Pat Blair

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Pat Blair has been a professional calligrapher for over 21 years, being owner of the lettering studio, "Calligraphy & Design," in New York, and currently in Virginia. Her work has been published in Letter Arts Review, The Calligrapher's Engagement Calendar, Scripsit, and Tabellae Insatae. She teaches at the Loudoun Academy of the Arts, and has been on the faculty of the 21st International Calligraphy Conference in Boston, Massachusetts. Having just completed serving two years as the President of the Washington Calligrapher's Guild in Washington, DC, she is the current chairperson of The Graceful Envelope Contest. Pat's love of pointed pen lettering led her to her study of Copperplate and Spencerian letterforms. She uses these styles in her invitation designs, which is her specialty. She is currently serving as the calligrapher for Vice President Cheney, and her list of clients include Georgetown University, the Dept. of State, and The White House.

Judith Barbour Osborne

Osborne has been exploring control and freedom in her calligraphy and fine art for a few decades. Her most recent solo exhibition was at the Alexey vonSchlippe Gallery at the University of Connecticut, Avery Point, earlier this year.  She will have work in an exhibition at the Palm Beach Community College Art Gallery in January, 2010. Osborne is director of a cooperative gallery in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, and teaches calligraphy privately and in classes and workshops. Her calligraphy can be seen painted on a wall and glass, as well as her framed calligraphic artwork at her son-in-law’s restaurant: Wine Thief Bistro (winethiefbistro.com) in Mt. Airy, Philadelphia.

Brenda Broadbent

Forthcoming.

Rosemary Buczek

Rosemary Buczek graduated from Caldwell College, New Jersey, in 1971, with a Bachelors in Fine Arts. She began freelance work from her home, and in 1987, formally opened her studio, “The Gilded Quill”. Rosemary’s love of the Medieval Manuscripts of the Medieval Ages has influenced her designs and her use of color. She combines her claligraphic skills with illuminations including gilding techniques to produce resolutions, certificates, hand letterd books, and illuminated manuscripts of her own design. She has been awarded "Master Penman" by The International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers and Teachers of Handwriting" (IAMPETH), one of the oldest lettering arts associ-ations in America. Rosemary’s clients include Golf Magazine, New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, Prudential Financial, Sony, AT&T, Rutgers University, and many, many others. Her work is held in private and public collections around the globe. Her book, “the Bible of Illuminated Letters”, was pub-lished in 2006. Most recently, Rosemary was commissioned by St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York to produce an illuminated prayer for Pope Benedict. Rosemary has taught gilding, drawing, design, illuminated letters and painting techniques to people all over the U.S.

Karen Charatan

Karen Charatan creates pen, brush, and drawn lettering as well as calligraphic paintings. The range of work in her 25-year career includes advertising lettering. greeting cards, point-of-purchase displays, murals, and sign design. Karen has taught brush lettering, business card design, and sign writing for the annual international lettering arts conferences and for many of the calligraphy guilds in the USA, Canada, Europe and Japan. Exhibiting her work with Asian calligraphers, her recent focus is abstract calligraphic painting. A few of her abstract calligraphic works are included in the collection of the Mobile Museum of Art in Mobile, AL.  Karen is the designer and author of the how-to marker book, ABC ZIG Calligraphy.

Lee Ann Clark

Lee Ann Clark has been a calligrapher and designer for over 20 years. She has taught at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle, WA and continues to teach classes and workshops since relocating to the East Coast. A Letter Arts Review co-juror for the past two years, her clients have included, Nordstrom, The Vice President’s Residence, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Vulcan, Inc. and Fila-USA.

Bio Forthcoming

Heather Victoria Held resides in St. George Ontario with her husband Chris and their daughter Holly. Heather’s passion for Spencerian Script was kindled when she met her friend and mentor Master Penman Michael Sull. Early in her ornamental penmanship endeavours she was guided and encouraged by Dr. Joe Vitolo through the Ornamental Penmanship discussion group and IAMPETH. She is a member of Master Penmen Brian Walker’s Spencerian Study Group of the UK and is thankful for Brian’s guidance in her penmanship journey. Heather’s work has been published in Bound and Lettered, Somerset Studio, The Penman’s Journal, The Spencerian Review, Romantic Homes, Good Mail Day and 1000 Homemade Cards. In 2009 Heather was awarded the Spencerian Heritage Award by Michael Sull and is honoured to take her place as a storyteller of the golden age of American Penmanship and specifically offhand flourishing as she teaches throughout North America.

