Welcome to Write On Calligraphers 

Write On Calligraphers (WOC) is a nonprofit organization of Pacific Northwest artists who share a love of letters and many things paper. WOC meetings offer special presentations of calligraphy and paper arts. The general meetings are open to the public at no charge.

LETTERS OF JOY 2019:

Every spring, WOC sponsors Letters of Joy; a popular one-and-a-half-day mini conference that regularly attracts more than 250 participants and vendors. The conference and accompanying exhibit are dedicated to the memory of Kathleen Joy O’Brien, whose passion for letters helped to establish the dedicated calligraphic community that now flourishes in Edmonds and its surrounding areas.

Letters of Joy is returning in 2019 and WOC will continue the well-loved tradition of offering an inspiriting weekend of calligraphy and arts opportunities. It is held the first weekend of May! This year, the dates are May 3-4. Please join us and connect with fellow lettering enthusiasts! Letters of Joy is for people who love letters and enjoy experimenting with art, mediums, papers, books and other tools with plenty of techniques which complement the love of mark making.

LOJ has a new venue for 2019 and is being held at Green River College in Auburn, WA. The address is 12401 SE 320th St., Auburn WA.

Gemma Black

Gemma Black is our featured speaker! To see Gemma’s biography and preview her incredible artwork, go to her website at www.gemmablack.com or watch this delightful short film, The Mark Maker: Women of the Island.
Gemma is an artist, teacher and calligraphic-designer from Tasmania, Australia. She received a Winston Churchill Memorial Fellowship to study in Europe and is an Honored Fellow and Fellow of the Calligraphy & Lettering Arts Society, UK. Gemma runs a successful studio practice and teaches for art, calligraphy, bookbinding and craft organizations across Australia. Gemma has also joined the faculty at international lettering-art conferences in Italy, Germany, the USA, Canada, Sweden and the UK. Her work is housed in private and public collections and is also represented in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK, the European Parliament, Letterform Archive San Francisco and Parliament House Canberra. Her major works for the Commonwealth Government include the Apology to Australia’s Indigenous People, the National Apology to the Forgotten Australians, the Former Child Migrants and the National Apology for Forced Adoption. A fourth manuscript, National Apology to Victims & Survivors of Institutional Sexual Abuse, has just been completed.

LOJ Volunteers:
WOC is inviting you to participate as a much appreciated volunteer to help with LOJ. There are some general areas that you may use your skills and talents to bring smoothness to the conference. These include, but are not limited to, helping as Silent Auction Monitors, Vendor Assistance, Set Up on Friday, Signage, Lunch Distribution, Staffing Help at the WOC Scribe’s Table, and Clean Up on Saturday. You may contact us through the website or contact our LOJ Co-Chairs, Janice and Nancy Hammock, directly. Thank you, thank you for your help!

FACEBOOK:

WOC is active on Facebook and would love your likes, comments and shares as we continue to grow our fans.  Please follow our Facebook page and share your letter love with all your friends: WOC on FaceBook

MEMBERSHIP DUES:

Membership dues are $30 US and $35 for Canada,

PAYPAL & BENEVITY DONATIONS:

PayPal
PayPal is now available to WOC members. PayPal can be used for membership payments, workshop payments and Letters of Joy. The email address for making these payments is writeoncalligraphers@gmail.com. We will still accept checks and would prefer checks, but we are glad to now offer PayPal.

The person using PayPal for Write on Calligraphers must have a personal PayPal account:

• * Sign up for a free personal account at https://www.paypal.com
  

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• * Add a credit card or bank account to the PayPal account. (This is the account that money will be withdrawn from to pay for anything using PayPa
  

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• * Click on “Send Money To “ and enter writeoncalligraphers@gmail.com
  

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• * Enter the amount of money you want to send to WOC
  

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• * Confirm the payment method and click “Send Payment Now”
  

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• * Note: Next, fill in the registration application and send to WOC

Please use this email address for all WOC Registration and Treasurer business.

