Joel Lipman - emeritus Professor of Art & English at the University of Toledo, was born in Washington, DC, and raised in Kenosha, Wisconsin. He holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin and from the State University of New York-Buffalo, where he studied with poets Gwendolyn Brooks, James Wright, John Logan and Robert Creeley. Joel taught poetry, creative writing and the book arts at UT from 1975 to 2012. Active as a poet and mail artist since the 1960’s, Joel and his wife, Cynthia, live in Michigan.

In 2008 Lipman was appointed by Lucas County (Ohio) as Toledo’s first Poet Laureate, serving till 2014. A five-time recipient of Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowships, in 1985 Joel received the State of Ohio Governor’s Award for an Individual Artist. In 2022 he was named Axon Creative Fellow by the University of Toledo’s Department of Art.

Squall Records Was in Town, the current Flatlanders Art Galleries exhibition, stems from work produced at the UT Print Center, with generous assistance from Professor Eric Zeigler. All these enlarged pages were printed during 2022 and 2023 when Lipman was Axon Creative Fellow with supported access to Art Department digital labs.

On display are prototypes, reflecting initial passes at finding materials that fit together. The paper, like most of that used in the original overprinted books, is newsprint. The inks, 1200 psi scans, and large-format Epsom printing are the productive outcome of several intense stretches of time in the Print Center working with its staff, pushing the equipment and saturations. These digital photo-enlargements of original rubber stamp works are, in essence, anti-edition printings. In most instances the print run was one and done.

Lipman states, “Rubberstamps are an ancient, tactile, printing process. Words are conspicuously made letter-by-letter, slowing down the pace of the writer’s composing and keeping a writer’s hand implicitly on the letter. One’s attention is less on the narrative, more on the mark. Overprinting old book pages provides layers of reference, suggestions of memory and the inky patina and grip of previously used paper. I’ve composed and published rubberstamp poems for nearly 50 years, creatively exploring visual strategies, inks and varieties of paper.”

Lipman’s books & chapbook publications have always been independent and of extremely limited distribution. They include Mercury Vapor Lamp [Ocooch Mountain Press], Chicago, You Got a Wide Stance [Piirto Press], Provocateur [Bloody Twin Press], Reprint Original Reprint [Xerox Sutra Press], Machete Chemistry/Panades Physics, co-authored with Yasser Musa [Cubola New Art Foundation], The Real Ideal [Luna Bisante Prods], and Ransom Notes [Obscure Publications]. His 2022 and 2024 books, from The Origins of Poetry [Redfoxpress, 2022] and Sold Old Paper [Redfoxpress, 2024] are both in-print and available at www/redfoxpress.com.

Lipman’s work can be found on-line at The Poetry Foundation and the Light & Dust Anthology of Poetry. His books, along with rare letterpress poetry broadsides, will be available for purchase at Flatlanders Gallery during the Squall Records Was in Town exhibition.