Saturday, February 22, 2025; 12pm to 3pm 4207 W Irving Park, Chicago
This is a class for all levels with a focus on drawing, calligraphy, and incorporating nature, using trees as inspiration for creating fun and funky letters.
Students may bring in their own photos or cuttings of trees, branches, twigs, and leaves for inspiration, or they may use the instructor’s samples. We will explore the interesting shapes found in these items and sketch letters based on those shapes. Then, we will illustrate the alphabets using paints, colored pencils, gel pens, markers, and other materials. Students will work at their own pace and may choose to create a variety of letterforms or a cohesive alphabet or short phrase.
Materials will be supplied, but students may bring in photos or natural clippings for inspiration.
Two years ago, we lost our dear friend and mentor, Christine Colarsurdo, a renowned calligrapher from Portland. At her memorial show, there was a poignant poem she had written and lettered about an oak tree, a fitting tribute given Christine’s love for nature. Her sisters later gave me the artwork. as a remembrance gift since I had planted a native oak tree in my yard.
Recently I took a class on Text and Texture with Yukimi Annand. Inspired by Christine and the poem, I chose the bark of my oak as my muse, seeking to imitate its patterns and textures in my calligraphy. The resulting piece featured the first and last lines of Christine’s poem, along with oak leaf stamps which were based on similar stamps that Christine made.
Did you climb trees with your friends to see who could climb the highest? Build a treehouse that was your refuge? Walk through a cool dense forest in the springtime or pluck a ruby red apple off a tree? Did you ever speculate on what kind of a tree we would be? Hmmmm. Oak? Birch? Maple?
On a hot summer evening, did you run to a tree for safe base when you played tag?
Just as the rings of a tree embody the stories of the tree, so too we carry the stories of trees. These stories inspire us to renew our sense of wonder. They connect us to one another through shared experiences as they deepen our understanding to our connection with nature.
Sue Anne Foster is an artist educator and outspoken advocate of inclusion. She has a BS in Interior Design, MA in art therapy, and a PhD in Education.
A founding member of the international Labyrinth Society, her own 3 redwood trees are models of being rooted and grounded. She likes to touch their bark and hug them, even though her arms don’t reach all the way around.
Sue Anne brings her world travels home to the community. She has coordinated 7 Tibetan monks demonstrating sand mandalas at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento.
“My round is a circle of life that reflects my heart and cultural interests, with the message ‘hug a tree and another human’”. The backside is an embossed 11th circuit labyrinth, an ancient path of pilgrimage, and is reminiscent of the rings of a tree.
Artwork by Sue Anne Foster, Story by Phawnda Moore
Janelle is inspired by nature to explore her interests in painting and handlettering.
At our gathering, she shared that in Spring when the tulip trees are in bloom, she enjoys visiting familiar trees in the community to admire their annual show.
From this, Janelle painted a pink bloom and chose a quote about life for one round.
For the other one, she brush lettered an encouraging Bible verse along with a painting of a tree of life.
Three Exhibitions to Explore in One Place! The new exhibition “Tree Time + Silos” by artist Amanda Love presents a photographic documentation of the prehistoric and endangered species, The Metasequoia (or Dawn Redwoods) with a sneak peak at “Silos” an outdoor exhibition also inspired by the Dawn Redwoods coming this fall. “Treewhispers” displays a “forest” of handmade paper and artistic exploration honoring trees by Pamela Paulsrud and the late Marilyn Sward. “It Sounds Like Love” by artist Cadine Navarro creates a place of encounter with native Ohio prairie seeds.
The Nature x 4 Exhibition also features the “2022 Audubon Photography Awards”, “Feathered Portraits” photography exhibition by Donna Winters, and sound/meditation “It Sounds Like Love” by Cadine Navarro. It’s a wonderful collection of nature! Don’t miss it!
The North Shore Country Day School students in Winnetka, IL had many options from which to choose for their Interim program. One possibility was a week long experience with teaching artist extraordinaire, Jamie Thome at the Evanston Art Center.
