photos

September 2016 – A number of Chesapeake Chapter members produced its annual calendar for 2017.

Cover: Val Lucas, Bowerbox Press, Monkton MD
January: Sonja Rossow
February: Ray Nichols, Lead Graffiti, Newark, DE
March: Ann Lemon & Sierra Frye, Landis Press, Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA
April: Jill Cypher, Lead Graffiti, Newark, DE. Blind debossed and overrolled in 3 colors, plus 1 run.
May: Lindsay Schmittle, Gingerly Press, Landenberg, PA
June: Garrett Varady, Glyph Pressroom, Havre de Grace, MD
July: Don Starr, Glyph Pressroom, Havre de Grace, MD
August:
Jim Wilder, Wild Apple Press,
September: Lauren Emeritz, Abstract Orange, Washington, DC
October:
Val Lucas, .918 Club, Lancaster, PA
November: Tatiana Shuhkin, Windhorse Press, Takania Park, MD
December: Chris Manson, Crooked Crow Press, Rockville, MD
Colophon: Ray Nichols, Lead Graffiti, Newark, DE


July 8-9, 2016 – Chesapeake Chapter, members Chris Manson, Chris Sweterlitsch, Sonja Rossow, and Graphic Arts Collection museum curator Joan Boudreau, participated in the Smithsonian “Print-o-rama”, demonstrating letterpress printing techniques to 1,200 visitors.


May 28, 2016 – Chris Manson, along with Ray & Tray Nichols, and a couple of students from Shepherd University helped Stan Nelson move a Typecaster, a Heavy Duty (emphasis on the word heavy) Washington handpress, several cabinets of type, and other equipment into Stan Nelson‘s brand new, built -from-the-ground-up letterpress & machine shop.

May 11, 2016Mark Samuels Lasner at the University of Delaware Library hosted a gathering to celebrate the edition of the “William Morris – Robert Catterson-Smith” copy of the Kelmscott Chaucer to Mark’s collection. This is one of only 14 copies signed by William Morris. Robert Catterson-Smith was involved in the book production as he took the 87 Edward Burne-Jones pencil drawings and converted them to an ink drawing that could be used for the final wood engravings.

May 4, 2016Chris Manson, Stan Nelson, Rich Hopkins, Jill Cypher, & Ray Nichols traveled to Honey Brook, PA, to spend two days talking with Bill Reiss, proprietor of Quaker City Type about his life in metal type casting.


April 2016Richard Hopkins, John Johnson, Stan Nelson, and James Wilder contributed pages to the 2016 edition of It’s a Small World.


March 2016 – New members & 2016 Michael Denker Fellows include Susanne Allen, GW Corcoran School of the Arts and Design; Malia Balas, Kutztown University; Jodi Hoover, Towson University; Mel Parada, George Mason School of Art; and Camila Rondon, GW Corcoran School of the Arts and Design.


February 2016 – Kislak Center and the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library at University of Pennsylvania hosted, “The Art of the Book Symposium.” Chapter members on the speakers list included Mark Dimunation gave the keynote address, Dan DeSimone spoke on color in fine and private press books, and Mark Samuels Lasner spoke on collecting and exhibiting fine and private press books. Chapter members in the audience included at least Jill Cypher, Fran Durako, Lauren Emeritz, and Ray Nichols.

February 2016 – The Kislak Center of the University of Pennsylvania recently published “Color in A,erican Fine & Private Press Books 1980-2015,” based on the Jean-François Vilain & Roger S. Wieck Collection. Chapter members Jill Cypher & Ray Nichols of Lead Graffiti were listed as being included in the collection.

February 2016 – Lindsay Schmittle at Gingerly Press, Landenberg, PA, and Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti, Newark, DE, each held a meet-and-greet for Chris Fritton, The Itinerant Printer, who is traveling the entire U.S., visiting the lower 48 stages and approximately 150 letterpress shops & studios.

February 2016 – Val Lucas has been awarded Nell Meldahl Scholarship by Paper and Book Inten­sive and will be taking classes in May 2016, with Gaylord Schanilec, Georgia Deal and Frank Brannon.


January 2016 – Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti gave the keynote address on the history of their Tour de Lead Graffiti project to the Society of Typographic Arts / Chicago annual Designer’s Weekend. As part of the weekend Ray and Jill also hosted a letterpress workshop based on the work of H.N. Werkman and a bookmaking project on producing books using the flutter and meander formats.

January 2016 – George Barnum, chapter president, wrote an article for the APHA website entitled “How Big Is Big?” on the history of the Government Printing Office.

January 2016 – Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher have discovered through their research that their Harrild & Sons Albion iron handpress was purchased for the Laboratory Press at Carnegie Institute of Technology, the first U.S. university fine press program, in 1928. The press, as half of a matched set, was acquired to print the 12-volume The Frick Collection: An Illustrated Catalog.


2015


December 2015 – August & Clare Imholtz spoke to a crowd of Chesapeake Chapter members about their collection of  “Alice” at the Hornbake Library, University of Maryland.

December 2015 – Chesapeake Chapter members August and Clare Imholtz and their Lewis Carroll Collection will be featured in an exhibition entitled “Alice 150 Years and Counting…The Legacy of Lewis Carroll” at the Hornbake Library of the University of Maryland, College Park.

December 2015 – Donald Farren will be an exhibitor in the exhibition “The Grolier Club Collects II,” which will run from December 9, 2015 through February 6, 2016, at the Grolier Club, New York City.

December 2015 – August Imholtz spoke at the University of Delaware Library on His Master’s Voice and Alice: Eldridge Johnson’s Adventure with Lewis Carroll’s Alice Manuscript to mark the 150th anniversary of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Click link for the story.


November 2015 – Steve Heaver ran a technical workshop for Lead Graffiti on their newly renovated Harrild & Sons iron handpress.

November 2015 – Pyramid Atlantic “Ink It Up!” Symposium will display letterpress work by Val Lucas of Bowerbox Press, Roland Hoover of Pembroke Press, Greg Robison of Peregrinus Press, Chris Manson of Crooked Crow Press, Rich Hopkins of Hill & Dale Private Press & Typefoundry, Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti.

November 2015 – A number of Denker Fellows will speak about their work. The Denker Fellowships are offered by the Chesapeake Chapter to remember former member Mike Denker who served as president and spiritual advisor for more than a decade.

November 2015 – Chapter member Joan Boudreau lead a wonderful chapter tour of the “Printing Patent Models” at the Smithsonian Institution.


