January Scribnote
COMMENTS FROM OUR
CHAIRPERSON
October arrived
and with it the fall colors that we so love to see, but we also saw some snow
and some look forward to seeing the roads and ground covered….but not me!
For our October
meeting, Marty Mitchell gave a wonderful demonstration on Tunnel Books. We each had a card to make either a Downton
Abbey or Forest design. Marty took care
of all the cutting so we had the easy part of just putting it together, but
seeing how the design takes shape as we fold and tape. Thanks Marty, we appreciate your time in
putting this together.
Pat West, Rose
Kopec, Renee Tuveson, Anna Schlemma and myself headed north on Sunday, October
23, 2016, to Boyne Falls, Michigan and the Lake Louise Art Retreat for 5 days
of instruction with Jacqueline Sullivan along with some members of the
Kalamazoo Pendragons and a few others from various areas. Day one starts off with an almost 5 hour
ride to Thumb Lake. We worked with Absorbent Ground, acrylics, High Flo
acrylics, eco printing, Gel Press and nature printing. We had such a wonderful week not only
enjoying the company of other artists, but being able to walk around the lake
and woods to see nature in all its glory.
It was just past peak season, but there was still plenty of color in the
woods. We had a hard frost one morning
and the next morning we had snow on the ground. Luckily it melted away by late morning, although I heard from the
cooks’ that they had 4 inches of snow a bit south of us. Our week goes by very quickly but a lot of
art work and many memories were made in that week.
November 5 was
our guild meeting and deadline to have our calendar project ready to give to
Lauren Matacio to have printed before the December meeting. The artwork is wonderful and we look forward
to seeing the entire calendar put together and hanging on our wall, or fridge
or closet. Lots of time was put into
these pages and hope everyone appreciates our collective effort as a whole
group on this project. Our one day
workshop with Lisa LaBlanc had to be changed due to a family emergency with the
instructor. Lisa was stoked to do this
workshop with us and we came up with the new date of November 12 at Christ the
King Church. Lisa gave us a very good
start on working on the uncial hand and how to make sure there was a “lemon” in
our o’s. Toward the end of the class
she demonstrated some of her miracle wedge brush flowers she learned to do at
the Pat Blair class several years ago.
Thanks Lisa for a great day of lettering and learning.
We always enjoy
our December meeting because we get to have a great pot luck luncheon after our
meeting. Maureen brings her wonderful
roasted pork loin and the rest of us add salad, fruit, veggies and of course,
dessert to complement the main course.
Lauren brought the calendars we created and we got to see 18 months of
art on each page. Thanks Lauren for
taking charge of this project. Lauren
ordered 100 calendars, cases and clear bags to put them in and all were spoken
for, so if you didn’t order one, there are no more to spare.
Our donations
this year included Christ the King Church and the Northern Indiana Food
Bank. Thanks to Sharon for setting up
our meetings and to Christ the King for allowing us to have our monthly
meetings all year.
As many of you
know, Anne Binder’s son Russell, US Army, was deployed to Iraq in early
September. At our September meeting, we
discussed sending some much needed supplies to support our troops. At our October meeting, many donations were
brought in and Pat West took charge of packing and mailing 6 boxes of goodies
to Russ and his company. We want to
thank them for their service to our country even though they are on foreign
soil, and hope they enjoy the items we sent and may they return safe and sound
soon.
 |
| Thank you note from Russ and his troop |
At our last two
meetings, we have put together a year full of meetings and demonstrations for
all to enjoy and included in those are two wonderful workshops with Eliza
Schulte Holliday on March 3 and 4 and Jacqueline Sullivan on September 29 and
30, 2017. Hope everyone can join us for
all the things we have planned for the year.
As always, many
thanks to the MCG Board for handling many of the behind the scene dealings with
workshops, meetings, etc. Thanks to Sharon Esmont for being the second in
command, Jo McPherson for sending out all those emails to everyone, Pat West
for taking notes at all the meetings, typing them up and sending them to Jo for
distribution, Renee Tuveson who puts the newsletter online every quarter and
lastly to our newest member of the board, Laurie Heyden, who has taken over the
treasurer position and has had lots of checks to write this November and December! Thanks to all of you who make our
organization run as smoothly as possible.