The students explored papermaking, experimented with different writing exercises, made several books structures, and played with relief printmaking. Many of these new and exciting techniques were incorporated in the final project on the last day.
Students had the opportunity to contribute story and art embellished handmade paper rounds to the Treewhispers collaboration. They also made tiny paper circles (and painted them) which were stitched together to hang in their school. Inspired by Treewhispers, of course.
We would all enjoy hearing how others have collaborated in this ongoing art outreach.
Again beating the drum of gratitude for Artists Book House sponsoring a papermaking event with the Evanston Arts Council Special Projects Grant initiated by community building activist Jamie Thome. Many thanks also to volunteers and papermaking enthusiasts, Laura Antolin and Cori Paulsrud who shared the an incredible autumn afternoon in the “Reading Garden” amongst the trees with all those who came to make paper and tell stories. It was a delight! Thank you, thank you!!!
It was such a joy to share the creative papermaking process with adults and children alike last Sunday. Parent’s taught children. Children taught parents. Onlookers eased in to join the fun. Stories were shared and trees were celebrated.
Many thanks to Artists Book House for sponsoring the event with the Evanston Arts Council Special Projects Grant. Additional confetti to celebrate community building activist Jamie Thome ; amazing artist, fiber and pulp provider Melissa Jay Craig; Evanston Library and librarian (now papermaker) Laura Antolin; volunteers extraordinaires Michael Swierz, Katie Kucera and ABH Intern Kerrigan; and to all who shared in the papermaking/tree storytelling event. It was beautiful!
Visiting the willow was my reason for joining my uncle and cousin on their spring/summer fishing trek to the Washington Park Lagoon.
Three blocks from our house was my grandmother’s flower garden where they dug up the worms for bait.
I packed a picnic lunch because they never ever caught any fish.
While they baited the hooks at the water’s edge I climbed into the welcoming embrace of the sturdy weeping willow branch that extend out over the surface of the lagoon. With my back against the trunk and my feet dangling over the branches just inches from the water’s surface, I sang and cloud surfed and danced my whispered dreams. I skipped across the water with dragonflies, floated on the surface with willow leaves, inhaled spring and exhaled summer into the last autumn sunset.
The Warli Painting traditions in Maharashtra are among the finest examples of the folk style paintings. The Warli tribe is one of the largest indigenous tribes of India, living in both mountainous and coastal areas along the Maharashtra–Gujarat border. It is believed that the Warli carry on a tradition stretching back to 2500 or 3000 BCE. The Warli culture is centered on the concept of Mother Nature and elements of wildlife are often focal points depicted in Warli folk art.
Having been brought up in Mumbai, the capital of Maharashtra, I was exposed to this art since I was a kid. Unfortunately, I didn’t delve into this art form until I took a class last year with Sampada Kodagali Agarwal, who brought back the love I had always felt towards this art form done by the Warli people.
Warli painting is a simple, ancient and an eloquent way to express one’s thoughts and emotions. Only with some simple drawings and the use of two contrasting colors, a lot can be expressed. For this book, I used the brand “Khadi Papers” made in India from cotton, grown in the state of Karnataka. The word “Khadi” means hand-spun cloth, but unlike your average cloth, the word “Khadi” holds a very special place in India’s movement towards freedom and independence.
The flora and fauna of Warli art has always fascinated me, so when I read this paragraph from Katherine May’s book, ‘WINTERING’, I felt I was able to combine my love for calligraphy, lettering and Warli art into this accordion book to tell a story. Just as the author Rilke reverenced winter as the season for tending to the inner garden of the soul, Katherine May writes about “Resilience, the Wisdom of Sadness, and How the Science of Trees Illuminates the Art of Self-Renewal Through Difficult Times. May observes, with life-tested clarity, is the key to wintering — to emerge from the coldest seasons of the soul not only undiminished but revitalized.”