Benevity Donations
We also have a Benevity donation site, Causes.Benevity.org. You may make donations directly to Write On Calligraphers, Donations help our guild to thrive and provide opportunities for learning lettering and the arts together. Thank you for your consideration.

BOARD MEMBERS:

Board Member Needed: The success of WOC depends on the generosity of those members who volunteer their time to make it all happen.  Thank you in advance for deciding to help our guild flourish! We are currently seeking members to join the board for the upcoming fiscal year. Do you have an interest helping to make WOC run smoothly? Some of our board members are stepping down or switching duties for the next fiscal year, so please consider contacting one of the current board members and let us know how you’d like to be involved!

The Board for 2018-2019: Vice President is currently vacant. Please consider volunteering.

The Board for 2019-2020: We are currently recruiting for the office of the 1) President 2) Vice President 3) Co-Chair for Letters of Joy, for the next fiscal year 4) Librarian. According to the by-laws, we must have a President in order for WOC to be able to continue.

President – The President of the Board of Directors for Write On Calligraphers (WOC) supervises all activities of the Corporation. She/he presides at all meetings: board meetings, held in February, April, June, August, October and December; and General Meetings, held in January, March, September and November. The May meeting is the Corporation Annual Meeting and includes a potluck dinner and wrap-up for the Letters of Joy Annual Conference, which is held the first weekend in May. The president supervises the board activities and facilitates all decisions made on behalf of the membership.

Vice President – The Vice President plans the General Meetings, obtains speakers/presenters, sends out notices of the programs and arranges for the meeting space. The Vice President also assists the President, and may be called on the act in the place of the President as needed.

LOJ Co-Chair – The Letters of Joy Chair is responsible for coordinating all aspects of the WOC annual conference, usually held the first weekend of May. The LOJ Chair manages volunteer activity, monitors finances, assists with publicity and communicates with the keynote speaker.

Librarian

GENERAL MEETINGS:

General Meeting: Join us for our next General Meeting in May. 

Location: Most meetings take place at ArtWorks in Edmonds, WA, on the second Tuesday of January, March, May, September and November at 7 PM.

Prior Meetings:

March 2019: Book Structures with Nan Robkin and Sue Gruhn
January 2019: UW Special Collections with Sandra Kroupa at University of Washington
November 2018: Sharing from two workshops: Adolph Bernd Letters with Lisa Tsang; Hans-Joachim Burgert with Katherine Malmsten and Sue Gruhn
September 2018: Seattletters Show and Tell
May 2018: These Are a Few of My Favorite Things
March 2018: Sally Penley – Japanese Art of Etegami
January 2018:Sharing Correspondence: Writing & Receiving Letters
November 2017:Kellie Moeller, Jocelyn Curry,Katherine Malmsten, Marita Sheeran – Marching to a Different Drummer
September 2017: Kathy Barker – Pointed Pen Flourishing Fun (Hoang Dao)
May 2017: Annual potluck and election of board members
March 2017: Highlights from  ~Letters California Style~
Kathy Barker – The Art of Certificates & Scrolls: Robbie Saslow
Sue Gruhn – Blackletter to Contemporary Fraktur: Yukimi Annand
Carol Sauter – Spencerian: Bill Kemp
Elizabeth Walsh – Cool & In-Vogue Pointed Pen Script: Jane Shibata
January 2017: Jim Ballard – Laying Down the Ink—The Power of the Brush
November 2016:Christy Schroeder– The Development of a Calligrapher
September 2016: Brad Neary – The Saint John’s Bible
May 2016: Annual potluck, LOJ recap, and election of board members
March 2016:Meredith Arnold – Photographing Your Work
January 12, 2016: Nan Robkin – Ribbon Writing
November 10, 2015: Timothy Botts – demonstration of Tim’s artwork

WORKSHOPS:

Throughout the year, Write On Calligraphers sponsors workshops conducted by renowned calligraphers and paper artists and lists resources for local calligraphy classes.