October 2015 – Chris and Pat Manson once again hosted the chapter’s annual Wayzgoose at Crooked Crow Press. A wonderful day of conversation, good food, and printing a page from the Gutenberg Bible from metal type. It doesn’t get much better than that. The keepsake set up by Chris was a full page of the 36-line Gutenberg Bible composed of metal type produced by former chapter member Mike Anderson. You don’t get to print that kind of keepsake very often.

October 2015 – Several chapter members contributed reviews of various events from the Annual American Printing History Association’s national conference held at RIT in Rochester, New York. Links take you to the review on the APHA website.

George Barnum provided 2 reviews for Richard Minsky’s“Restoring and Adjusting Two Iron Handpresses” and “One Press to Rule Them All: The Kelmscott/Goudy Legacy at the RIT Cary Collection

Jill Cypher reviewed Quality Assurances for Printing on the Hand Press

Val Lucas reviewed “Suzanne Powney: “Printing Expressively with Furniture and Reglet, a Typographic Map

Ray Nichols reviewed 2 visits: “Geri McCormick & Matt Rieck’s “Virgin Wood Type: Making Wood Type Today: Using the Same Methods from Yesteryear” and Jamie Mahoney & Dianne L. Roman’s “Druksels on the Hand Press: Experimental Printing Based on the Work of H.N. Werkman

Casey Smith reviewed Amanda Nelsen & Josef Beery’s “When the Printer is a Press: Teaching with the Common Press

October 2015 – Stan Nelson spoke at the APHA National Conference at RIT on Printer’s Ink Balls: Their History and Use.

October 2015Val Lucas of Bowerbox Press had a vendors table along with the Chesapeake Chapter itself at the Annual American Printing History Association’s national conference held at RIT

October 2015 – The annual APHA conference was attended by George Barnum, Patterson Clark, Jill Cypher, Val Lucas, Stan Nelson, Ray Nichols, Casey Smith, and Chris Sweterlitsch.


September 2015 – Jackie Coleburn spoke on “Isaiah Tomas: From Printer’s Apprentice to Patriot Printer” in the gallery of the Library of Congress

September 2015Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti, gave a bookmaking workshop to a group of 25 members of AIGA / Washington, DC at the Art Institute of Washington.

September 2015 – A number of Chesapeake Chapter members produced its annual calendar for 2016.

Cover: Typecase Industries, Washington, DC. Handset type
January: Jill Cypher, Lead Graffiti, Newark, DE. Exercise with hand set metal type & border sorts on angles.
February: Sarah Matthews, Elkridge MD. Sintra and silkscreen print.
March: Val Lucas, Bowerbox Press, Monkton MD. Woodcut with wood and metal type.
April: Lindsay Schmittle, Gingerly Press, Landenberg, PA. Handset metal type.
May: Patterson Clark, alienweeds, Washington, D.C. Weed-soot ink, Norway Maple block, handmade paper from a blend of invasive weed fibers.
June: P. O’Meara, at the studio of Chris Manson using metal type and woodcut.
July: Ray Nichols, Lead Graffiti, Newark, DE. Experiment in 1 press run with split fountain & handset metal type.
August: Sonja Rossow, at some point press, Alexandria VA. Letterpress.
September: Tatiana Shukhin, Windhorse Press, Takoma Park MD. Linocut and handset type.
October: Marisol Ardón, Washington, DC. Letterpress.
November: Jim Wilder, Wild Apple Press, Handset metal type and copperplate with watercolor.
December: Roland Hoover, Pembroke Press, Bethesda, MD.
Colophon: Chris Manson, Crooked Crow Press, Rockville, MD; Woodcut with handset type.


July 2015 – Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti in Newark, Delaware, completed the 5th edition of their Tour de Lead Graffiti project, following the Tour de France, producing a daily poster journal of each Tour stage’s happenings.

July 2015 – Fran Durako hosted a Chesapeake Chapter monthly meeting at her Kelmscott Bookshop in Baltimore, MD.

July – August 2015 – Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti in Newark, Delaware, had an exhibition of their Tour de Lead Graffiti posters at the Hamilton Wood Type Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin.


June 2015 – The work of Patterson Clark is highlighted in the June/July issue of the environmental organization Nature Conservancy‘s magazine. The two-page spread presents an overview of Patterson’s use of invasive plants, which he removes from a park near his house, to make paper, ink, wood blocks for printing, as well as other art supplies.

June 2015 – Mark Dimunation, Chief of Rare Books and Special Collections at the Library of Congress, took other chapter members on a guided tour of the “First of Many: The Bay Psalm Book and Early Moments in American Printing” exhibition at the Library of Congress which he curated.

June 2015 – Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti in Newark, Delaware, had a exhibition sponsored by AIGA / Philadelphia of their Tour de Lead Graffiti 2011 – 2014, a poster journal following the Tour de France, at the SPACE Gallery, 72 N. 2nd Street in Philadelphia. The rest day #2 poster from 2013 which had a group of APHA / Chesapeake members as collaborators was included. On Saturday, June 20th, 3pm, they also give a gallery talk about the work.


May 2015 – Jim Wilder [Wild Apple Press] learned this week from a friend at the National Library of Ireland that a small book he printed 12 years ago, Gifford Lewis’ Miss Elizabeth Corbet Yeats, A Centenary Tribute Celebrating Her Life of Publishing Irish Books, was part of a book auction at Dublin’s most recognized auction house, Adams Fine Arts Auctioneers.  The hammer price for the book last week was €90 [$102], above the estimate of €60-80.  The catalogue described the book as ‘Nice copy of an attractive piece of printing, scarce.’

May 2015 – Stan Nelson (15 year veteran) and James Wilder (11 year veteran) each contributed a four-page section highlighting their printing work to Issue 61 of It’s a Small World. Stan’s is an article on Robin, a Carolingian minuscule  and James’ was Papermaking in Ireland: an industry that disappeared after 300 years.

May 2015 – The Smithsonian Institution sponsored a booksigning by author Helena Wright who wrote The First Smithsonian Collection: The European Engravings of George Perkins Marsh and the Role of Prints in the U.S. National Museum.


April 2015 – Chapter member Stuart Bradley reports that he had the opportunity to attend the 150th anniversary activities commemorating Lee’s surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House, on Thursday, April 9th. One of the demonstrations he describes as very well done was the letterpress printing of Paroled Prisoner’s Passes. Additional information is available on Stuart’s recently redesigned blog, as well as a description written by Jim Walczak of the work he and Chapter member Stan Nelson did to aid the National Park Service in getting the equipment needed. In addition, a reproduction of a Union Army type cabinet, constructed by Stan Nelson, was on display. The blog also includes posts of interest about letterpress printing and printing history as well as a “Printers & Presses” tab which has photo portraits of some Chesapeake Chapter members.