The excerpt I chose for the accordion book was one in which May draws an analogy between the human experience and trees: “The tree is waiting. It has everything ready. Its fallen leaves are mulching the forest floor, and its roots are drawing up the extra winter moisture, providing a firm anchor against seasonal storms. Its ripe cones and nuts are providing essential food in this scarce time for mice and squirrels, and its bark is hosting hibernating insects and providing a source of nourishment for hungry deer. It is far from dead. It is in fact the life and soul of the wood. It’s just getting on with it quietly. It will not burst into life in the Spring. It will just put on a new coat and face the world again.”
Jamie Thome/Pamela PaulsrudCori and Pamela PaulsrudPamela Paulsrud/Janice Kiska
Hosted by Evanstonmade and sponsored by Artist Book House, Treewhispers along with a multitude of artists, creatives and visionaries illuminate the space at 921 Church St., Evanston, IL .
Thanks to the sponsorship and eager assist by ABH Board Member, Jamie Thome the “growing of the forest” took shape in a timely manner. Janice Kiska, Cori Paulsrud and Michael Sweirz also gratefully stepped in for the final touches.
Installing and seeing the work in a new venue never ceases to amaze and delight me. On the handmade paper rounds I see the stories and art of those who shared them 20 years ago reverberate with those bound together only a week prior. These all feel like friends to me—friends bound with a common interest, passion and love for trees.
I was lucky enough to grow up on a big lake outside Battle Creek Michigan. Our house faced sunset and my dad and I enjoyed watching sunsets and changes in weather together.
One of the most beautiful things about living on Goguac Lake (an old Indian name), was the amazing tree cover. The whole area had beautiful tall, mature trees that had been there for a long, long, time. In the summer there when it was hot and steamy, as we drove up to the house the air temperature was at least ten degrees cooler up by the house, thanks to the trees. We were very aware of what a gift it was to live where we did under those big, beautiful trees.
What a delightful surprise to find this beautiful (inside and out) package in my mailbox. Thank you, Tim, for gracing these handmade paper rounds with your creativity and style. They will be a wonderful addition to the Treewhispers “forest”!
Artwork by Linda Lanza, North Brunswick, NJ (Yasutomo vermillion ink and Fine-tec inka-gold watercolor was used to letter lines from W.S. Merwin’s poem “Place” with a Soennecken 808/7 nib.)
Handmade paper by Stephanie Kulak Sager
I looked up at a tree on the full moon one night, and just stared at the top of the tree for maybe ten minutes, the branches seemed to wave back and forth and transform, I then felt my stomach expand, and a cord of energy formed from my stomach to the tree and I suddenly felt a massive, but slow pulse beating through my body, I intuitively knew I was feeling the pulse of the trees life force and then a kind of voice boomed through my body and spoke the words love..peace..harmony..in to my mind. It was such a profound spiritual moment that I felt the desire to just fall to my knees and say a prayer of thanks, I just felt completely in awe..I had never experienced connecting with a tree before, and have tried many times since, but unable to do it again!
I will be mailing my Treewhispers submission tomorrow, but I will email you the image here. My story is simple, reflected in the quote by Shakespeare which I wrote on the handmade paper. (Kitchen sink variety.) I’m so glad you asked Reggie to send the request out to his former students. This is the first calligraphy I’ve done for many years and because of this experience have decided to “go back to my roots” and write again.
My tree story.
Living on the central Oregon Coast in the Pacific Northwest affords great opportunity for walking in the woods among huge old growth trees. I marvel at their beauty and feel a presence even from the giant stumps left over from logging a century ago. I walk with my dog several times a week on secluded forest trails behind my house. It’s quiet in the solitude save for the voices of the trees who seem to speak volumes.
Best,
Christie Burns Handmade paper with Douglas Fir needle inclusions, walnut ink, gouache, and gold foil dots. (Thanks to Rosie Kelly for that little touch.)
Artwork by Eliz. Simmonds, Black Mountain, North Carolina
Artwork by Jo Ann Bunosky Buzulencia, Handmade paper by Don Widmer
Artwork by Patty Pape, Winston Salem, North Carolina
Artwork by Barbara Yale Read
Photo by Pamela Paulsrud
