Contact me for more information about offering a workshop in your area.  Please scroll down to view examples of workshops and lectures I offer.

Teaching is valuable to me both in assuring that the art of calligraphy is kept alive and flourishing, and in keeping me inspired by and involved in others' work. I have been teaching and developing new courses for 20 years. Over these years, I have found teaching to be a deeply personal process. At its best, it leads to new creative energies in both the students and the teacher.

NEULAND
This highly entertaining, often densely written hand can be an expressive calligraphic tool. Neuland based on the Rudolph Koch's 1923 Neuland Typeface, and Bent-stick Neuland will be our starting points for the letters and numerals. Various exercises will help students explore texture, space and counterspace. Students will have time to develop their own style, and experiment with the use of outlining, in-lining, highlights, serifs, shadows, and tonal variation. Tools will include the pen, poster pen, markers, chisel edged brush, reed, sticks, etc. We will play with gouache, pencils, watercolor, ink and iridescent acrylics. Students will complete a small booklet to house their most successful experiments. Or a fabric piece for framing.

CURSIVE HANDS
Need something dashing...something innovative...something YOU in your palette? Cursive Hands will take you from historic models (we will use Italic and Carolingian as a base) through exercises and play to discover and begin to perfect your calligraphic cursive. We will learn much about form and function of a letterform as we seek to modify it. We will use conventional nibs and pressure sensitive points as well as the ruling pen or folded pen. Students will make their own folded pens as well. Final project will use pieces of a group project and students' own work bound into a small booklet with the "tortoise shell stitch" Japanese binding.

BLACK LETTER & DECORATED CAPITALS
Friday evening students will learn the beautiful and highly decorative Black Letter Capitals. Saturday, students will learn the Gothic letterforms first from an historic model, following Edward Johnston's guidelines. Once these guidelines in copying a manuscript are mastered, any hand can be successfully analyzed. We will go on to perfect this hand through letter by letter demonstration. Students will complete exercises in spacing, legibility, and pen control. Ideas for modernizing the letters will be presented. Sunday will introduce the Versal and it's decoration, starting with historic models for counter decoration, vining, and more modern treatments. We will return to the Black Letter Capitals with enhancements that will modernize them. Students will each complete a tiny "Interwoven Concertina Booklet" to display this decorative hand.

CAROLINGIAN AND DECORATED VERSALS

follows the same format as the Blackletter

ROMAN CAPITALS, FROM SEDATE TO FANCIFUL & PAINTING WITH PASTELS
Starting with pencils and the Trajan Model, we will rediscover the proper proportions and underlying structure of these most majestic letters. Students will explore the use of pressure in creating the traditional letters while working with various layout ideas. Students will complete exercises demonstrating the uses of weight, serifs and x-height variations. Further exercises using pressure will help rejuvenate italic capital forms. Students will play with Built-Up Capitals. Many exercises and examples will be given to help students discover the exciting non-conventional forms possible with these letters. We will see how many rules we can break yet still retain the strength and beauty needed to produce a calligraphic work of art. The technique of painting with pastel dust will be demonstrated with examples of its uses shown. Everyone will complete at least one piece using a combination of the letterforms and background treatments.

COPPERPLATE
Copperplate, elaborate and traditional, can teach the scribe many skills needed to perfect her more modern work. Because it is highly pressure sensitive, it is a must in every serious scribe's toolbox. The skills learned through Copperplate directly influence the way we wield our brush, and even the chisel edged pen. This class starts with how to hold and care for the pointed pen. Various pens with a range of flexibility will be tested. We will learn paper preparation, joins, and spacing, and each letterform will be carefully studied and reproduced. The second day will begin with traditional Copperplate capitals, then move into variations for a more modern look. We will experiment with other pressure sensitive tools, papers, and colors. Historic forms of decoration and border work will serve as a springboard for modern interpretations. We will display our work in a tiny boxed booklet as a final project.

SOME LIKE IT HOT! The Majolica Technique*

Team instruction by Sally Sanders-Garrett & Amity Parks (www.briarworks.com)

Fire up your calligraphy! Showcase your work on beautiful decorative tiles. Work off paper in a new medium to inspire and rejuvenate your lettering. This workshop offers the excitement of a new venue for your blackletter. Working with brush, pen and glazes on prepared ceramic tiles, we will combine decorative elements in Renaissance tile art with lettering and design to create a beautiful framed tile, a smaller experimental tile, and a small book with tiles for its covers. Class starts the first evening with a very short historic overview of the majolica technique through slides. We will demonstrate ways to analyze classic motifs and incorporate these elements of decoration into a design. We will demonstrate the use of glazes and each student will paint on a small tile to be fired that night for review the next morning. Students will take home handouts to help them start thinking about their book cover designs. Handouts with suitable lettering examples and design patterns will be available.

The next morning, students will design and paint a ceramic book cover. This will house an accordion booklet, a short illustrated history of the art form prepared by Amity and Sally. The covers will be fired over night. Throughout the day we will demonstrate various methods of the on-glaze decorating technique called Majolica, and illustrate them with finished examples. In the afternoon, students will design and paint a larger tile, again using traditional design elements. These will be fired over night. The last day we will demonstrate adding gold lustre to finished tiles. Students will add this to their own tiles if desired, and they will be refired. Students will enhance and bind their small book on the history of tile art. The larger tiles will be set in a frame. Students will be given information on how to obtain supplies and create similar decorative tiles on their own. Class will end with a critique of the finished tiles.
*facilities must include an on-site kiln.

Tile by Sally	Tile by Amity Parks

LECTURES

1. Creativity
"When the artist is alive in any person, whatever their kind of work may be, that person becomes an inventive, searching, daring, self expressive creature. They become interesting to other people. The artist disturbs, upsets, enlightens and opens ways for a better understanding. Where those who are not artists are trying to close the book, the artist opens it and shows there are still more pages possible." Robert Henri The Art Spirit
A discussion on how to encourage creativity in our lives, leading to renewed creativity in our art. Research in the field of creative thinking will be discussed. Participants will have the chance to take part in exercises that focus on the four basic processes that can enhance the development of creative thinking.

2. History of Western Calligraphy
A slide show/ lecture on the history of our alphabet, with interesting information on the forces behind certain evolutions in the letterforms and their use. I feel this information is a must for all calligraphers.

3. Calligraphy Is Art!
A slide show/lecture. First given to an art museum foundation in order to help them see that calligraphy is a disciplined art. I discuss how several pieces are developed through the creative process, and their impact on the viewer. Those who have heard this lecture, if not calligraphers, are always surprised and impressed, while calligraphers find it encouraging and stimulating for their own creative process. There will be time for discussion during this presentation.