28th International Calligraphy Conference

Brody's Calligraphy with Cola Nib

What a busy week in Naperville, IL. About 400 people gathered from around the world and experienced their love of calligraphy (beautiful handwriting). From paper, nibs, inks, watercolor, brushes and various tools of the trade we sculpted paper, painted papers and canvas, created books and made numerous friends.

I took a class with Belgium artist Brody Neuenschwander called Developing Meaning. He asked us to write about a significant event in our life in the last few years. I wrote about my friend Bud who went into a diabetic coma at age 35 and died. Bud had asked me to do his eulogy. I addressed the church congregation gathered for his funeral with two poems I had written. My mission was to be his voice. So in class we had to address our writing with 6 points of interest...private, public, desire, fear, knowledge and understanding. We did several exercises in expressive calligraphy and then put the pages into a book format. The class was very intense and emotional for many of us.

Black Book Cover and Pages Done in Brody's Class

Cover edge made with a folded transparency on open page edge with the poem copied onto it. The transparency was stitched with gold thread and threads weaving throughout the book. The spine was covered with handmade paper.

The pages were sumi'e ink and handmade paper collaged onto the surface.