Bob Hurford has been a calligrapher for more than 30 years with proficiency in a variety of alphabets and the art of offhand flourishing.  He has spent an equal amount of time in the graphic arts industry, particularly in the printing industry in the days before computers when cut-and-paste was the order of the day.  However, it is now a computer world and he is proficient with Photoshop and InDesign.

Bob has been Editor of the Penman’s Journal for the International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers, and Teachers of Handwriting (IAMPETH) since 2001.  His skills as a penman and many years as a penmanship historian helped to make the Penman’s Journal one of the premier magazines in the calligraphy industry.

Deborah Kaplan is one of the country’s preeminent calligraphers. She is an alumna of the Philadelphia College of Art (now called the Philadelphia University of the Arts) with a major in illustration. She has worked as a calligrapher since 1975 and has studied with several of the world’s top calligraphers. She is a founding member of the Philadelphia Calligraphers’ Society and since 1981 has been teaching others her love for the written word.

Deborah has specialized in custom-made, one of a kind ketubot, choosing this art form because of her love for the Hebrew language and letterforms, and the opportunity it affords to combine meaningful and decorative illustration with calligraphy. Working with ketubot has greatly enriched her cultural understanding and constantly adds to her involvement in the Jewish community. She now specializes in prints available to the public.

Deborah lives in Bala Cynwyd, PA with her husband Albert. She has three grown children and five grandchildren.

Meg Kennedy is a calligrapher and book artist who previously worked as a writer and publicist for several university presses. She now does commissioned documents and calligraphic broadsides; makes journals, albums, and artist's books; and carves ceramic tiles. Meg has been on the Artists in Education roster for the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts since 1995, taught for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, conducted many artist-in-residence programs in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and teaches at local community arts centers.  Her calligraphic artwork has won several regional awards, and three of her books toured for three years with the national Guild of Bookworkers’ Juried Exhibit, “In Flight.”  Meg is the president of the Philadelphia Calligraphers’ Society and lives in Wynnewood, PA.

Calligrapher and book designer, Rosie Kelly combines a love of word, line, color and texture in her work. She makes word art for the sheer joy of doing it and because her muse insists upon it

Rosie has studied with a wide range of internationally known lettering artists and  teaches workshops across the country.

Roann Mathias is a graphic artist who specializes in calligraphy. Since 1980, she has studied calligraphy with nationally recognized teachers in many workshops from coast to coast. Reggie Ezell’s year-long class has been influential in her calligraphic development, having been through it twice. Roann holds a BS in History and a Masters degree in Art History and has studied fine art at the college level. For the past fourteen years, Roann has designed greeting cards, stationery and calendars for The Printery House of Conception Abbey.

Carole Maurer began the study of calligraphy in 1978 at The Philadelphia College of Art and holds a certificate in Calligraphy from The New School/Parsons School of Design, NY. She taught Lettering and Design at the Paier College of Art, Hamden, CT and at The Calligraphy Workshop of The New School, NY. Co-Editor of The Calligraphers Engagement Calendar (Rizzoli) for more than fifteen years, she does commission work as well as private instruction. She is a “graduate” of the 2002 Reggie Ezell year-long course. Carole’s work can be seen in several publications, including the up-coming issue of Letter Arts Review. Carole lives in Wynnewood, PA.

Diane Maurer’s marbled papers have been exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States, France, Sweden and Holland. Her work is represented in the collections of the Cooper-Hewitt Museum of Decorative Arts and Design, NY; the Museum of New Mexico, the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City, MO; The Newbery Library, The Dutch Royal Library. The Neatherlans; Houghton Library, Harvard University and the Suleymaniye Library, Istanbul Turkey.

Her decorative papers have been reproduced by magazine and book publishers, in advertising art and in stationery designs for major greeting card companies. Numerous commissions include designs for Lenox China, Godiva Chocolates and Harper Collins Publishers.

Diane is the author of twelve books. She has taught workshops at many schools including Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts, the Penland School, the Smithsonian Institution; University of the Arts, Continuing Education, Tyler Craft Center, Pyramid Atlantic.

Forthcoming.

Hermineh Miller has practiced calligraphic and teaching arts for the last 40 years.  She has taught book making to calligraphers, lettering artists and paper makers in the Washington, D.C. area, in Offenbach, Germany, in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and at national conventions. She is currently teaching calligraphy at The Art League in Arlington, Virginia. Her work has been displayed in the Klingspor Museum in Offenbach, Germany, in Washington, D. C. and other venues.  She is published in Florilège, Calligraphy Review, and Alphabet, the Journal of the Friends of Calligraphy (San Francisco, CA.).

