Calligraphy at Hogwarts West

The Portland Society for Calligraphy was the sponsoring group for the 31st Gathering of Lettering Artists that was The International Calligraphy Conference on Tuesday June 26. It was held at Reed College in Portland, Oregon under the auspices of Calligraphy Northwest. This is a big deal. Reed College is a century-old temple of learning nestled in the trees of the Woodstock District of Portland -one of the oldest parts of the city.

The night before the show we went to the famous Powell's Books in downton PDX and they had a show of local calligraphers' works.

It was in a corner of the ground floor near the Orange Room. And you have to agree with Rosanne Rosanadanna, it is always somethin'.

Powell's is the largest new and used bookstore in the world. If you have never experienced Powell's City of Books, it's four floors, at least, in what used to be a car dealership building. It's an entire block on Burnside and people like Chris, above, are not only helpful but can be essential. That info booth is just inside the door and you can get a map to the place (you'll need it). Great coffee shop in house BTW!

The conference drew 500 attendees and dozens of instructors and teachers from all over the world. We were in the student union building with about 20 other one-day vendors. Check out the cool sculptures hanging from the rafters. They're made of balloons! Chihuly on the cheap!

Grip-All Jaws was specifically invited to this event by the organizers and they had us right next to the main entrance! We, of course were showcasing the Orbital Easel. Between classes and during lunch and dinner, people came in and tried out this new thing they had not seen before.

We did pretty well and had a great repsonse. One of the attendees said that this new tilting and swiveling easel was what everybody was talking about in the classes. As one student put it, "This thing is all the buzz." Cool!

One of the vendors there was truely amazing! Tim Leigh is a master calligrapher and one of the nicest people in the world. He was there selling his folded nib pens. Check out his web site for the whole story. Calligraphy is a right-handed persuit but Tim is left-handed. He realized one day that, lefty or not, a 45 degree slant is the same right-side up or upside down. So he taught himself to write upside down - and backwards! Check out the video of him doing it.

We have to say that we had not had such a good time as we had here in Portland. The organizers and tireless volunteers with Calligraphy Northwest were just the best. Check out the Facebook Page. This conference was efficient, well organized, and the people were more helpful than we could have imagined. And to the lovely and talented Angelina who ferried us to and from the parking lot in the funky, steam-powered golf cart, a special thank you. To all the great folks with Calligraphy Northwest, a campus-sized thank you from all of us here at Grip-All Jaws.

Yaahr! Yo ho, me hearties, yo ho!

Grip-All Jaws went to Rusty Scupper Pirate Daze in Westport, Wa June 22, 23, and 24. Saleswise, it proved - well - a complete failure. But in truth, the only people who sold anything were the food vendors. It also rained and the wind blew pretty much the whole time. But on Sunday the sun came out for a while and every Roger was feeling more jolly.

Our very own Lady Hilary aka "Crescent Wench" talking Orbital Easel with a couple o' scalliwags that were there Sunday. Maid Marla and Lickety Split.

These guys threw together a pirate song group and went up and down the street singing them. When they got to our end, there was a bit of a disagreement over what the words were. Swords were drawn but in a most un-pirate way they reached agreement and no blood was spilled.

T'weren't all pirates, to be sure. What's a pirate festival without saucy wenches? These girls were doing belly dancing all weekend - even in the rain.

The guy on the right had some ropes on sticks and a bucket of bubble stuff. This lash up made hundreds of bubbles and everybody liked them.

Like the song says, "...the wind was bad and the rain was strong..." But people made a good time out of it anyway.

We were off to Portland the next day...

Chemical Tests on the easel

We were wondering one day. We got to talking and it occurred to us that artists use all sorts of cleaners and thinners and stuff like that there. So we decided to test a sample of the Orbital Easel material to see how well it stood up to some of that stuff.

First of all water is pretty safe, obviously. However, watercolors will eventually stain the surface - as they do with anything else. So here is the result of exposure to several, and some rather nasty, chemicals that artists might use. Needless to say nothing we tried had any effect. Below is the list.

From top to bottom:

Denatured Alcohol - right out of the can.

Paint Thinner - The regular stuff you get at the hardware store.

Toluene - A standard thinner for oil-based paints.

MEK Methyl Ethyl Keytone - Pretty nasty stuff used to thin and remove resins used for fiberglass.

Naptha - A common cleaner and spot remover derived from natual gas.

Acetone - Another particularly nasty chemical, fingernail polish remover.

Lacquer Thinner - used to dilute oil-based lacquers and paints.

The Orbital Easel Tripod Base

We now have a tripod base available for the easel. It's similar to the regular base but small and has the treaded insert for a standard tripod.

As you can see, it's ideal for any sort of uneven ground when you are painting on location. You set the easel where it's most stable and your adjustment is in the Orbital Easel's tilt swivel base.

We suggest that you use a heavy-duty tripod and not a lightweight, $24 model from the camera depatment at Wal-Mart. After all, this is a 17 x 23 inch flat surface at an angle.

The tripod shown below is a Bogen "pro-sumer" type. But, honestly it was windy that day and there were NO stablilty problems whatsoever, none! Even we were surprised! There were several people flying kites that day. This unit is more stable than a standard easel.

It will be in store very soon!