Upcoming Workshops:

February 9-10, 2019: Amity Parks NOTE: Due to a snow storm, this workshop is rescheduled for August 17-18, 2019 .
May 5-6, 2019: Gemma Black  Registration/Flyer Information. Topic: The Wonders of Versals and Compound Letter Forms
August 17-18, 2019: Amity Parks Registration/Flyer Information. Topic:
October 19-20, 2019: Cora Pearl

Past Workshops:
October 20-21, 2018: Peter Thornton – Adolph Bernd Letters
October 22-23, 2018: Peter Thornton – Gilding 1
October 25-26, 2018: Peter Thornton – Gilding 2 – Repeat of Session 1
May 6-7, 2018: Sally Penley– Let’s Make Books
February 10-11, 2018: Christy Schroeder
October 14-15, 2017: Rebecca Wild– Layering Arts and Letters
May 7th & 8th: Louis Lemoine – Magic of the Ruling Pen, Folded Pen & Cola Pen
February 2017: Marina Soria– Calligraphy In Blossom
October 2016:  Janet Takahashi – Artful Sketchbook Journaling
May 2016: Barry Morentz – Gothicized Italic – Artworks in Edmonds
January 2016: Gerogia Angelopoulos – Ancient Palettes, New Ways, Colour & Gold
October 2015: Cari Ferraro – Batard

At the August 9^th board meeting of Write on Calligraphers in 2016, it was unanimously voted to sponsor the International Calligraphy Conference for the summer of 2018. This event was held on July 14-21, 2018 at Western Washington University in Bellingham, north of Seattle. Participants enjoyed renewed calligraphic friendships, meeting other calligraphic artists, shopping at John Neal and the 2-day vendors, presentations by Donald Jackson and Mike Gold, demonstrations by faculty, exploring Bellingham, the Dancing Letters auction and a variety of classes each day with talented instructors. Well done …. and looking forward to next year’s international calligraphy conference in Quebec, CANADA.

RENDEZ-VOUS – 2019 INTERNATIONAL CALLIGRAPHY CONFERENCE:

Contact: Rendez-Vous

Held at Sherbrooke, Quebec, CANADA

OTHER NOTES OF INTEREST:

Many WOC members may remember Richard Sindel who attended our meetings, workshops and LOJ. He passed away on June 16, 2018. Richard had a vast amount of calligraphic supplies and was exuberant in sharing and giving them to fellow calligraphers. Obiturary.

Susan Russell passed away on Mother’s Day of 2017. She was an acclaimed artist, longtime high school art teacher, wife, mother, and mentor. She often wore hats or other hair apparel all positioned on her distinctive red hair. Susan Jane Russell, 71, died May 14 at the Portland, Oregon, home she shared with Falken Forshaw, her husband of 49 years. Since the 1980s, she had battled cancer several times.

Our dear friend and calligrapher, Pamela Pincha-Wagener, passed away on January 10, 2017. She graciously shared her many talents and gifts with us for many years. She will be missed tremendously.

Please visit her Member Gallery Page from our sister guild, The Society of Calligraphy and Handwriting, to view her artwork and read more about her.

RESOURCES:

WOC members enjoy many benefits as well as access to an extensive library. We hope you will join us in our exploration of calligraphy and the paper arts.

Would you like to read a book on calligraphy or a related subject? A benefit of membership to WOC is access to our extensive library collection. View our Library page for more information

Are you interested in art exhibits showcasing calligraphy? View our Exhibits page for information on exhibits with calligraphy or related art forms.

Are you interested in reading tips for learning calligraphy? View our Tips & Tricks page for tips and tricks submitted by WOC members.

Looking for a unique tool for calligraphy? View our WOC Products page for items sold exclusively by WOC