Hope everyone had
happy and healthy holidays. I look
forward to working with all of you in February, 2017.
Ginny VanderHey
BAC - Michiana Calligraphy Guild
Member Show: Calligraphy in Many Mediums
Barbara Walsh:
This fall the
Michiana Calligraphy Guild had a wonderful, inspiring all-member exhibit at the
Buchanan Art Center. It was a great way to welcome in the fall season.
Organized by Anne Binder, the exhibit ran from Aug. 31st through Oct. 15th. It
gave the Guild a great opportunity to show visitors to the Buchanan Art Center
that calligraphy is "more than just pretty writing".
Books and
calligraphy-inspired art were nicely displayed throughout the Hess library and
Gallery glass showcases.
A combined
reception on Sept.11th took place on a beautiful fall Sunday afternoon, and was
well attended. Angie West and Lauren Matacio demonstrated various book folding
techniques and Ginny Vander Hey and Pat West demonstrated different hands,
lettering on colorful bookmarks. It's always fun to see the look of WOW on
people's faces when they see the kind of things the Guild can do.
It made for a
varied atmosphere of talents combining the show with 3 other artists:
Watercolorist, Gail Vogel, Fiber artist, Gwen Jones and book sculpting artist,
Monica Makielski. Monica had several
pieces of her Readable-art Interspersed throughout the MCG exhibit. She has
since joined the Guild, as her creative process with books fits in so nicely
with the guild. She will be a wonderful addition to our group!
Thanks go out to
the many people that contributed to the event bringing in baked goods and other
tasty items to enjoy at the reception. Special thanks go to everyone that
helped in setting up the show and taking it down, including Anne Binder's son,
Matthew.
Lisa LaBlanc Workshop
Linda Bigger:
I had a very
enjoyable and satisfying day on Saturday as I attended my first MCG workshop,
filling many practice pages as Lisa LaBlanc taught us uncial lettering. We
learned many tips and tricks, including an easy way to mark out a pen-angle
guide, and nifty ways to use tracing paper to gauge the correctness of our
letter shapes. Lisa gave individual attention to each student as we
worked. The day was relaxed but
focused, leaving me with a sense of accomplishment and the inspiration to keep
practicing every day since then. We had
the added benefit of a table filled with yummy snacks to keep up our strength,
and a lunch break that gave us all a chance to chat.
I’m new to the
guild and new to any organized practice of calligraphy, although I have been a
dabbler over the years. Back in high school uncial was the first hand that I
attempted, so I was delighted to have the opportunity to learn it properly.
Lisa is a most kind and gracious teacher, and I’m eager to attend another of
her classes.
We concluded the
day with a chance to play with the Miracle Wedge brush and explore and practice
some of the techniques Lisa uses in her art. Altogether, it was an inspiring
day and simply a lot of fun.
From Laurie Heyden:
Lisa LeBlanc Workshop
November 12, 2016
Fifteen members
spent the day together learning the Uncial hand, taught by fellow calligrapher,
Lisa LeBlanc, of the Kalamazoo Pen Dragons Calligraphy Guild. We spent about
3/4 of the day learning this beautiful hand. It’s a bit quicker to learn than
other hands due to the fact that it only has capital letters. The rest of the
day Lisa showed us how she did her one-stroke flowers using the Miracle Wedge
brush, which is sadly no longer being made. She brought many of her finished
works and practice sheets. Her work is beyond beautiful and so inspirational!
After she
demonstrated using the brush, we all went off to make our own — well, I tried,
some have natural talents and made some gorgeous flowers, and others obviously
weren’t new to this.
