One question that was frequently asked last year was what the deadline was for getting items in the bundle each month. When I inherited the role last January, we just continued sharing the inherited deadline of the 10th of each month without thinking much about it. The submission deadline isn’t spelled out in the bylaws, and, from what I have been able to ascertain, that inherited deadline of the 10th evolved from the section that says the mailer is responsible for “normally mailing the bundles between the 10th and 15th day of each month.” The problem is that the 10th is actually the opening window for the mailer’s deadline to send out the bundles, but it doesn’t take into account the work that still must be done after each member’s packet of 155 items is received. While we try to collate the items all month long as they arrive, there is always a significant stack to work through when it comes time to stuffing and labeling the envelopes.

Even with the help of friends, this means we have to carve a chunk of time from the weekend to complete the bundle assembly, which has meant that when the 10th landed early in the week, we had to wait until the following weekend for our “bundle stuffing party.” Yet still we had people calling and emailing on the 10th asking how much wiggle room they had to get items to us before we packed the bundles. Several times this meant we had things arriving on the Saturday morning or, more often, the Monday following when the bundles were packed.

The truth is the only truly hard deadline is for those members who neglect contributing their minimum four letterpress items to the bundle until November and December (remember you can only contribute 2 items to the December bundle). Any other month late, or very early, items simply go into the next month’s bundle and all rolls on. (Calendar, Treasure Gems, and Tube bundle submissions do not go to the mailer and each have their own hard deadlines.)

This year we will be packing and sealing the bundles on the weekend so that they can be mailed between the bylaw specified 10th and 15th of the month. Of course, getting your items printed and sent in early is highly preferable, and the easiest thing is to say that the deadline to assure items go out is the beginning of each month. For those who thrive on the adrenaline rush of seeing just how late they can send items to us and still have them arrive in time for the bundle, here are the actual dates for the 2022 weekend mailer bundle stuffing parties.

Your item(s) must be received prior to these dates, or they will be sent out in the following month’s bundle. Remember that postal services have, and will likely continue, to take longer than in previous years. There is plenty of work for the mailer (and team) to get all your wonderful items out each month; please don’t add your procrastination to their bundle of tasks in 2022.

Why not resolve in 2022 to get your 4 prints in early, so that you have time to leisurely print and share a few more items later in the year?

Your 2022 APA Mailer,
– TH Groves

Ok, per request, I have added a short form for just adding your Social Media Handles/IDs.  Please use this form only if you are sure all your current directory information is accurate and up to date…..

The form can be found listed on the left sidebar menu or directly at this link:

Update Your Social Media Handles/IDs Only…

I have just updated the online member update form to also include fields for entering your Social Media Handles/IDs for InstaGram, Twitter & Facebook if you wish to have them included in a future edition of the Member’s Directory.

I have not yet decided on how I will present this information in the directory. I am thinking either as added lines in everyone’s basic information in the first section, or as a whole new section listing just social media Handles/IDs for members that have included that information for the directory.

You can find the link in the left sidebar or you can just CLICK HERE to go directly to the form.

The bundles for April and May were both filled with some great and diverse letterpress printing. The calligrapher in me really liked the April envelope with the bold print and hand lettered “Easter”… A great beginning to the treasures inside.

Click on any image for a larger view

1. Jessica Spring, Springtide Press #738: April Spring Tidings Postcard. Jessica is one of the masters of letterpress ornaments, and playful ornamental designs. I love everything she creates and learn from her design and color esthetics. Now to think of who to mail the card to…
2. John Horn, Shooting Star Press #553: Small Booklets: The Raven [April] & I Have a Dream [May]. John is one of our master letterpress printers and his small book series, linotype-set and printed on his C&P, reflect his precision and skill. The booklets are not overly designed but the typography is spot-on in a Bruce Rogers-way, allowing the text to reach the reader uninterrupted. And undertaking the task of printing a book rather than single sheet small ephemera is to be recognized, especially when printed so well! And re-printing Martin Luther King’s iconic speech in its entirety is timely and very welcome. Thank you, John.
3. Heather Hale, Hale Press #829: The April Jim Daggs Refrigerator Award for her Life’s Journey quote. Absolutely believe in the full experience of life’s journey! Several people come to mind with this quote, and leave me with a smile knowing some details of their journey, and one is my friend Dave Peat! Heather, excellent choice of the dingbat and the pattern ornament in the background. Beautiful!
4. Larry Johnson, Pelican Type Foundry #982: His Prop Card. The filigree design on the caps is well suited to the line-cut of the pelican. Simple but very nicely designed with great type and well printed on a paper that reminds me of the clouds at the ocean… and using movable metal type that you cast yourself is always a winner! Look at his prop card, visit his website, order some type and ornaments and print for the bundle.
5. And finally, Joyce Gabriel #961: The May Jim Daggs Refrigerator Award for her coaster Ink, Drink & Press On! Got to love ornaments, blue ink and ampersands, especially on a coaster. Happens to also be one of the mottos of my printing shop. Not sure how long this coaster will last on my refrigerator, though!

