⬆ During the summer of 2023 Lead Graffiti ran our Meander Book workshop with fellow Upper Chesapeake Book Arts members. The unifying idea was to start all statements with “In my humble opinion…” but use the text message letters IMHO (a lot of bang for the buck, so to speak), and then finish the statement. The image above shows the finished broadside that will be folded and torn to produce a hard-back accordion book.
This was the first time we allowed people who wanted to just design the page digitally and then have photopolymer plates made. This created a new wrinkle which allowed us to print one of the pages upside down mistakenly (it made sense when we positioned it for the first color). We won’t say which one.
Several members opted to hand set their page with wood & metal type, and a couple of people did a hybrid version combining handset with photopolymer. Thinking 2 heads are better than 1 a number of people chose to work in teams, while others decided to go it commando style.
Pages in the photo have been rotated to make the readability better.
The lines and contributors were
In Our Humble Opinion “a little kindness will not kill u” - Rebecca Johnson Melvin, Doris Miklitz
IMHO 2 beers are better than 1 - Anne Hessel
IMHO Brussels Sprouts R 144 - Carol Maurer
It has never been more important to defend copyright - Mark & Cynthia Batty
IMHO humble opinions have gone the way of album covers - Ray Nichols
IMHO there’s nothing cooler than breathing under water - Caroline Coolidge Brown
IMHO that’s not my type - Deborah Arnold & RD Burton
IMHO dancing is an underrated form of therapy - Betsy Molina Mortenson
IMHO it is perfectly normal to keep company with a dozen cats - Deb Mackie
IMHO every which way is symmetrical - Martha Carothers, Bruce Bigatel
IMHO type is more fun to play with than to spel wiht! - Jill Cypher
IMHO life is too short to not sing out Loud! - Stephanie Isenberg
IMHO this page iz outta order - Monique Benesvy, Chuck Dressner
IMHO books are magical - Michelle Tilford
We allowed a month for the design and production of the lockups or preparation for plates. We made one order for the plates and glued them up to on oak blocks bring their height to the required 0.918” for printing. Our July meeting was devoted to printing and assembling the covers.
Doris Miklitz and Jill Cypher formed the color committee and came up with the Salmon and Steel Blue ink combo.
Our August meeting will be spent taking the group through the folding and tearing steps to assemble 3 books for each participant.