Alphabeas: September 2010

Sunday, September 19, 2010

2010-2011 Exhibition

Margot sent me some photos she took of the new exhibition pieces that will show for the next two years. Our first showing will be at the White Rock Library in December. You still have time to get your piece(s) to Margot!!

Anita Boyd Johnson

Barb Cowan

Bev Allen

(photo by Bev Allen)

Fay Boyland

Kathleen Cochlan

Kay Gray

Muriel Dyson

Nan Maione

Rita Kitching

Trevor Nash

Violet Smythe

Wendy Cowley

Friday, September 17, 2010

September meeting

The September meeting program was a look at Medieval Decorated Letters and how they can translate into modern use. Each member was given a booklet prepared by me (Bev Allen). It starts by looking at Medieval Decorated Letters and how the decoration was done. Then either using Lombardic Caps or something more modern such as Neuland, we worked on a letter that would look more modern. It was good to know that we could accomplish this exercise in a couple of hours as I will be teaching this in Vancouver at the Westcoast Odyssey of Letters next month.

Here are some letters to give you some ideas to try:

I find them almost addicting..........you can lost for a time decorating them. Originally I started them to play along with Gemma Black's challenge of "A Letter a Week". It wasn't my intention to post them on the Letter a Week blog but just to play along.

http://aletteraweek2010.blogspot.com/

After working with them for awhile and finding them to be something I could take along with me as we travelled, I thought it would be a great program to share.

When I was asked to teach something at WOOL, this seemed a good idea.

Enjoy! I think most everyone had a good time at the meeting.

There was the tiniest mention of homework......a letter or a monogram on a good piece of paper. Maybe it could go along with the 'humour' quote for October's Galleria.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Summertime!

Yes, it is almost over! so sad except that it also means "back to work!" Usually guilds take the summer off but this year we experimented with a July meeting.

We decided to make the day free of any business meeting and jumped right into studying a manuscript page. This page appears in Historical Scripts by Stan Knight on the left page of B4. It is part of the Bodleian Library, Ms. Auct T. 2.26 - Jerome's Latin version of Eusebius' History of the World. This was the basis for Ewan Clayton's class at the Chicago conference "Early Roman Uncials". Interesting letters, no? ahhh, but we weren't looking at the main text letters, we were studying the notes in the margin!

Here is where an apology is due.... the weekend of our meeting was the weekend of my birthday, our 40th wedding anniversary and just a week before we were heading off to the UK. I know I downloaded photos from the meeting day but I have checked all of my three computers and *poof* they seem to have disappeared! I apologize! I have no photos to share with you from that meeting. You will have to take my word for it........we had a great time! I think the July meeting idea was a success and it will just be a matter of discussion to see if we would like to continue this and make it a tradition.

Late in August, we usually try and get together for lunch and a visit. Location plans changed a couple of times and it was finally decided for us to meet at Jo's house to help her with some studio decisions and have lunch there. It was a lovely sunny day, not too hot and we had a great turn-out! you'll be sorry you missed it if you did! And here is photographic proof with special thanks to Fay and Eileen for sharing their photos with us!