April 2015 – Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti in Newark, Delaware, participated in the Manhattan Fine Press Book Fair.

April 2015 – Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti in Newark, Delaware, are happy to announce that they’ve crossed 950 participants in Lead Graffiti’s letterpress and bookmaking workshops in their Newark, Delaware studio. “Trying to spread the word.”

April 2015 – Patterson Clark had an exhibition of his work (shown below) related to exotic invasive vegetation at the Greater Reston Arts Center which ran from April 16 until July 3, 2015.

clark-Edicola-Lonicera-Maackii


March 2015 – The work of Jim Wilder of Wild Apple Press was listed as an exhibitors at the National Print Museum in Dublin, Ireland. The exhibition will run for 6 weeks.  Jim’s contribution was the printing in booklet form of a ninth century poem [The Scholar and His Cat, and in Irish, Pangur Bán] written in the margins of a book by an Irish monk.

wilder-print-museum-of-dublin

March 2015 – George Barnum presented his APHA 2014 conference paper“Forest/Trees/Paper/Documents: Proposals for Papermaking at the Government Printing Office” to the Washington Area Group for Print Culture Studies.

March 2015 – George Barnum presented his APHA 2014 conference paper“Forest/Trees/Paper/Documents: Proposals for Papermaking at the Government Printing Office” to the Smithsonian American History Museum Staff Symposium.



February 2015 – Stan Nelson spoke on a panel atThe Anatomy of the Book: Recovery & Discovery” for the Art and the Book Graduate Program of the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University.

February 2015 – Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti spoke of “Colored Letters at the Bottom of a Ditch” for the Visual Voices Lecture Series at George Mason University.



January 2015 – “Field printing during the American Civil War” is referenced in an addendum to a 2012 “Printing History” article including some local interest. The story by Joan Boudreau, curator in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Graphic Arts Collection, was published on APHA’s website.

January 2015 – The following new members were awarded the title of  Michael P. Denker Fellows for 2015.

Marisol Ardon, Corcoran College of the Arts, GWU; Sara Friedman, Corcoran/GWU; Julie Garcia, Corcoran/GWU’; Erica Holland, University of Delaware; Erin Murray, Camberwell College of Arts; Patricia O’Meara, Corcoran/GWU; Krista Sharp, Corcoran/GWU; Ian Warren, Corcoran/GWU; and Na’ama Zussman, Corcoran/GWU

January 2015 – The Chesapeake Chapter produced its third annual calender. Contributing members included

Val Lucas, Travis Boatright, Sarah Matthews, Ken Kulakowsky, Jaime Shafer, Jill Cypher, Roland Hoover, Don Starr, Ray Nichols, Jim Wilder, Chris Manson, Stan Nelson, and Lindsay Schmittle.

January 2015 – The Chesapeake Chapter, coming off of a wonderful two years under the leadership of Val Lucas, has elected new officers.

President / George Barnum | Government Publishing Office
Vice President / Casey Smith | Corcoran College of Art & Design
Treasurer / Chris Sweterlitsch
Secretary / Jackie Colebury | Library of Congress

Membership 2015 – Brian Allen, Susanne Allen, Marisol Ardon, George Barnum, Marilyn Barth, Josef Beery, Terry Belanger, Travis Boatright, Joan Boudreau, Stuart V. Bradley, Jr., Patterson Clark, Jacqueline Coleburn, Corcoran College of Art & Design, Lara Cuellar-Amrod, Daniel De Simone, Erik Delfino, Mark Dimunation, Patricia A. Duplantis, Christian Dupont, Fran Durako, Corinne Earnest, Marianne Epstein, Donald Farren, Allison Fisher, Farrar Fitzgerald, Gale B. Flax, Sara Friedman, Sara Friedman, Julie Garcia, Stephen G. Heaver, Barbara Heritage, Erica Holland, Roland A. Hoover, Clare & August Imholtz, Mary Catharine Johnsen, John & Nancy J. Johnson, Herschel Kanter, Laura Kinneberg, Kenneth Kulakowsky, Jihae Kwon, John Labovitz, Mark Samuels Lasner, David Lowden, Valerie Lucas, Jamie Mahoney, Christopher Manson, Nina W. Matheson, Sarah Matthews, Lauren  McDaniel, Douglas McElrath, Matthew McLaughlin, Erin Murray, Erin  Murray, Stan Nelson, Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher, Amy Nichols, Patricia O’Meara, Melvin Parada, Alger Parks, Kimberly Peach, William & Sylvia Peterson, John N. Pull, Gregory Robison, Lenore Rouse, Lindsay Schmittle, Ron Schwartz, Jaime Shafer, Krista Sharp, Tatiana Shukhin, William W. Sihler, Carolyn Smith, Casey Smith, Don Starr, Carolyn Hoover Sung, Betty R. Sweren, J. Christian Sweterlitsch, Manon Theroux, Kyle Van Horn, Ian Warren, William Welliver, James C. Wilder, Steven Winegardner, Kevin Wisniewski, Helena Wright, Laetitia Yeandle, Na’ama Zussman (86)


2014


December 2014Lead Graffiti was listed first by Philadelphia’s WHYY-TV’s Best of Delaware 2014 | link for more of the stor


November 2014 – The 2014 Chesapeake Chapter Michael Denker Fellows gave presentations on their printing history and book arts projects in the Rosenwald Room of the Library of Congress, Washington, DC. Introductory peakers included Mark Dimunation, Casey Smith, George Barnum. Fellows included Jihae Kwon, Travis Boatwright, Amy Nichols, Kevin Wisniewski and Sarah Matthews. | link to see the video of their talks


October 2014 – Chesapeake Chapter members Val Lucas, Casey Smith, Lara Cuellar-Amrod, George Barnum, and Josef Beery attended the 2014 APHA/Friends of Dard Hunter joint conference “Paper on the Press” in San Francisco, CA, October 16-18, 2014. George Barnum presented a paper, “Forest/Trees/Paper/Documents: Proposals for Papermaking at the Government Printing Office” at the Saturday sessions at Mills College.


July 2014The British Library held a 20-poster exhibition of work by members Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher from their 2012 and 2013 editions of Tour de Lead Graffiti, a series of posters produced in handset wood & metal type following each stage of the Tour de France. The exhibition ran through November. The included poster produced on the 2nd rest day of 2013 collaborated with a group of chapter members who used the occasion to get some ink on their hands | link for more of the story


April 2014 – During April’s New York Antiquarian Book Fair, Stan Nelson demonstrated handcasting at the Grolier Club.


