Fooling the Eye
By Maryanne Grebenstein – You may have experienced something like this: You walk into a restaurant that is housed in a building with solid walls all around. But as you pan the room you see a view of a beautiful footbridge across a very picturesque river with...
Calligraphy and Painting on Vellum
By Maryanne Grebenstein and Fionnuala Hart Gerrity – Part 1 by Maryanne Grebenstein I’m delighted to be collaborating with Fionnuala Hart Gerrity on a new workshop. Fionnuala is a multi-talented artist and bookbinder. She’s been experimenting with painting on vellum...
A Christine de Pizan Manuscript
By Maryanne Grebenstein – Other than members of royalty, we know relatively few medieval women by name. And those that we do know, Joan of Arc for example, we know largely because of the circumstances under which they met their demise. Christine de Pizan (1364-1430)...
A Medieval-Style Binding
By James Reid-Cunningham – When Maryanne Grebenstein asked me to bind her manuscript by Christine de Pizan, I immediately thought that the binding should reflect the period of the author’s life. The challenge was that the manuscript is only a few leaves, while most...
Analyzing Letters – the Best Way to Learn to Imitate a Lettering Style
By Maryanne Grebenstein -- In 21st century America, it is easy for us to associate calligraphy with contemporary uses such as wedding invitations and table accessories. But calligraphy has a rich and noble history that predates our country by centuries. We need only...
Illuminated Manuscripts “Beyond Words”
By Maryanne Grebenstein -- “BEYOND WORDS: ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPTS IN BOSTON COLLECTIONS is the first exhibition to showcase highlights of illuminated manuscripts in the Boston area. An ambitious collaborative project, Beyond Words is notable for the size of its...
Summer Days on Nantucket
By Maryanne Grebenstein -- I don’t know how I got lucky enough to receive an invitation from the Nantucket Historical Association (www.nha.org) to teach a calligraphy workshop on Nantucket, but I was not about to turn it down! What a nice compliment! And who wouldn’t...
The Brilliance of Hermann Zapf
By Maryanne Grebenstein -- Hermann Zapf (1918-2015), born in Nuremberg, Germany, was one of the greatest calligraphers and type designers who ever lived. He began lettering at age 18 and spent many years studying historic letterforms. With the advent of computers,...
Can Captain Jack Sparrow Make You a Better Calligrapher?
By Maryanne Grebenstein – I recently had the pleasure of enjoying an exhibition called, “Cut! Costume and the Cinema” at the Heritage Museum and Gardens (www.heritagemuseums.org) on Cape Cod in Sandwich, Massachusetts. It was interesting and really fun to see some...
Classroom Abroad at La Napoule
By Maryanne Grebenstein — For several years, I’ve had the pleasure of conducting a Classroom Abroad experience for calligraphers and book artists at Château de la Napoule in the south of France. It’s such a marvelous location that in my last blog post I shared some of...
