Overview

The Passionate Pen is a full-week international conference at Sonoma State University in Northern California, from July 25 to August 1, 2015, with an anticipated attendance of approximately 500 artists, historians, educators, entrepreneurs, students, authors and hobbyists. Our faculty and participants will come from far and wide representing approximately 20 countries on six continents. Your sponsorship at The Passionate Pen will penetrate a targeted audience worldwide.

Objectives

Our objective is to bring together the most extraordinary and highly-regarded talent from all over the world. The conference is designed to maximize sharing of skills, techniques, materials, tools and other pertinent information among all levels of lettering artists from the aspiring young student to the well accomplished who apply their craft as fine artists, commercial artists, authors and educators. Above all, this conference aims to inspire sustained interest in lettering arts, encourage the continued learning of handwriting, and by extension, calligraphy to young people through the outreach of teachers who attend this conference and share their experience and knowledge within their classrooms and with their guild members.

Faculty

Our distinguished faculty is comprised of many highly sought-after individuals and thought-leaders who inspire the calligraphy and lettering arts community with their dedication and innovative ideas. We are especially pleased to present Pat Blair, the head calligrapher at the White House; Ewan Clayton, MBE, Crafts Champion of the year for educating others in crafts, and informal advisor to Prince Charles; Mike Gold and Martha Ericson, lettering artists from American Greetings; Jovica Veljovic, an internationally-recognized type designer and educator; Julian Waters, renowned artist whose work has appeared in National Geographic and Smithsonian magazines; Barry Morentz, a commercial calligrapher whose clients include Cartier, Estée Lauder and The Museum of Modern Art. We invite you to browse our website to learn more about the faculty.

Format

The conference format is designed to inspire individuals of all skill levels by offering one- and four-day classes at varying degrees of difficulty for the newly interested student to the highly-accomplished professional. In addition to attending daytime classes, attendees will also enjoy exciting evening lectures by dynamic and talented speakers, view several exhibitions including a faculty show, attend a commerical trade show, unwind at our social events and have time to network with old friends while making new ones.

Your Support

We invite you to promote your message and gain exposure of your brand all while helping to bring the very best learning experience to the world-wide lettering and calligraphy community. By supporting The Passionate Pen, you can help in the following ways:

$100 funds the scribe store for one day
$300 funds scholarships for 2 local students to attend a one-day class
$500 funds on-campus transportation for our less ambulatory participants
$750 pays the guest speaker fees for one evening program
$1,500 funds a printed brochure focused on outreach to local students and educators
$1,500 funds travel expenses for an international faculty member
$5,000 funds audio visual support for the week’s programs
$10,000 funds shipping and handling of artwork for three on-campus exhibitions

Contact

We welcome you to contact one of our executives to learn more about supporting The Passionate Pen:
Marcia Friedman, Co-Director, marcia@thepassionatepen-org.landedesign.com, 415.892.1273
Melissa Titone, Co-Director, melissa@thepassionatepen-org.landedesign.com, 707.573.3810