Full listing of upcomings for 2025

Tuesday, January 28, 9 am—1 pm, and Wednesday, January 29, 1 pm—5 pm. Paste paper workshop at Lead Graffiti, 120A Sandy Drive. $60.00.

Saturday, January 25 / 10 am - noon. Free Letterpress-Intensive Studio tour. Lead Graffiti is also actively seeking subscribers to their maker space for letterpress printing and bookmaking. Click here for a more thorough explanation of subscription options. There is no cost for the tour. Click here to register to help us know what to expect.

Lead Graffiti had an exhibition entitled “Printing slowly & patiently via letterpress,” sponsored by the Newark Arts Alliance, showcasing their letterpress and bookmaking work. December 31 through January 17, 2025.

September 18, 6:30. Jill Cypher at Lead Graffiti led a Concertina Spine Guard workshop. The results are shown above.

September 18 / History of Books lectures / An afternoon of book history lectures about incunabula, Jesuit manuscripts and historical newspapers and the challenges book historians face.

From the end of September to mid-November, Caroline Brown taught printmaking at The Delaware Art Museum, offering as much instruction or independent work as each student wanted. She offered options for drypoint intaglio, monoprints, or linoleum relief, all using her big, wonderful Charles Brand press.

Through October 1 / Newark Arts Alliance call for Proposals! Solo or Group Show in 2025. Lead Graffiti, chosen as Newark, Delaware’s favorite artist studio, was chosen as the first NAA exhibition of 2025.

October 4 - 5 / Newark Arts Alliance drop-off for entries to its Visual Messages: Socially Engaged Art exhibition. The exhibition runs from October 8 – November 22

Lead Graffiti had 3 pieces accepted to the exhibition—”Liar, Liar.” a Coptic stitched (at the time of the exhibition, was about 2/3rds finished with a spine length of about 30”, ”No more War. No more Putin,” letterpress broadside, and a dozen political postcards printed via letterpress in conjunction with Indivisible Newark,

Meetings are typically on the 3rd Wednesday of the month,
6:30, at Lead Graffiti (120A Sandy Drive, Newark, DE)

Lead Graffiti. Printing slowly & patiently via letterpress exhibition
Newark Arts Alliance

UCBA group participation book project / “Architecture”

Photos to come

Introductory long stitch workshop May 15, 2024

Jill Cypher led a workshop to strengthen the bookmaking skills of newer members. The results are below. Many of the members used paste papers produced in an earlier workshop.

This page attempts to document member-related information related to Upper Chesapeake Book Arts.

I will list things you tell me or that I find out. I’ll include them with the most recent at the top. Email me anything you feel MIGHT benefit our group. Don’t be shy and if you do something interesting, brag a little. If you to include an image, send a .jpg with your text. At this time, if someone is reading Lead Graffiti’s website they cannot link directly to this page. You have to know the URL. Add “/ucba” to the end of Lead Graffiti’s main URL to get to this page. Be sure to bookmark it.

A member’s page will also list email addresses, phone numbers, Instagram, and other social media links members want to share. Again, this page is not directly addressable within the Lead Graffiti website. You have to know the URL. Here is the link to the form to add or change your information.

RD Burton’s book “Gone” accepted in the Pulp Book and Paper Arts Exhibition

My artist book “Gone” has been accepted into the Pulp: Book and Paper Arts exhibition at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts in Sebastopol, California. The exhibition will be on display from April 4 to May 5, 2024. The book is a laser-printed five-panel gatefold tunnel book. The panels are hand-cut and then hand-assembled. The altered images are from photos I took of an abandoned farmhouse in Cecil County, Maryland.

“Abandoned and decaying houses can be found throughout rural America. The rooms are empty with no signs of human life. The people who lived, slept, and dreamed within the walls are gone and forgotten, along with their worries, troubles, happiness, and hopes. The house is all that is left. Silence alone remains.”

Thank you to Rebecca Johnson Melvin for the Special Collections talk

On Wednesday, April 17, a dozen or so of us went to Special Collections at the University of Delaware Library for our monthly meeting. Rebecca had pulled about 15 books focused on binding techniques for us to hold and look at up close. Playing with Lead Graffiti’s laser cutter, we took an image from one of the books (which looks like a librarian) and etched it onto a piece of slate. The line at the bottom says, “Friends. Librarians. Books. Perfect.”

Forgot to take photos of the whole space, but here was a cool Julie Chen book on display.

Richard Burton’s “Gone” was accepted into the Pulp: Book and Paper Arts exhibition at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts in Sebastopol, California

My artist book “Gone” has been accepted into the Pulp: Book and Paper Arts exhibition at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts in Sebastopol, California. The exhibition was displayed from April 4 to May 5, 2024. The book is a laser-printed five-panel gatefold tunnel book. The panels are hand-cut and then hand-assembled. The altered images are from photos I took of an abandoned farmhouse in Cecil County, Maryland.

