Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Friday, May 18 from 2 to 5 p.m.

In celebration of its 20th Anniversary, our bestselling journal line Paperblanks and The Library Shop are hosting a unique event for fans of the beautifully crafted, high-quality writing journals. Visitors to the Library who purchase a Paperblanks journal will be able to have their journal personalized by on-site calligraphers at no additional charge.

Many of Paperblanks journals are based on antique book cover designs like the one by Jean Grolier below. 

About the calligraphers

Artist and Craftsperson, Karen Gorst has been working as a Calligrapher and Illuminator for more than 20 years.

Ms. Gorst studied with Herman Zapf, Jeanyee Wong, Sheila Waters and was President of The Society of Scribes for three terms. She brings to all her projects an in depth knowledge of paper, ink and Medieval And Renaissance art technique.

Her passion for research and recovering Medieval art techniques led her to share her findings with Medieval Congress at Western Michigan University at Kalamazoo, the interns and docents at The Cloister Branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art among others.

She also received a French government Grant to teach and resurrect the art of Illumination in that region.

Ms. Gorst is dedicated to teaching the next generation of artists how to use the Authentic processes to express their vision.

www.gorststudio.com

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Barry Morentz is a freelance lettering and book artist, and box-maker from New York City. He holds an MA in Medieval History and Comparative Literature. Initially self-taught, he began his formal calligraphic studies, mainly with Sheila Waters, in 1977, and eventually with Gottfried Pott, Hermann Zapf, and many other renowned calligraphers. He has taught numerous workshops throughout the US, Canada, Japan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, and at five international Calligraphy Conferences. In his midtown studio he slaves away primarily for the New York Public Library, Estee Lauder Companies, Cartier, Christie's, and The Museum of Modern Art. His day-to-day work includes illuminated resolutions, award design, headings, book and portfolio design, and the eternal envelope.

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The title "Calligraphy Quilt Collage" describes the materials, the method, and the source of inspiration for Eleanor Winters' artwork. A commercial calligrapher and lettering artist for 35 years, Eleanor started her personal "quilt project" in the early 1990s. By cutting up pieces of her own hand-painted calligraphy and combining them with variously colored and textured papers — including marbled, metallic, Japanese and other Asian papers, as well as paste papers — she recreates and redesigns traditional patchwork quilt patterns, in many cases the same patterns that have been used for centuries to make bedding and wall-coverings.

The calligraphic element in the Eleanor Winters’ quilt collages ranges from total abstraction, i.e., letters that have been reduced to their component strokes or curves, to legible quilts, with clearly visible calligraphic letters. Eleanor has recently gone back to her calligraphic roots, creating a new series in which hand-painted alphabets, Gothic, Italic, Copperplate and Uncial, are woven into traditional and non-traditional quilt patterns. Although the quilts communicate with the viewer largely through color, shape and pattern, the alphabetic element adds an additional level of meaning to many of these works of art.

Eleanor's work has been exhibited in galleries and museums in the United States and Europe.

www.eleanorwinters.com

See a sample Calligraphic Inscription

Grolier in the house of Aldus