I went to this
workshop for the flowers, not the letters. I walked away happy for this
introduction to the Uncial hand and that the flower part does not come easy for
me. I especially enjoyed this opportunity to learn from someone with such skill
and talent. Thank you, Lisa…
Donald Jackson at Notre Dame
Laura Fuderer
“Ancient
Techniques in a Modern World”
On the evening of October 26th a
few Guild members attended a program at Notre Dame that was presented by noted
English artist Donald Jackson, described as “the calligrapher who dared to create
a fully illuminated Bible for the modern age.” The work is known as the St.
John’s Bible after the university that commissioned the project. Jackson showed
slides of the seven calligraphers, examples of their writing, and some of the
160 illustrations that went into a project that took fifteen years of
dedication to achieve. According to
Wikipedia it is “the first completely handwritten and illuminated Bible
commissioned by a Benedictine Abbey since the invention of the printing press…
[It] is divided into seven volumes and is two feet tall by three feet wide when
open. The Bible is made of vellum with 160 illuminations…”
Jackson’s talk
was rather rambling, which put some people off but I found interesting for the
bits of wisdom that he shared. For example, he spoke of the difficulty of
capturing “the real truth” of the Past, which I think any historian would agree
with; and observed that we learn from both the Past and the Present. I also
liked some of his comments, such as “letters like to hold hands”, which I think
means they look better connected somehow.
Born in 1938, he recalled his early years
spent in an industrial city and how he came to devote himself to the art of
calligraphy. He said you’re basically copying things, but it must be fun for the
artist in order to do it well. Jackson
described some of the details of the process of producing a monumental work
like this Bible. He noted that they didn’t have a tool so basic and useful as
the pencil in the Middle Ages, although they were able to use lead, and of
course nibs were made from feathers. In creating an illumination the artist
works from the background forward in stages, with white lines applied last.
Mistakes are inevitable, but can either be scraped off of material as durable
as vellum or possibly incorporated somehow into the ultimate design.
What impressed me was the sense of the
deep feeling that Jackson puts into his art with each letter and every stroke
of pen or brush. Angie called it the humanity that is expressed through writing.
Personally, I much enjoyed the talk.
+++++++++++++++++
"In the
strictest definition of illuminated manuscript, only manuscripts with gold or
silver, like this miniature of Christ in Majesty from the Aberdeen Bestiary
(folio 4v), would be considered illuminated." Wikipedia.
Upcoming workshops:
We have
been diligently finding instructors for workshops and, at this time, we are
happy to announce that Eliza Schulte Holliday will be
presenting Duet (flat and pointed brush lettering) as our
spring workshop, March 3 and 4, 2017. This is the first time an instructor has
ever contacted me to see if she could do a workshop for us in the spring. The quote, “good things come to those who
wait” seems appropriate here. We didn’t
have a workshop set up for the spring and now Eliza has filled that spot for
us. Go to her website and check out the workshop that the MCG board has
selected for all of us. http://www.letterist.com/WorkshopPDFs/Calligraphy-PDFs/Duet.pdf. The
cost of the workshop will be $90. for members and $105. for non-members. Keep in mind that there will only be 15
participants, so if you are interested in taking this workshop, don’t delay in
registering. Supply list will be
forthcoming after the first of the year.
Jacqueline Sullivan: We are
in the process of setting a date for the fall of 2017 with Jacqueline
Sullivan. Many of you have seen the
work we did at Lake Louise this past October and Jacqueline will be guiding us
through some of those art techniques and processes. More information will be forthcoming after the Eliza Schulte
Holliday workshop.
It seems
that instructors are booking their workshops way, way out in the future and we
have secured two really good calligraphers for our future workshops. Please mark your calendars for May 2018 (I
don’t have an exact date as of yet) when Yukimi Annand will be in South Bend
for a workshop for the MCG and also Heather Victoria Held for the weekend of
April 6, 2019. Both of these ladies are
booked solid and these were their first available dates. Save the dates and save your pennies because
these workshops will cost a bit more since we have to fly them here from Canada
and California. Luckily for us, we will
piggy back onto the Chicago Guild’s dates for Yukimi Annand so we won’t have to
pay the whole airline fee. Another
guild will be looking at Heather Held’s dates to see if they can piggy back
onto ours and we can again share that cost.
