The artist's atelier, an undoubtedly evocative and fascinating place, is a storehouse of objects, tools and colors magically used and mixed. But when the work of art is not unique but conceived as a "multiple", how is it formed? What are the steps, techniques and tools that add up in its realization?

ALI (Associazione Liberi Incisori) intends to organize a series of meetings in which book artists will be the protagonists who will demonstrate their way of working in wood, linoleum and metal carving, as well as the particular procedure for drawing the lithographic stone as well as the drafting and composition on the black and color inking matrices. The Laboratorio Fratelli Manfredi  (via Del Pozzo 6/B, 42121 Reggio Emilia) can represent, due to its characteristics as an artisan workshop of art prints, the ideal "home workshop" to support creative artists who apply themselves to the creation of books. In agreement with Nicola Manfredi, a cycle of three meetings will be organized in his workshop to demonstrate to the interested public (scholars, collectors and the simple curious) how an "artist's edition" is born, i.e. a product that combines type-composed texts and images created with original graphic techniques, in a limited number of signed copies.

Three meetings are proposed, in the period April/May 2023, to be organized on three Saturday afternoons, dedicated to the three original printing techniques: relief (xylography and linocut), etching (direct and indirect engraving chalcography) and flat (lithography ). For each meeting, a cm. 35x25 format plaquette will be created directly in front of the public, with the engravings made to accompany a short text. The latter, giving further value to the work, will consist of unpublished poems by Samuele Di Saverio, Emilio Zucchi and Fabrizio Dall'Aglio. The matrices will be completed during the demonstration to the audience and immediately printed, as well as the texts, in part or in full already composed with movable types. This is to allow everything to be done in a maximum time of two hours or so. During the processing and printing of the matrices and texts, the authors of the poems and the artists themselves will be able to explain and deepen the meanings and methodologies of their works which come together in these plaquettes. It was decided to involve six ALI artists, two for each meeting, organizing this program from 3 to 5 pm.

1) April 15: xylography and linocut - two poems by Emanuele Di Saverio, a matrix engraved on wood by Fausto De Marinis, a matrix engraved on linoleum by Raffaello Margheri

2) April 29: drypoint and etching - two poems by Emilio Zucchi, a matrix engraved with etching and drypoint by Sandro Guizzardi, a matrix engraved with etching and aquatint by Liliana Santandrea

3) May 13: lithograph - two poems by Fabrizio Dall'Aglio, one stone for black and white designed by Agim Sako, one stone for black and one color designed by Stefano Grasselli

At the end of the cycle of meetings, the three plaquettes will be printed in a circulation of a few dozen copies, collected in a special container and destined as a gift to the supporting members of the ALI. The laboratory can accommodate up to twenty visitors at each meeting, who must book for each invitation made by ALI at least one or two weeks in advance.