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Can you believe Creative Calligraphy is celebrating its seventh business birthday? And what a year the last one has been. I spent my sixth business birthday in lockdown, having cancelled 10 calligraphy workshops, two private classes, two talks/demos and a whole term of weekly classes. Several events I was due to take part in –…

Autumn, Winter – and now Spring! A third seasonal activity pack – Spring Wellness – has been launched by The Shipley Art Gallery in Gateshead to help people unlock their creative potential from the comfort of their own homes. Several north east artists have once again created activities inspired by the gallery’s collection and the…

An exhibition exploring Islamic art, women and creativity, has been launched at Arts Centre Washington. Srijoni – meaning (the) creative – is the culmination of a project involving women from ethnically diverse communities in Sunderland and South Tyneside. They worked alongside artists Padma Rao and Roohia Syed-Ahmed to explore the notion of culture, cultural entitlement…

How have you been keeping in touch with people over the last year? Phone calls? Video conferencing? E-mails? Letters? I’ve been putting pen to paper on a number of projects in the last 12 months, each one designed to spark joy via snail mail. It started with an envelope exchange via The European Pointed Pen…

Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums has announced that The Lindisfarne Gospels will go on display at the Laing Art Gallery in Newcastle in 2022. The most spectacular surviving manuscript from Anglo-Saxon England will arrive on loan from the British Library. There will be a supporting exhibition at neighbouring Newcastle City Library, with the aim…

It’s fair to say that 2020 has been a year like no other. Covid-19 sent the world into a tailspin, with the UK Government imposing a national lockdown in March in a bid to curb the spread of the virus. Restrictions eased over the summer and schools returned as normal in September, but a second…

The winter chill is setting in and cosy nights are upon us. The festive season is in full swing, but if you need a break from the hustle and bustle of getting everything ready after a strange year, The Shipley Art Gallery has just the thing. Five artists, including myself, have once again being brought…

I’ve submitted my Christmas wish list to Santa (or in my case, the husband) and as you can imagine, there are a few calligraphy-related requests in there. While 2002 has been a strange year, to say the least, calligraphy businesses and suppliers have been pulling out all the stops to launch new products or tweak…

During lockdown, I’ve been turning my business back into a hobby. I’ve learned two new calligraphy scripts in the last month – Italian Hand with Heather Held and Pointed Pen Uncial with Joy Daniels. Both were via Zoom and if it wasn’t for the fact that Covid-19 has forced a lot of calligraphy workshops online,…