I have said many times that we try to keep our fees as low as possible,
but when an instructor comes from a distance away, they charge us more for
travel and baggage and we pass that on to you.
You won’t want to miss either of these workshops!
http://www.letterist.com/WorkshopPDFs/Calligraphy-PDFs/Duet.pdf
Policy for MCG
Our workshops seem to have people sign up and then decide not to attend.
We have been very generous in returning monies paid for the workshop if someone
decides not to attend at the last minute, but we are going to have a change in
this policy. There will be a nominal
fee if you drop out of the workshop. If
there would be an emergency, for instance, a birth of a child or grandchild,
illness, etc., then the board will take this under advisement to decide on a
course of action regarding a refund. Also, if the workshop is filled and there is someone to take your
place, that would also quality for a refund. So please, if you want to sign up
for the workshop, make sure that you put that date on your calendar as a
commitment. We have a small calligraphy
group and we struggle to fill workshops at times. We need all of you to attend as many as possible so that we can
continue to have quality instructors.
Are you on Facebook? If so, look up your favorite calligraphers because they are on Facebook
also. I like to look at Barbara Close,
Reggie Ezell, Julian Waters, John Stevens, Rachel Yallop, Pendragons, Capital
City Scribes, Yukimi Annand, etc. There
is a lot of beautiful calligraphy on these pages that will get your
inspired. Also look at Joanne Fink and
Barbara Lever’s Facebook Page. And
then, there is always Pinterest. Oh my,
so many places to be inspired!
PO Box in South
Bend – Due to a lack of much mail at our Post
Office box in South Bend, we have suspended any mail sent to that address. If you have anything to send to the MCG,
please send to Laurie Heyden, 18292 Courtland Drive, South Bend, IN 46637 or
Ginny VanderHey, 51854 Stoney Creek Drive, Elkhart, IN 46514. When monies are
due for a workshop or dues, they will now go to one of these addresses.
American Frame – Just a reminder that
if you order from American Frame, please mention MCG, and they will give us a
small stipend.
MCG
Meetings for 2017
January – No meeting
February –
Angie West – Versals
March 3 and 4
– Eliza Schulte Holliday workshop
April –
May –
June –
July –
August –
Annual Picnic at Ginny VanderHey’s
house. Our exchange will be a
handmade book of your choosing
September –
October –
November –
Sharon Esmont – Celtic Knots
December –
Annual Christmas party at Christ the King Church
ANNUAL
MEMBERSHIP
Annual dues of $15 are due at the July meeting. Our annual dues have not changed in many years and are put to good use for supplies for our make it/take it meetings, annual raffle in August, and, at the end of the year, we give to local charities. Please remember to bring your dues to the July meeting or send it to Maureen Trubac, our treasurer.
Annual dues of $15 are due at the July meeting. Our annual dues have not changed in many years and are put to good use for supplies for our make it/take it meetings, annual raffle in August, and, at the end of the year, we give to local charities. Please remember to bring your dues to the July meeting or send it to Maureen Trubac, our treasurer.
OFFICERS
Ginny VanderHey, President 574/262-1345 gvanderhey@hotmail.com
Sharon Esmont, Vice President 574/272-5481 Sesmont@aol.com
Laurie Heyden, Treasurer, silverbird323@yahoo.com
Pat West, Secretary 574-612-9328 pwpatwest@gmail.com
Ginny VanderHey, President 574/262-1345 gvanderhey@hotmail.com
Sharon Esmont, Vice President 574/272-5481 Sesmont@aol.com
Laurie Heyden, Treasurer, silverbird323@yahoo.com
Pat West, Secretary 574-612-9328 pwpatwest@gmail.com
If ever you would like
to add to the newsletter/blog, please contact one of the officers, and we will
get that information to Renee Tuveson. Something you have done or have seen
would be welcomed into our information.
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