Fall 2011

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Northwestern is the quarterly alumni magazine for Northwestern University.
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All posters © Amazingrace LLC

Amazingrace Posters

As Amazingrace evolved, the group became known for its stunning posters, which the ’Gracers regularly printed on their silk-screen press to promote performances. They were distributed at one point or another in 'Grace's history as far north as Lake Forest, Ill., and as far south as the North and Northwest sides of Chicago.They were highly coveted prizes to adorn the walls of frat houses and dorms on campus, so much so that 'Gracers had to deface them slightly to deter people from ripping them down before the concerts happened. 

University Archives has a collection of more than 100 Amazingrace posters, most from the coffeehouse’s years as an on-campus operation.

The main artists were 'Gracers themselves. Darcie Sanders and Lenny Karpel took a course from a Northwestern grad student in silk-screening, mastered the art and then tutored several other 'Gracers, including James "JT" Thomas, Craig La Follette, Margot Myers and Amanda Killham Davis. La Follette went on to own his own silk-screen business in Eugene, Ore. Thomas did several painstaking posters with a pointillist methodology that took many weeks to execute; one of them, advertising Amazingrace's edible fare, assumed iconic stature and even today hangs in the kitchen of more than one 'Gracer.