2013


December 2013 – Tour de Lead Graffiti, a journal of 23 posters printed via letterpress  following the daily events of the Tour de France 2013 was written up in Sports Illustrated’s “Year in Media” issue. The posters are the work of chapter members Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher and included a variety of collaborators on a 19 of the 23 days. | for the story


November 2013 – Val Lucas of Bowerbox Press had three pieces included in the 918 Lettepress Printed Ephemera Show at the Samford University Art Gallery in Birmingham, Alabama. Ann Lemon who printed two posters at Lead Graffiti were also included in the show.


November 2013 – Daniel De Simone, curator of the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection in the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, has been named Eric Weinmann Librarian at the Folger.


October 2013 – It is with sadness that we report the death of a second longtime AHPA Chesapeake Chapter member, Mike Anderson. Mike was a type-founder, printer, and paper-maker in Maryland, and an integral part of our letterpress community.


May 2013 – It is with great sadness that we announce that Mike Denker, former president of the APHA Chesapeake Chapter, died May 22nd at Casey House in Gaithersburg. Mike was a founding member of the Chesapeake Chapter and had served the past several years as program chair. All of us who knew him will miss his abundant knowledge and tireless curiosity about printing (and many other topics) and his gentle, never-failing sense of humor.

May 2013 – George Barnum Agency Historian/Congressional Relations Specialist, Office of Congressional Relations, U.S. Government Printing Office, Jacqueline Coleburn, Rare Book Cataloging, Library of Congress, Clare Imholtz, Rare Book Collector, served as formal, invited reviewers for the Master of Arts in Art and the Book Academic Thesis Defense Presentations for the Corcoran College of Art + Design.

May 2013 – Mark Samuels Lasner, senior research fellow, University of Delaware Library, had a public conversation with Diane Waggoner, associate curator, department of photographs, National Gallery of Art.


April 2013 – Chesapeake Chapter member Mark Samuels Lasner gave us a first-hand view of the exhibition, Pre-Raphaelites and the Book, in the “From the Library” room at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Mark walked us through each piece in the exhibition, placing the work in context and connecting each to the Pre-Raphaelite story.

April 2013 – Casey Smith, Jill Cypher, and Ray Nichols attended the Codex Mexico Symposium held at the Mexican Cultural Institute in Washington, DC.


March 2013 – Stuart Bradley, Stan Nelson, and Jim Walczak were mentioned in Rich Hopkins’ new book on the history of Monotype.

March 2013 – Dan De Simone gave a talk at the Library of Congress on the History of Color Printing.


2012


March 2012 – Mary Mashburn and Steve Angelo of Typecast Press played host to a substantial group of Chesapeake Chapter members. In addition to touring Typecast Press, Mary took the group through the letterpress shop at the Maryland Institute College of Art and an exhibition of work by Globe Poster Printing Corporation held at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, all in Baltimore, MD.

March 2012 – Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher announce Week 49 of the series CC52: A Year of Personal Work by Craig Cutler, a noted New York photographer. The intent of the project was to compose and create photographs using various letterpress type; to look at the individual type, and sometimes their environments, as abstract forms rather than objects of function | online

March 2012 – Stuart Bradley has announced a new Kickstarter project, “iPad Hands-On Letterpress Workshop”. This follows the funding success of his “Midway Midget 1893 Letterpress Cards” project last year | You can see his new proposal by clicking here


February 2012 – George Barnum, Historian at the Government Printing Office, was prominently included in the feature length film Linotype: the Film which is currently being shown across the country.


January 2012 – Ray Nichols, current chapter president, served on APHA’s Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship committee tasked with evaluating this year’s applications. Other committee members were Jane Siegel of Columbia University and Hosea Baskin of Cumberland Rare Books. The winner will announced at the APHA annual meeting at the end of January.


2011


December 2011 – The APHA Fall 2011 newsletter, listed a number of events from the National Conference, Printing from the Edge, held at the University of California, San Diego, October 14 –15, 2011 connected to Chesapeake Chapter members.


November 2011 – Bill Roberts of Bottle of Smoke Press , Dover, DE, has had his Kickstarter project “9 in Nine” fully funded. The project is built around producing 9 books over the 9 days of his fall vacation. Well done.


June 2011 – Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti announced that their Kickstarter project “Tour de Lead Graffiti” has been fully funded. The project is to print 23 two-color posters, one each day, related to the stages of the 2011 Tour de France. Moments and incidents of each stage will be used as a basis for the typography and layout of each piece. You can read the whole story and keep up with the daily posters here.

June 2011 – Val Lucas, of Bowerbox Press and Chapter vice president, announced the plan to produce a letterpress calendar with fellow member letterpress printers. The calendar will go on sale in October at the National Conference being held in San Diego. Proceeds will go toward chapter events.

June 2011 – Chapter members Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti and Bill Roberts of Bottle of Smoke Press announce the completion of a softcover and deluxe hardcover book using an essay by British author Nick Hornby and the lyrics to Bruce Springsteen’s “Thunder Road.” Softcovers were signed by Nick Hornby and the hardcovers were signed by both. The project was to benefit “Ambitious about Autism” a London school for children with autism. For the Lead Graffiti story, click here


May 2011 – Long time Chesapeake Chapter member and typefounder Stan Nelson spoke to the St. Bride Foundation in London on Tuesday May 24th on A Genesis of Sorts: Printing the King James Bible. The talk celebrates 2011 as the 400th anniversary of the completion of the King James Bible, the preeminent English language translation.

May 2011 – Stuart Bradley announced that his Kickstarter project “The Midway Midgets 1893 Letterpress Cards” was fully funded at 112% of his goals. Stuart plans to finish printing the cards using copperplates of the images during the summer of 2011.


April 2011 – Helena Wright, Curator of Graphic Arts at te National Museum of American History, suggests a research project that someone might want to undertake. Last week I was doing some research in the Peter Force papers at the Library of Congress, Manuscript Reading Room. Among his bills and receipts are a number for type he acquired from the Baltimore Type Foundry, specifying number of “founts” and their names, sizes, etc. as well as costs. I was looking only in materials from the 1840s, but his career as a printer and editor extends back into the 1820s and forward into the 1860s, and there are plenty of folders of bills for the entire scope of his working life. He was a newspaper editor, sometime Mayor of Washington, and also reprinted countless documents of early American history, and he seems to have done some job printing as well. It might be possible to link his type orders to specific publications. The Peter Force collection is a rich vein waiting to be mined by historians of typography.

