STOPPING TIME:
A Fairy Tale for the Modern Day
An Online Gallery Talk
with Salzberg Resident
Maria Surducan

Online via JCBA Zoom Webinar
Live from Romania!
Wednesday September 3, 2025
at 3 PM Eastern
Registration is required.

Maria Surducan began her Salzberg Residency with JCBA in 2023, and her creative project for the residency, a limited edition pop-up book called Timemongers, is done. We'll soon be getting our copy here at the Jaffe Collection, and Maria will soon be teaching an online workshop from her studios in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, to complete her residency. Maria will be talking about her creative project, and all that went into its creation, in this online gallery talk that will be broadcast live from her studios. Timemongers was recently nominated in the Book category for Romania's Local Design Awards; should it win, the book will move on next to the European competition. The gallery talk will be in English.

Register here:
https://fau-edu.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_UGRUH4lMSP6ovfzgytzWBA

Maria Surducan is not your traditional book artist. She is an illustrator and comic book author in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Images, she says, are an imprecise way of translating reality and this, in a way, makes them more accurate than words. She is particularly drawn to comics as a storytelling tool, and has published several graphic albums in French, Romanian, and Hungarian. Her favorite subjects are Eastern European myths and folk tales and she is fascinated by finding ways to reshape them for new generations. Maria is a recipient of the 2020 Alfabéta Award from the Hungarian Comics Association, the 2021 Vladimir Colin SF–Fantasy Award, and the 2021 Comic Art Europe grant and residency.

Can't make it to the live webinar? Don't worry: We will record the talk and load the video to the JCBA Vimeo Channel once video is available.

TYPE HIGH DAY

Also known as Letterpress Appreciation Day
14th Annual Open House
Thursday September 18
Noon to 6 PM
In-House at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts Printshop
Library Third Floor East, Suite 350

During our open house come make a free souvenir print that we've designed especially for the occasion. You'll be printing either on our 1890 Wesel Iron Handpress or on one of our vintage 1940s Vandercook Proof Presses (we've yet to determine which press we will use) and YOU will be the printer. You'll print a broadside (a poster, basically) set by hand from JCBA's collection of historic wood and metal types while we give you a brief introductory immersion into the fascinating and venerable craft of printing. The print is yours to keep and printing it will teach you the difference between clicking PRINT and actually PRINTING.

There will be letterpress-printed things available for purchase (prints, cards, books).

Join us in the Jaffe Book Arts Gallery for a 3 PM screening of Proceed & Be Bold!, the 2008 documentary by director Laura Zinger about the life and work of letterpress printer Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr. and his socially and politically charged works of art.

PROCEED AND BE BOLD!

Starring Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr.
Thursday September 18, 2025
3 PM in JCBA's Book Arts Gallery
at Florida Atlantic’s Wimberly Library 3rd Floor East
Admission is free; donations are welcome.

90 minutes / 2008 / Directed by Laura Zinger / Brown Finch Films

We've screened this film before, but it's worth revisiting now. As inspirational as it is comical, Proceed and Be Bold! documents the life of Amos Paul Kennedy, Jr, a letterpress artist (just don't let him hear you say that) who lives out the secret American Dream of rejecting the establishment and living his art as his life. Whether it's challenging racial assumptions by calling himself a "humble negro printer," or by bringing art to the masses with his affordable, unpretentious posters of wisdom, Kennedy's life as an artist is both intriguing and exhilarating. Never has a man in overalls been such an unforgettable example of a life lived fully, honestly, and without regret. Documentary; adult language. (For this film announcement slide, we've borrowed an image from the 2023 James Madison University exhibition of APK Jr.'s works.)

Real Mail Fridays

Every Friday (unless we have to cancel for other virtual events)
2 to 5 PM Eastern
From Wherever You Are, via Zoom

ZOOM LINK & PASSWORD

Here is the link and password for our virtual Real Mail Fridays letter writing socials:
https://fau-edu.zoom.us/j/82597798220?pwd=cmVUbWYyQjJGUVVialJHWjhFdTZVdz09

(And in case you need it, the Meeting ID is 825 9779 8220 and the passcode is Kh51f6.)

Dear Friends,

We've built such a wonderful global community since we began beaming Real Mail Fridays out to the world through our weekly online JCBA Zoom socials, and it is truly humbling and heartwarming to see friends join us each week and new folks, too, from all corners of this vast planet. In that spirit, we have no plans to end our weekly Zoom version of Real Mali Fridays.

We did make a valiant effort at resuming in-house Real Mail Friday sessions since December 2023, and all through 2024, but the reality is that very few people attended these sessions in-house (we've had 5 at the most, and only 1 person in October), and the set-up for these monthly events is no small task. Meanwhile, the Zoom version of Real Mail Fridays continues to be very popular. So, what's gone wrong with the in-house version? We don't think the concept is so bad, but the problem could very well be a simple marketing one. With that in mind, here's our new plan:

We have suspended in-house Real Mail Fridays, effective now (November 2024). We are looking into creating a brand-new in-house social that will be monthly and that will be distinct from Real Mail Fridays. A whole different name, and a whole different concept––not a letter writing social, but one that is still based in creative endeavors but more rounded and perhaps more relevant to our students and local Book Arts Enthusiasts. The new social will meet in the Bindery at the Jaffe Center for Book Arts and hopefully will be ready for launch by early spring, 2025.

Meanwhile, please do join us online at JCBA Zoom each Friday from 2 to 5 Eastern. What to expect? Three hours of a very Jaffe soundtrack. Friendly faces from across the US and Canada and very often other parts of the globe, too (Scotland, Romania, and the Philippines are well represented most Fridays). Time for yourself, in the company of other like-minded folks, to get things done. We do bill Real Mail Fridays as a letter writing social, but the folks who join us each week do all kinds of interesting things during the social: some do write letters, but others are crocheting, some are binding books, some are figuring out paper engineering problems. Some are baking and you can almost smell the cookies as they come out of the oven. We've watched Real Mail friends as they shovel snow in Anchorage and as they garden in the Hudson Valley. We've seen lots of cats, many dogs, and a moose. People join in from home and from work and from airports and cars. They come and go as they please over the course of the three-hour social, and you may do the same. We've become a global family that cares for each other and looks out for each other in good times and bad. Some folks tell us it's the best part of their week. It is a supremely heartwarming time.

We welcome you to be part of our global Real Mail Fridays family.

Sincerely yours,
the Staff of Jaffe Center for Book Arts
at Florida Atlantic University Libraries

LOVE JCBA PROGRAMS?

JCBA programs are all brought to you by you. Please support us if you can with a tax-deductible gift. At our donation portal, you may make a gift to the Jaffe Support Fund, which helps us acquire new artists' books and prints for the Jaffe Collection, or the Jaffe Center for Book Arts Education Fund, which supports all of our educational programs. Thank you!

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