Hermineh received her M.F.A. from Michigan State University in 1968.  She is currently at work on a series of books, broadsides, paintings, and altars celebrating the Great Mother.

Bio Forthcoming

Lettering and book artist with a background in fine art. For the last 25 years Mary Elizabeth has turned her attention to calligraphy and book arts. She has studied throughout the United States and in China in 1989. Her work was selected for the first Elegant Envelope Contest and is now in the permanent collection of the National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution. She has received Awards of Excellence at the juried exhibitions of the Philadelphia Calligraphers’ Society. Mary Elizabeth teaches paper and book arts classes at art centers throughout the tri county area of Southeast Pennsylvania. She also conducts classes at her studio in Downingtown.

Rick Paulus bought his first calligraphy pen and bottle of ink on his twelfth birthday.  Following his newfound passion, Rick moved to Washington, DC as a young man, where he cut his calligraphic teeth at the legendary Tolley Studio. In 1990, Rick got his first entry into Official Washington when he was selected to be the engrosser for the State Department. Eight years later, he was appointed chief calligrapher of the White House.  While calligraphy is a passion for Rick, so is the sea. In 2006, after having survived sand in his shoes for 25 years, he returned to his beloved Cape Cod where he loves to produce meaningful calligraphic works in his scriptorium at the edge of the contintent.

Maureen Peters is a graphic artist, who specializes in calligraphy and graphic design. At the School of  Sacred Arts, she learned the process of the medieval illuminators' palette, color derived from animals, vegetables and minerals using medieval techniques.  A graduate of Reggie Ezell's Year-Long Class, Maureen teaches calligraphy and illumination throughout New Jersey. Her work has been published and is in several private collections. She is the owner of Letterworks Art Studio in Woodbury, NJ.

Anna Pinto divides her time between freelance work and teaching, in the Art Department of Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus and for various calligraphy guilds. Her work can be seen in publications ranging from: “Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairy Calendar 2006” to“Artist and Alphabet: Lettering Art in the 20th Century” to“The Perfect Wedding Reception” by Maria McBride, to “Drawing Dimensions” by Cynthia Maris Dantzic, as well as in the collections of the San Francisco Public Library, the Dana Library at Rutgers University, Newark, and the Beinecke Library at Yale.

Marcy Robinson is a freelance lettering artist residing in New Jersey. She has studied extensively with Sheila and Julian Waters and has taken workshops with many other well known calligraphic artists.  Marcy was on the faculty of the 1986, 1987, 1988 and 1998 national calligraphic conventions.  Her work may be seen in the Calligrapher’s Engagement Calendars.

MICHAEL SULL received studio training in Engrossing and Ornamental Penmanhip from David Fairbanks and Paul O'Hara. He founded the Tidewater Calligraphy Guild in 1979, was employed by Hallmark Cards as a staff lettering artist and in 1986 founded The Lettering Design Group, Mission, Kansas.

A Master Penman, he is current Chairman of IAMPETH and founder of Spencerian Saga (a week-long annual program devoted to American ornamental penmanship and Engrossing). He has taught at international conferences and has written and produced numerous instructional books and videos on the subjects of Spencerian and off hand flourishing.

His signature work, Spencerian Script and Ornamental Penmanship (1990) is considered to be the definitive text on the subject. Most recently, he developed The American Cursive Handwriting Program for school children and adults.

Jacqueline Sullivan, a degreed graphic designer, has been a mixed media artist since first introduced to collage in a high school art class. Jacqueline's work has been shown in galleries and the top juried art fairs nationwide. Her calligraphic work has been published in many calligraphy journals; her collage work has been published in Somerset Magazine and Cloth, Paper and Scissors Magazine . She has been on the faculty of five international calligraphy conferences.
In addition to teaching for calligraphy organizations and conferences, Jacqueline also teaches collage and metals classes at many of the top art retreats around the country.

Peter Thornton has been a full-time professional calligrapher since 1969. He has travelled to the US several times each year since 1978, and published his book, Alphabetically Speaking last year to celebrate his 25 years of teaching and lecturing there. He has also taught in Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, South Africa and Europe. He is a Fellow of CLAS and now runs and teaches a summer MasterClass in Ripon, Yorkshire. He is well known for his Musicalligraphy, a combination of music and letters, seen and heard simultaneously.