April 2011 – Mary Mashburn is quoted in an article on NPR Music about the recent purchase of the contents of Globe printing by the Maryland Institute College of Art. “It’s a treasure trove — it’s unbelievable,” says Mary Mashburn. “The first time you see it, you just can’t really take it all in.” Mashburn runs a small printing company called Typecast Press, and teaches printing classes at Maryland Institute College of Art — or MICA — in Baltimore. She’s also a member of Friends of Globe. She says most letterpress shops today are small boutique operations, printing invitations, stationary, and the like. But young people, her students at MICA among them, have taken an interest in the method. “To them it feels very, very old and removed as an industrial printing method, but it feels very fresh and exciting to translate from their all-digital world to something that has a real hand-craft to it,” says Mashburn. Mashburn had the idea that maybe MICA would be interested in purchasing Globe’s massive printing collection for its students. She teamed up with Gail Deery, chair of the printmaking department at MICA, to move the idea forward.

April 2011 – Ray Nichols was a judge for AIGA / Philadelphia’s student competition for the design of a cloth shopping bag to promote something positive about food. Lead Graffiti is offering a free, all day letterpress workshop to the 16 winners.


February 2011 – Greg Robison is looking for help on a research project involving the Impartial Observer, the first newspaper in the Federal City. Click here for the whole story.

February 2011 – Stuart Bradley announced his Kickstarter project “The Midway Midgets 1893 Letterpress Cards.” You can see a 2-minute video and read about his project here. As of March 3rd he was 52% funded toward his goal of $1,500. Donations will be taken until April 5th. Donations of varying amounts receive various rewards related to the project.


January 2011 – Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti attended the APHA Annual Meeting at the New York Public Library for which they also produced the meeting program that was given to all attending the meeting.

January 2011 – The Chesapeake Chapter coming off of a wonderful two years under the leadership of Mike Denker, culminating in the American Printing History Association’s national conference held in Washington, DC in October has elected new officers.

These are the new officers who will serve through 2012.

President / Ray Nichols | Lead Graffiti
Vice President / Val Lucas | Bowerbox Press
Treasurer / Gregory Robison | Peregrinus Press
Secretary / George Barnum | Government Printing Office

The Program Committee

Joan Boudreau | Smithsonian Institution
Jackie Coleburn | Library of Congress
Mike Denker | The Stoney Creek Press
Donald Farren
Mark Samuels Lasner
| University of Delaware Library
Chris Manson | Crooked Crow Press
Casey Smith | Corcoran College of Art & Design

January 2011 – Many thanks to Gregory Robison and the Nomination Committee members, Jackie Coleburn, Donald Farren and John Johnson for their work.


2010


October 2010 – The Fall issue of American Printing History Association newsletter contained a number of mentions of Chesapeake Chapter members, many related to the APHA National Conference.

October 2010 – The 2010 American Printing History Association national conference was a hotbed of member activity.

Mike Denker and Casey Smith of the Corcoran served as an exhausted co-chair for the conference and Mark Samuels Lasner was a critical component to the content development of the conference.

Roland Hoover received a lifetime achievement award from the Chesapeake Chapter.

An exhibition of letterpress work from APHA / Chesapeake Chapter members

Mike Anderson | The At Random Press
Stuart Bradley | The Railway Station Press
Jill Cypher | Lead Graffiti
Mike Denker | The Stoney Creek Press
Roland Hoover | The Pembroke Press
John & Nancy Johnson | Birdhouse Press
Mike Kaylor | Literary Press
Val Lucas | Bowerbox Press
Willard Lockwood | The Creekside Press
Chris Manson | Crooked Crow Press
Stan Nelson | The Atelier Press
Ray Nichols | Lead Graffiti
Gregory Robison | Peregrinus Press
Jim Wilder | Wild Apple Press

A Chapter panel discussion “Private Presses and the Life of Letterpress” with Roland Hoover (Pembroke Press), Ray Nichols, (Lead Graffiti), Mike Denker (Stoney Creek Press), Val Lucas (Bowerbox Press), Chris Manson (Crooked Crow Press), moderated by Gregory Robison (Peregrinus Press).

Mike Anderson (At Random Press), presented “Gutenberg: the Teacher.”

Terry Belanger (Director Emeritus, Rare Book School, University of Virginia) presented “Scrambled Egges’: The Rise and Fall of the Bibliographical Press.”

Members contributed to the three site visits that were available prior to the actual start of the conference at the National Museum of American History, Graphic Arts Collection/printing workshop, the Government Printing Office, and the Library of Congress (Rare Book Division).

Chris Manson, Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher joined together to contribute a keepsake for the Friday panel discussion at Oak Knoll Fest on Friday, October 1. Click here to see a description of the piece on the Lead Graffiti blog.


September 2010 – Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher designed and printed via letterpress an exhibition catalog for an exhibition of work by Leonard Baskin at the Delawar Art Museum.


April 2010 – Dan DeSimone lead a talk and close up examination of twenty Books of Hours from the Rosenwald Collection at the Library of Congress on Thursday, April 22. | story & photos


March 2010Nancy & John Johnson opened the Birdhouse Press to chapter members on Saturday, March 27. | story & photos


January 2010APHA Newsletter #173 included several mentions of our Chapter and its members.

Apha New England Chapter President Robert Soorian introduced the conference to the Friday afternoon’s special lecturer, Raymond Stanley (“Stan”) Nelson—Museum Specialist Emeritus in the Graphic Arts Collection, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History; proprietor of Atelier Press; and author of a forthcoming book on the typefounder’s hand mould — who gave the opening talk on “Proprietary Typefaces: Another Age of Innovation.”

Under Chapter News there was a nice discussion of the Wayzgoose held at Mike Denker‘s home and studio with a photo of Pat Manson and a mention of Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti with a description of “Delaware Style” which started as more of a joke than something to be maintained. Oh, well.


2009


November 2009The Chesapeake Chapter of the American Printing History Association held its annual meeting along with a Wayzgoose and a printing with woodtype demonstration and workshop at the home / shop of Chapter President Mike Denker.


September 2009Chapter member David Lasko of Berryville Graphics in Berryville, Virginia gave a grand tour of their hard and soft cover trade book printing capabilities. BG produces upwards of 11,000,000 trade books a month at the faciility including 3 million of the most recent Dan Brown bestseller, and a sizeable portion of each of the seven Harry Potter books (always under heavy security).


