What I did on my summer vacation - and the year before that

It's been a busy couple of years, I'm happy to be getting my breath back!

From July 2015 to 2016, I was president of IAMPETH, the International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers and Teachers of Handwriting (thank heavens for acronyms!)  When I got into the succession line up in 2013, we had about 500 members and 200 people at the convention.  By the end of July 2016, we had almost 1800 members and 300 signed up for the convention which was held here in Portland, Oregon.  It was quite the job but fortunately I had some good people in my corner and I learned A LOT.  I also met calligraphers from around the world and that experience was priceless!

The most visible part of my job was the convention - and what a convention it was! 

(Logo by Skyler Chubak) 

 

It was a fantastic week - we had over 100 people who volunteered their time for everything from stuffing swag bags to providing excellent instruction to the attendees.

Speaking of stuffing swag bags, here's a tip if you're ever in charge of this...get them all hopped up on sugar.  Voodoo Doughnuts comes in very handy!

Yes, the doughnuts come in a 4-foot coffin.  The coffin is now home to all my leadership roles :-)

 

Besides bringing in local color via doughnuts, I kept it coming by having Portland's much beloved Unipiper open the convention.  

  "Are those bagpipes shooting flames?" you ask?  Of course, why wouldn't they???

Here's my brush with fame - me on the left, the Unipiper and my dearest friend, Heather Victoria Held.  Heather is an incredible artist, a warm and giving instructor and I would have lost my mind without her.

 

During the week we had 15 classes that covered a wide spectrum of the lettering arts...

Here's just a couple ideas of what we covered... these fantastic door signs were done by Schin Loong of Openinkstand Calligraphy.  These were PERFECT!  

 

 

I even got a sign for my most frequented view...

 

A highlight every year is the Archive Room.  There are amazing samples of lettering, flourishing,and engrossing from the past 150 years.

It was a wonderful and exhausting week!  A million thanks to JP Panter of Thistle Creek Studio.  She is wildly talented and extremely generous to agree to photograph our wild,wacky time.

And a thousand million thanks to everyone who came to the Wild West for the party.  You'll never know how much it meant to me!