Last Friday I went to the Lyndon House Arts Center in Athens, GA to demonstrate calligraphy for the Harvest Festival. I chose to do pointed pen, or copperplate. This is not my first love, calligraphically speaking, but it's growing on me. I had some new ink to try out and almost started jumping up and down and yelling at happy results...McCaffery's white on black Strathmore paper was stunning. And flowed so smoothly.
I was situated in a gallery with an exhibit of fabulous contemporary Mexican prints. It was a great place to be, although I was all alone! That's ok--lots of kids visited me, many of them friends from Montessori, for last year I was a substitute there. Sometimes I let the kids try it, when there weren't too many all at once. I would correct their hold on the pen and then stand back and try not mind the awful scratching sounds. None of my nibs were ruined, and only a little ink was spilled.
The folks at the Lyndon House were very good to all us demonstrators. There was food in the morning, and drinks, and someone coming around with cold bottles of water midway, and then they took my lunch order and brought me lunch. It was amazing.
Unfortunately the Lyndon House is government funded, and they are in danger of losing funding for this event, as the turnout was lower than in previous years. Why was it lower? Because the public school system in that county can't afford to send kids on field trips. Only two schools sent kids. All the other kids came in from surrounding counties or were home schoolers. (In the four years my son was in that system he only went on one field trip, and it was to the Harvest Festival. He had a great time, and I had high hopes that he would get to go the next year, but no.)
No comments:
Post a Comment