August 2009 – Jill Cypher and Ray Nichols had the opportunity to display their collection of Amos Kennedy letterpress posters at an August 21 chapter meeting showing his film “Proceed and Be Bold!”

August 2009A group, including Chesapeake Chapter members, met at the Corcoran to begin discussing plans for hosting the 2010 American Printing History Association’s national conference in Washington, D.C. Present at the meeting were Mark Samuels Lasner, Mike Denker, George Barnum, Donald Farren, Casey Smith, and Ray Nichols.


July 2009 – From the July 2009 issue of APHA’s Printing History.

Barbara Heritage authored an article, entitled “Collecting Litho Jam Jar Labels and Teaching Wood-Engraved Elephants: Rare Book School’s Printing Surfaces Collection” (based on a talk she gave at the American Printing History Association at Columbia University in October 2008), which appears in the July 2009 issue of APHA’s Printing History.

July 2009Rich Hopkins authored an article, entitled “Saving Printing History Outside the Box” which mentions chapter members Mike Anderson and Stan Nelson.

July 2009Donald Farren and August Imholtz edited a book entitled The Baltimore Bibliophies at Fifty, 1954-2004 which was reviewed


June 2009Chris Manson and Peter Bain, were participants in The Black Letter Tradition After William Morris in Fine Printing and Private Press Work at The Library of Congress on June 25th. Dan De Simone of the Library of Congress served as host. Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher provided the keepsake.

June 2009 – Jim Wilder visited some early letterpress on display in Munich and shared some photos.


May 2009 – Roland Hoover printed the 2009 Chesapeake Chapter membership roster

May 2009The Chapter welcomes three new members: Eric Delfino, Joseph Federman, and Ron Schwartz.

May 2009A number of Chapter members were listed in the spring 2009 APHA newsletter. Roland Hoover for contributing this year’s beautifully accomplished program, Mike Denker for copies of his type-specimen-style poster showing the Tuscan family of wood type, the Fellowship Committee’s report was delivered by Barbara Heritage announcing the Mark Samuels Lasner Fellowship winner, Sara Stone as an outgoing trustee, and in Chesapeake Chapter news, Dan DeSimone, Stan Nelson, Joan Boudreau, Helena Wright, and Mike Denker.

May 2009On May 2, 2009, a sizable group of chapter letterpress printers attended an open house at Bowerbox Press. The press is run by Val Lucas.


April 2009In January 2009, Barbara Heritage was one of seven graduate students who were awarded prizes for excellence in scholarship in the humanities and social sciences by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Graduate Studies at the University of Virginia. Barbara is the Assistant Director at the Rare Book School in Charlottesville, VA.

April 2009 – Stan Nelson of The Atelier Press is working with a film student from American University to produce a series of short videos on old methods of type manufacture. You can see a rough edit of our first video on YouTube. When completed this video will have additional close ups of the mould and the cast types, etc. It will be a very clear representation of centuries old type casting. Other planned segments will show type dressing, and some aspects of punchcutting. All should be available in the next month or so.

April 2009In March, Barbara Heritage presented at the Society for Textual Scholarship at New York University on the textual history of George Meredith’s The Ordeal of Richard Feverel and Feverelweb, the Web-based tool she is designing, in collaboration with programmer Carsten Clark, to compare different versions of the novel.

April 2009 – Joan Boudreau reports that the Smithsonian Institution has a new cart activity on the floor of the Museum that celebrates printing history. Jim Walczak, Stan Nelson, and Ellen McKee also helped with the set up. It uses a 3×5 Kelsey press and prints a card saying “I printed this at the Smithsonian?” and includes a space for the visitor to sign his/her name and date the card.

April 2009  – Barbara Heritage published an article, entitled “Collecting Litho Jam Jar Labels and Teaching Wood-Engraved Elephants: Rare Book School’s Printing Surfaces Collection” (based on a talk she gave at the American Printing History Association at Columbia University in October 2008), which will appear in the next issue of Printing History.

April 2009 – Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher of Lead Graffiti have added an Intertype C4 linecasting system to their studio. Their first completed project resulted in the text for a small book of poetry by Robert Day being designed and printed by Mike Kaylor of the Literary Press at Washington College, Chestertown, MD. If you’d like to read their blog entry.


March 2009The Winter 2009 APHA newsletter listed chapter news and upcoming events that included the names of chapter members Lenore Rouse, Stan Nelson, and Dan DeSimone.

March 2009 – Stan Nelson of The Atelier Press has reached the milestone of completing his 40th type mould. Type mounds are used in handcasting type. He also wrote an article about his type moulds which will run in an upcoming issue of The Printer. Photo of Stan’s type mould

March 2009 – Stan Nelson also produced recent 72-point type mould which will be used in casting experiments along with a 48 point mould for The International Museum of Printing, in Carson, California, Mark Barbour, Executive Director. He is presently cutting a 48 point, Caslon cap M punch to be used to make a matrix for that mould and as a teaching example.

March 2009Doug Burnette, a film student at American University, shot a film in Stan Nelson‘s Atelier Press on making type by hand. It will be part of his senior project, but short pieces of the footage will be posted on YouTube in the next few weeks. The production value of this film is very high and we think it will be very useful in book history programs.

March 2009 – Stuart Bradley announces that since Railway Station Press’s first workshop in December of 2004 I have taught 71 workshops with a total of 131 students. Students have come from as far away as Alaska, Hawaii, California, New Mexico, Montana, Illinois, Tennessee, Louisiana, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York and England. Letterpress printing is alive and well.

March 2009 – Joan Boudreau, Curator, Graphic Arts Collection at the Smithsonian Institution, and Stan Nelson, who had done a great deal of research on the subject before he retired, curated an exhibition at the National Museum of American History entitled “Civil War Field Printing“. | website

March 2009Helena Wright and Joan Boudreau curated an exhibition entitled Picturing Words: The Power of Book Illustration. The exhibit includes a display of printmaking matrices (engraved wood blocks, engraved copper plate, and lithographic stone) used to print the Narrative of the U.S. Exploring Expedition (1844). | website

March  2009Joan Boudreau had an article published in the January 2008 issue of the APHA Printing History Journal entitled “Publishing the U.S. Exploring Expedition: the Fruits of the Glorious Enterprise.”


February 2009 – Mike Denker had an article discussing his creative process included in the APA Journal’s February issue. | the article

February 2009A project to ‘print long’ by Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher was mentioned in the APA Journal’s February issue. | the story

February 2009A group of Chesapeake members joined with the Washington Rare Book Group and Chapter member Helena Wright on Wednesday, February 11th to visit “Picturing Words: The Power of Book Illustration” at the National Museum of American History.