The Barnes, Alexey Brodovitch, & the Free Library

Six members (Chuck, Monique, Carol, Anne, Jill, and Ray) visited the Alexey Brooovitch exhibition at the Barnes. Brodovitch (1898 – 1971) was a Russian-American photographer, designer, and instructor most famous for his art direction of the fashion magazine Harper's Bazaar from 1934 to 1958. We stopped in the Free Library and got a tour of their Special Collections, along with lunch in the Italian Market. Ray took the opportunity to take a new double self-portrait of himself and Jill, which was fun.

Zoems / 2024

Lead Graffiti is working on a fine press book of poems written by their 12-year-old granddaughter, Zoe, who was 9 when she wrote the poems. The video shows Zoe printing the title page on a Vandercook SP15. The first movement of the cylinder is to roll a layer of ink on the type. The second movement rinks the type and prints the sheet.

March monthly meeting: Caroline Brown’s studio

2nd Library of Congress field trip

Eric Frazier showed the group Galileo’s Starry Messenger. Breathtaking to be in the same space.

Library of Congress field trip

UCBA is sponsoring a field trip to the Library of Congress, Washington, DC, to visit the Rare Books department. A request for about a dozen books for the group to review has been requested. The general agenda is to travel by train from Perryville, MD, eat lunch, pick up Rare Book Reader’s Cards, visit Rare Books, walk down the mall to the Natural History Museum to see a “Nature of the Book” display, and return. The carousel of images below provides a sense of the atmosphere.
February 1, 2024

Deborah Arnold & Jill Cypher / “the Vase”

Deborah Arnold and Jill Cypher collaborated on a poetry chapbook, “The VASE,” to accompany the deluxe clamshell edition of “Bouquet” (see that entry below). Deborah wrote the poem, and Jill produced a paste-paper image to accompany it. The clamshell is currently in production.
January 28, 2024.

Bookmaking workshops from Lead Graffiti

Lead Graffiti is offering a series of bookmaking-related workshops, mainly for UCBA members. Workshops include Paste Paper, Coptic Stitch, and Clamshell.
January 15, 2024

Chesapeake Chapter of APHA calendar

Casey Smith, Jill Cypher, Ray Nichols, & Carol Maurer, all members of the Chesapeake Chapter of APHA, produced a page of their annual calendar via letterpress. Click on the image below to cycle through the images in the same order as the names above.
September 1, 2023

RD Burton / Finalist for Best Artist Book

Both of RD Burton’s entries into the upcoming exhibition at Wonderland Books in Cleveland Heights, Ohio are finalists in their Meggendorfer Prize for Best Artist Book.
August 1, 2023

UCBA / Meander Book

Eighteen members of Upper Chesapeake Book Arts is printing and binding a meander book project through Lead Graffiti. Here are the contributors. The pages are not in the same order as in the book.
July 28, 2023.

Stephanie Isenberg / IMHO life is too short to not sing out loud!
Monique Benesvy & Chuck Dressner / IMHO this pages iz outta order
Michelle Tilford / IMHO books are magical
Betsy Molina Mortensen / IMHO dancing is an underrated form of therapy
Deb Mackie / IMHO it is perfectly normal to keep company with a dozen cats
Martha Carothers / Bruce Bigatelle / IMHO every which way is symmetrical
Jill Cypher / IMHO Type is more fu to play wilh than spel with!
Mark & Cynthia Batty / IMHO it has never been more important to defend copyright
Ray Nichols / IMHO humble opinions have gone the way of album covers
Caroline Coolidge Brown / IMHO there’s nothing cooler than creating under water
Deborah Arnold / RD Burton / ThaT’s noT my Type IMHO (the capitals name the typeface)
Doris Militz / Rebecca Johnson Melvin / IO(our)HO a little kindness will not kill us
Anne Hessel / IMHO 2 beers are better than 1
Carol Maurer / IMHO Brussels Sprouts R 144 (think mathematically)
Jill Cypher / Cover / colophon / spine
Colophon on inside back cover

Deborah Arnold & Jill Cypher / “bouquet”

Deborah Arnold and Jill Cypher collaborated on a book entitled “bouquet.” Deborah wrote the poems, and Jill produced paste paper images to accompany each poem. They are working on a clamshell box and an additional piece with a poem and paste paper partner. This will essentially turn any purchased book into a deluxe copy.
July 1, 2023.

Elkton exhibition

Could you give me some details on the exhibition, who showed it, the date, etc? Anyone take any photos?

“Opposites”

Fourteen members of UCBA collaborated on a book based on the theme of “opposites.” Each contributor produced a spread, and the book was bound in a flutter book format. The text was printed via letterpress. Click here for a YouTube page-turning video and each participant's explanatory voiceover.

Contributors included Deborah Arnold, Betsy Molina Mortenson, Casey Smith, Jill Cypher, Jenny Davies-Reazor, Cynthia & Mark Batty, Patti Paulus, Deb Mackie, Carol Maurer, Caroline Coolidge Brown, Sarah Dressler, Rebecca Johnson Melvin, RD Burton, & Ray Nichols.
June 1, 2023