On rice paper an original work of art created for WORKS ON PAPER (an exhibition through June 30th) by master calligrapher Penelope Culbertson.
About the artist:
Penelope Culbertson began her art studies at the Portland Art Museum as a child, in the art department at Cleveland High School, at Reed College in Eastmoreland with calligraphy master Lloyd Reynolds, at Willamette University in Salem, at the San Francisco Art Institute, and the Institute de Bellas Artes in San Miguel, Mexico.
Penelope was the co-founder of the Art Academy of Kona and the West Hawaii Arts Guild where she served on the Executive Board. Penelope worked in the Hawaii State Artist-in-School program and showed as the Artist-in-Residence at the Hyatt Regency. Her work is in the permanent collection at the Royal Waikoloan Hotel.
Since her return to Portland, Penelope has had seventeen solo exhibits of her watercolors. She showed year round at the Hawthorne Arts Gallery and annually at the Buckman Art Show where she was the founding chairman of the Children’s Art Sale. She taught children’s art classes at the Buckman Arts Magnet Elementary and for the Portland Parks Dept. in their after-school program. In 1999 she helped produce a book of children’s watercolors about the Portland Water System. She was co-founder of The Hawthorne Arts Guild and showed in all their monthly group shows.
Penelope teaches weekly classes in calligraphy. She experiments in watercolors, oil pastels, collage, tapestry weaving and calligraphy. She is a member of the Portland Society of Calligraphy.
On June 4th.
Opening reception for Works on Paper.
Seaside First Saturday Art Walk.
Artist Penelope Culbertson offered a Painting Seaside LIVE episode (or rather, a Scribing Seaside LIVE episode), taking art patron’s requests for individual words.
In addition, the calligrapher offered a history lesson about how and why the letter “A” became the “A” as we know it today. First origins can be traced back to Egyptian hieroglyphs carved in stone from the 2nd millennium BCE.
A (named /ˈeɪ” ) is the first letter and the first vowel in the ISO basic Latin alphabet. It is similar to the Ancient Greek letter alpha, from which it derives. The upper-case version consists of the two slanting sides of a triangle, crossed in the middle by a horizontal bar, discovered first on a stone tablet.
The letter “A” in the Seaside, Oregon logo is very similar to the original Egyptian script!
And, too, a very interesting WORKS ON PAPER lecture takeaway:
In Penelope Culbertson’s calligraphy classes at Reed College, was a student named Steve Jobs (yes, indeed, the Apple inventor/ computer genius). It has been written that the classes Jobs took at Reed College were largely responsible for the seismic shift in computing typeface that the Mac has been responsible for. Still later Steve Jobs’ Trappist monk calligraphy teacher put him on the spiritual path to changing the world.
Thank you, Penelope, for the complimentary works on paper, art work and lecture!!!
Please visit http://www.fairweatherhouseandgallery/artists/Penelope Culbertson for more information.
Fairweather House and Gallery is located at 612 Broadway, Seaside, Oregon and since 2006 has represented more than 100 nationally known regional artists.