January 2009 – Roland Hoover, was honored by twenty fellow chapter members and guests to celebrate his 80th birthday on Friday, January 16, 2009. | story & photos

January 2009 – Dan DeSimone, Curator of the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, talking about books on calligraphy and lettering spoke to the Chesapeake Chapter and the Washington Rare Books Group, on Thursday, January 8, 2009. | story & photos


2008


December 2008 – The Chesapeake Chapter of the American Printing History Association has elected officers to serve a two-year term starting in January 2009 and running through December 2010.

Elected to the Program Committee were


November 2008 – The newest publication from Henry Morris and his Bird & Bull Press entitled The Private Typecasters has been officially released.

The book includes the work of several Chesapeake Chapter members including Mike Anderson of The At Random Press, Stan Nelson of the The Atelier Press, Jim Walczak, and a number of color woodcuts illustrations produced by Chris Manson of the Crooked Crow Press. You can see sample pages in this story.

November 2008Two books printed by Jim Wilder, Wild Apple Press, are in the current Boston College Burns Library exhibit, ‘Sixty Years of the Cuala Press: A Collaboration of the Yeats family and Mollie Gill,’ which opened on October 23.

November 2008A pamphlet printed via letterpress by Jim Wilder, Wild Apple Press, using Colm O Lochlainn’s 1938 Colum Cille Irish character type is shown on the National Print Museum’s Reference Library website page. The Museum is in Dublin, Ireland. Click here to see how pleasantly Goudy’s Deepdene [designed 1927] and O Lochlainn’s Colum Cille [1938] typefaces worked together on the cover of the pamphlet.


October 2008 – Chapter President Michael Denker produced a nice piece for the APA that is worth a mention in member’s news.

I am a letterpress printer with a special love for 19th century wood type. I am always looking for a reason to print since printing is an avocation. (I am a builder during the week.) I am also always looking for reasons to display my collection of wood type. Recently Antioch College, my Alma Matter, has been struggling to survive and reinvent itself, as it has done several times in its history. I belong to a national printer’s sharing group called the Amalgamated Printers Association. One of the members promised to send out a tube big enough to handle posters. I had been working, somewhat without direction, on a poster displaying the Tuscan family of wood type. All of these factors came together in this poster dedicated to Antioch College. This poster is also the first item I have printed on a 1949 Vandercook 25-25 proof press, which I had been restoring.

October 2008 – Jim Walczak, Sycamore Press and Typefoundry, made a second casting of a 48 point ink ball keepsake of foundry type that was included in the welcome kits provided to all attendees at the APHA national conference held October 4th and 5th in New York City. The first casting was forThanks to all the above mentioned persons, I was able to cast the ornament as
the 2006 Conference of The American Typecasting Fellowship.

October 2008 – Ray Nichols and Jill Cypher produced a keepsake that was given to all attendees at the APHA national conference held October 4th and 5th in New York City. You can see it here as the second image from the top.


August 2008 – Jackie Coleburn, chapter member and children’s book cataloger, and Sybille Jaguch, Director of the Children’s Literature Center, hosted an APHA / Chesapeake Chapter member’s look at American children’s books of the 18th and 19th centuries, from Isaiah Thomas to Luis Prang, from letterpress type & wood engravings to stone lithography at the Jefferson building of the Library of Congress.


June 2008 – Michael Denker added a circa 1876 R. Hoe iron handpress to his studio.

June 2008 – Jill Cypher and Ray Nichols took a week-long class at the Rare Book School at the University of Virginia entitled Typography, Lettering and Calligraphy: 1830 – 2000 taught by type historian James Mosley (typefoundry.blogspot.com). The class also included a visit with Sumner Stone, formerly typography director at Adobe. We really encourage the class to APHA members.

June 2008 – Jill Cypher and Ray Nichols added a circa 1890 Albion iron handpress to their studio.


April 2008 – Mike Anderson donated the type and form of his 1733 Poor Richard Almanack page to the newly opened Newseum on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington DC.

April 2008 – Daniel De Simone was mentioned in the April 11, 2008 issue of the Washington Post as having traveled to France to purchase some of the volumes needed to complete Thomas Jefferson’s Library of Congress collection.


March 2008 – Roland Hoover printed a wonderful chapter keepsake of the current 50 membership listing that has been distributed to all in the group.


February 2008 – Ray Nichols was written up in the William Morris Society newsletter related to a visit to a Morris-inspired house which was the focus of a Morris Society meeting.

February 2008 – Chris Manson, proprietor of Crooked Crow Press, in Rockville, Maryland was written up in Vanderblog about his converting of his Universal III Power Vandercook to a hand-cranked press. He had a retired machinist make a collar extension to fit onto the bearing stub on the impression cylinder (photo 3). Onto this new bearing stub Chris attached a crank from a large Poco proof press. Note the notch that had to be cut out of the handle arm (photo 5). Currently, a set screw is the only means of holding the position of the crank collar on the new bearing stub.


January 2008 – Mike Denker, Chapter president, attended the National APHA Annual meeting at the New York Public Library in New York City on Saturday, January 26, 2008.

January 2008 – APHA / Chesapeake Chapter members Roland Hoover, Chris Manson, & Michael Denker taught a Pyramid Atlantic workshop entitled “Letterpress Solutions.”


2007


December 2007 – Member Stan Nelson relayed this story to Stephen Saxe.

“At the end of May, I was flown to London by the BBC to participate in the filming of a television program on Gutenbeg’s invention of printing with moveable type. This show, called ‘The Machine that Made Us’, focuses on efforts to better understand just what Gutenberg actually invented, with particular attention on the press. I showed the host of the show, the movie actor Stephen Fry [V is for Vendetta and the narrator for all of the Harry Potter films], traditional techniques of punchcutting and typecasting. Stephen (who is a descendent of the famous typefounders Fry) proved to be an apt pupil, and through the magic of film they cut a punch, struck a matrix, and cast copies of Gutenberg’s lower-case p which then went into a forme of Theo Rehak’s B-42 Bible type, set by Kitty Maryatt of Scripps College. This re-setting of a page of the Gutenberg Bible was printed on an experimental wooden press made by Alan May. This program will air sometime in 2008.

After filming in England, I traveled to Parma, Italy, with James Mosley to survey the type moulds of Giambatista Bodoni, the famous 18th century typographer. I organized the collection of moulds by size, and sorted out some misplaced pieces. During the second work day, I cast type from one of Bodoni’s original moulds, using a matrix from the appropriate set of mats. As expected, the fine lines of Bodoni’s design were demanding and hard to cast. Complicating matters, it was not practical to shake the mould, which is essential with such designs if one is to get a sharp face on the type. There is unbelievable material in this collection. Working with it, however briefly, was a wonderful experience that must be repeated — soon.”