Keep up the great printing, typography and design, keep the bundles full and look forward to seeing many of you in August at the Haverhill Wayzgoose at the MOP.

Mark Barbour
2021 APA President
714-529-1832

Before delving into the Collective, I want to thank a few people (actually everyone) that I met when I randomly showed up at the Wayzgoose in St. Louis in 2016. I did not know anyone, but you were a most welcoming and encouraging group. So, in no particular order, thanks to: John Horn, Jason Wedekind, Adam and Tammy Winn, Jeff Waldvogel, Stephanie Carpenter, Mark Barbour, and Scott Moore . . . you all kindled the fire of my smoldering, creative soul at the Wayzgoose. Thanks for the addiction.

The 2020 APA Collective. In June of 2020, I sent to the APA membership a Call for Interest to contribute to a poster collective. Nothing unusual there, as poster collectives and exchanges are common within letterpress communities everywhere. The challenge was to create something unique—something that would allow me to engage with contributors throughout the duration of the collective calendar and not just at the beginning and the end.

At the time, I was at the end of curating another poster collective within a Texas-based letterpress community that featured a border set I acquired in the Grisenti Auction at the 2018 Denver Retro’goose. I organized that Collective to run in a relay format where the Grisenti (Wm. H. Page, ca. 1880) border set traveled across the state from studio to studio. It ran so well with the eleven Texas studios who participated that I decided to utilize the same format for the APA Poster Collective.

The logistics of three relays running at the same across the United States required some thought and planning on the front end, specifically identifying a border font that I had enough sorts in to split across the three regions. Thankfully, I had a large font of Hamilton’s Minneola Wood Border (ca. 1905). Minneola proved to be an ideal border, lending itself to a seemingly unlimited application in illustrative and decorative design.

The Scope of Work for the APA collective included: using an English Idiom as the theme prompt; using, at a minimum, the common required sort from the Minneola Wood Border; and adhering to the tone and dimensional outlines. Each of the contributors combined the required elements from the Scope of Work with assets in their own studios to create their posters. Even with the common sort from the border, there were no repeated idioms or creative concepts duplicated. The contributors embraced a broad range of approaches and creative interpretations.

I initially estimated fifteen APA members might be interested in this collaborative, but when the interest grew, I got a little nervous. I thought a relay with two-dozen legs would take way too long to finish, threatening to lose momentum. So, instead of a single relay, I came up with the idea for three separate relays that would run concurrently across the United States geographically. Crazy, I know, but the relays ran wonderfully thanks to the disciplined and creative APA members who participated. I cannot thank you enough.

The resulting Collective is a wonderful portfolio of creativity and craft. The plans are for the Collective to be displayed at the 2021 MOP Wayzgoose in August where there will be a Collective auctioned off for the benefit of the APA! Hope to see you there.

— About the Minneola Wood Border used in the Collective: The Hamilton Mfg Co. produced the Minneola Wood Border as it was advertised in a 16-page circular series Specimens of Hamilton’s Wood Type Cut on End-grain Rock Maple published (likely) early in 1905, but no earlier than December 9, 1904. 
Additionally, though it is not clear what connection this border design may have to its name, Minneola is a town in eastern Minnesota, whose name is derived from the Dakota language. Minneola is also the name given to a hybrid cross between a Dancy tangerine and a Duncan grapefruit, developed in the early 1930s. According to Google’s n-gram, the word hit its peak usage in English in 1907.
— as dated by wood-type researcher Professor David Shields