OUR INSTRUCTORS

Bio: Michael Sull is an IAMPETH master penman and author living in Mission, Kansas, United States. An expert on penmanship, he was Ronald Reagan's calligrapher after his Presidency and is known worldwide for his skill and teaching ability. He regularly teaches handwriting, calligraphy, and engrossing programs throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. Considered America’s foremost living Spencerian penman, he is author of Spencerian Script and Ornamental Penmanship, Learning to Write Spencerian Script, and American Cursive Handwriting, and publishes various other educational materials focusing on pen writing. He also manufactures period style oblique dip pen equipment for use by penmen today. ​

BIO: Barbara Calzolari is an accomplished and talented Master Penwoman, living in Bologna, Italy. She has been working full-time as a professional, freelance calligrapher for over 15 years. She combines a passionate, technical and artistic approach to every style she learns--and generously shares both the practical and philosophical aspects of her knowledge with her students. She has been recognized by IAMPETH as a Master Penwoman and is fully accomplished in a wide array of pointed pen, broad pen and brush pen mediums. To learn more about her history, please read here.

Bio: Pat Blair has been a professional calligrapher for 29 years, and currently holds the position of Chief Calligrapher at The White House in Washington, DC. Her work has been published in Letter Arts Review, The Calligrapher’s Engagement Calendar, Scripsit, Martha Stewart Weddings, and Tabellae Insatae. Sharing and teaching what she loves is a high priority, and she teaches at the Loudoun Academy of the Arts in Virginia, and has been on the faculty of several International calligraphy ciao!!!conferences. Pat has served two years as President of the Washington Calligrapher’s Guild, been Chairperson of The Graceful Envelope Contest, and has been Co-Director of Letterforum, the 26th International Calligraphy Conference. Pat’s love of pointed pen lettering led her to her study of copperplate and spencerian letterforms. The International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers, and Teachers of Handwriting recently awarded her the honor “Master Penman” for her work in this area.

Bio: Giovanni de Faccio, born in 1966, is Italian but lives in Austria. He is a professional calligrapher since 1990 and in 1991 he was one of the founders of the first modern Italian Calligraphic Association for which he is still leading specialized courses. On international level he is known as teacher and for the effort he dedicated to subjects such as the "way of writing by hand" and typography. He drew digital characters, the most notable is the Rialto.df. In 1999 he was honored by Günter Gerhard Lange for the German association "Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen" by recognizing "High quality design" and in 2002 he won the competition of the "Type Directors Club" in the category type system. He took part at international exhibitions and published various articles and books as "Better writing" or the manual "Calligraphy". For over five years he was engaged with the project "Litterae", a manuscript on parchment using a quill pen, and mineral and vegetable pigments prepared at home according to ancient recipes. He is also letter cutter on stone and teaches calligraphy and type-design at the New Design University in St. Poelten, Austria. His motto is: Stop to write with your head, write now with your heart.​

Bio: Tom Kemp first saw an edged brush being used when he was sixteen years old, having started his calligraphic training four years earlier with an edged pen. It was a stunning moment, watching these huge, black, glossy, swelling strokes appearing effortlessly through the dust on an old blackboard. He realised then that he had been using the wrong tool! Something about the flexibility and precision of the brush entranced him and he rushed to the local library to study one of the very few copies available (at that time) of Edward Catich’s book, The Origin of the Serif. Several years later, he felt confident enough to start teaching the ‘Trajan' script which Catich had rediscovered, and even to try to improve on and refine his ideas, leading to Tom's own book, Formal Brush Writing, in 1999. What followed was a long period of doubt about the entire modern calligraphic enterprise. He stopped formal writing and started using the brush to make ‘writing without language’, a kind of abstract painting which used all the knowlege he had gained about the use of tools, media and surfaces, and about how one's own body and mind work in conjunction with these three. Five years ago, he began to learn another surprisingly calligraphic technique: making ceramic pots on a wheel. He now makes porcelain vessels as surfaces on which he continues to 'write' with an edged brush.