December 2007 – Members Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher have finished a year-long project designing the book Histories of Newark 1758-2008, celebrating the 250th anniversary of Newark, Delaware, the town they live in. The final book was 288 pages, hard cover with two foil stampings, full dust jacket, printed as duotones throughout the book, contains 150,000 words, 439 photos related to the town’s history and a band of 1,409 photos of full length current citizen (7 picas tall) that runs across every page of the book.


November 2007 – Members Ray Nichols & Jill Cypher had five pieces of their letterpress work included in the book New Vintage Type by Steven Heller & Gail Anderson published in 2007.

November 2007 – APHA / Chesapeake Chapter members participated in a members exhibition at the May Gallery, Mullen Library at the Catholc University of America in Washington, D.C. from November 5th – December 28th. Included were


October 2007 – On Saturday, October 6, a group of APHA members gathered in New Castle, Delaware to visit Oak Knoll Books and Oak Knoll Fest XIV.

October 2007 – Jill Cypher & Ray Nichols have installed an 1869 iron handpress in their new studio.


September 2007 – Chesapeake Chapter members Lenore Rouse and Ray Nichols made a phield trip to Jericho, Long Island on Saturday, September 15 to pick up a Pearl Press for The Catholic University of America. The press has a great story about its history and the printing experiences of 12-year old Bernie Willett who first started printing with the press. APHA / Chesapeake welcomes CUA to the hands-on world of letterpress.

September 2007 – Mike Anderson had an article entitled “Thoughts on Making Paper” about his process for handmaking his own paper in the September issue of the Galley Gab.


August 2007 – Several APHA / Chesapeake Chapter members along with the William Morris Society gathered at the home of artist and landscape architect, Judy Hanks-Henn, for a tour of her William Morris-influenced home.

August 2007 – Wallflowers Press has been looking for an iron handpress to serve as a centerpiece for their new studio. Well, they found it.

August 2007 – Railway Station Press and APHA member Stuart Bradley was mentioned in the August issue of Virginia Living Magazine on page 19, along with three other letterpress printers.

August 2007 – Ray Nichols was the art director on Food Always Brings People Together: Recipes, Poems and Stories from the New London Road Community, Newark, Delaware, abook was produced through a Material Culture Studies seminar taught by Bernard Herman and his class who did the research and design. The book received a Gold Medal from International Print & Mailing (IMPA).

August 2007 – Mike Anderson had an article entitled “Lockup. Furniture? Quoins? HA! PLASTER OF PARIS!” about locking up odd arrangements of type in a chase in the August issue of the Galley Gab.

August 2007 – Mike Anderson had an article entitled “‘Baby’ Has Arrived!” about his new tabletop Albion in the August issue of the Galley Gab.


July 2007 – Jill Cypher and Ray Nichols have produced their first major commercial printing project out of their newly formed, Wallflowers Press. The job was total of 6,000 menus for Johnny Utah’s which opened up just off Rockefeller Center in New York City. All handcranked on a Vandercook in 3 colors. 42 hours of PRINTING time.


June 2007 – Mike Anderson had an article entitled “Making Your Own Polymer Plates” as a companion article to Stuart Bradley‘s in the June issue of the Galley Gab.

June 2007 – Stuart Bradley had an article entitled “Building your ultraviolet contact box” as a companion article to Mike Anderson‘s in the June issue of the Galley Gab.


May 2007 – Stuart Bradley had an article entitled “Who defines ‘proper techniques’ when teaching letterpress?” in the May issue of the Galley Gab.

May 2007 – Mike Anderson had a book review for “A Field Guide to North American Hand Press-
es and Their Manufacturers” by Robert Oldham in the May issue of the Galley Gab.

May 2007 – Ray Nichols had an opinion included in the article entitled “Is eBay Good or Bad for Letterpress?” in the May issue of the Galley Gab.

May 2007 – Lit Press Heidelberg press move – Mike Kaylor, Ray Nichols, and Emma, one of Mike’s students at Washington College, moved a Heidelberg Windmill to make more room in Mike’s Lit Press to allow for his desired 12 students per class to work a bit easier.


April 2007 – Jim Wilder had letterpress work exhibited at Yale University’s Beinecke Rare Books and Manuscripts Library during April and May.

April 2007 – Mike Anderson had an article entitled “Casting the type” which was part 3 of a 3-part series in the April issue of the Galley Gab.

April 2007 – Ray Nichols had a photograph of Michael Twyman talking with Peter Koch from the National Annual meeting published in the APHA spring newsletter along with several mentions of chapter events that have been going on.


March 2007 – Mike Anderson had an article entitled “Making the Matrices” which was part 2 of a 3-part series in the April issue of the Galley Gab.

March 2007 – Stuart Bradley was included in an article entitled “Teaching Letterpress” in the March issue of the Galley Gab.

March 2007 – Stuart Bradley of Railway Station Press will be teaching a letterpress class at Union Printmakers Atelier, Washington, D.C.


February 2007 – Mike Anderson had an article entitled “Designing the typeface” which was part 1 of a 3-part series in the April issue of the Galley Gab.


January 2007 – Sara Stone, Jill Cypher and Ray Nichols represented the Chesapeake chapter at the APHA National Annual Meeting in New York City on Saturday, January 27, 2007.


2006


December 2006 – Mike Anderson, Chesapeake chapter member, presented an overview of his work involved in the production of a metal type version of B-36, the type used in the 36-line Gutenberg Bible and several S… at the December 9 chapter meeting.

December 2006 – Chris Manson, Chesapeake chapter member, presented an overview of his ongoing typographic experiments with any version of blackletter that he can get his hands on at the December 9 chapter meeting. With his background as a printmaker he mixes his own linoleum cuts with Fractur, Textura, and Bastarda which are painstakingly kerned to bring out the best of the metal type.

December 2006 – Stan Nelson, Chesapeake chapter member, presented an update of his work with… at the December 9 chapter meeting.

December 2006 – Jill Cypher and Ray Nichols announced that they will be designing a 300-page book on the history of Newark, Delaware which will have a chapter devoted to the Press of Kells, a longtime press during the early and middle 1900s run by C. Everitt Johnson. A highlight of the book is a 1″ high strip of photos of more than 3,700 ‘citizens of Newark” that will run across every page in the book.