Vulnerability in Art, Fairground Painters, and More Worldwide Events

This is the Worldwide Events News email from BLAG. You can opt out of these, and control your other BLAG emails, via your email settings. (The bl.ag online digest and BLAG Member emails are only sent to paid members.)

Read on for news of forthcoming BLAG Events, and dozens more in-person and online happenings around the world.

BLAG Events

There are three BLAG Chats lined up between now and the beginning of May: Allowing Vulnerability Into Your Art and Life with You Are Not Alone Murals; Moving Type: From Static Lettering to Type in Motion with Chris Campe; and The Fairground Painters with Amy Goodwin.

These are all free and online.

Sign Painting & Gilding Workshops

USA

Mike Meyer is currently on the road, with his lettering workshops coming soon to Oakland Park FL and Charlotte NC. It's then lettering and gilding/glue chipping at home in Chester IA, before heading out east in July for lettering and gilding in Rockaway NY, and even more lettering in Salem MA.

Mike Meyer showcards for workshops in Charlotte NC and Salem MA. (The Showcards Book is currently discounted in the BLAG Shop.)

For those in/near Portland OR, there's Studio Sign Co.'s Sign Painting 101 in April, and the four week evening class with Kirsten Bauer in May.

In San Francisco, New Bohemia Signs have dates in May, June and July for their popular Introduction to Brush Lettering workshop.

And April in Los Angeles sees Smart Alex Signs hosting a Lettering, Layout & Effects class and Emmanuel Sevilla running a Brush Lettering workshop.

On the east coast, there's a Surface Gilding workshop in Buffalo NY this month, and an Intro to Sign Painting Basics in Somerville MA in May.

Europe

Ged Palmer at the Luminor Sign Co. has recently expanded his workshops programme and these classes are coming to Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, and London (July and August) across the summer and autumn.

Bungo Sign Co. are now booking dates in Glasgow through to the end of the year, and Joby Carter's next five-day course is at the end of April. And, for those further south, check out Terry Smith's classes in Brighton.

Lettering & Layout Workshops

Martina Flor's renowned Lettering Seminar is now an annual event, and she is offering a series of free online lettering design sessions starting next month for those interested in learning more.

Free online lettering design sessions with Martina Flor, in advance of the Lettering Seminar.

In New York, sessions at Cooper Union include Drop Cap, Monograms & Illustrated Word with Kyle Letendre, Introduction to Lettering with Ken Barber, and Grids and Layouts with Ellen Lupton.

And for something completely different, try out paper embossing with this online workshop from the Ardington School of Crafts.

Exhibitions

This weekend is The Ralph “Doc” Guthrie Art Show at Oh Nami Gallery in Los Angeles. Artworks by the late, great LA Trade Tech sign painting instructor will be up for grabs, with all proceeds going to charity. (Read 'Doc Guthrie: A Tribute' at bl.ag online.)

Nantes in France sees Serial Painters opening next week, showcasing works by Matthieu Verlaine and Monsieur Law.

And there's now less than a month to catch Final Sale — From Department Stores to Museums in Berlin and Francis Alÿs, Wolfgang-Hahn-Preis 2023 in Köln. (See the bl.ag online piece for more about Francis Alÿs' Sign Painting Project.)

Also check out: Quasi: Experimental Writing Systems (Pasadena CA to 14 April); Typographic Jazz: The Monoprints of Jack Stauffacher (San Francisco to 26 May); Paula Scher: Type is Image (Munich to 22 September); and Give Me a Sign: The Language of Symbols (New York to 24 September).

Save the Date

Across the month of August there will be a very special exhibition taking place in Bridport, Dorset. It will celebrate and showcase the output of the sign painter George Biles, including a vast collection of surviving pub signs that he produced for the local Palmer's brewery.

Painters at work in George Biles' workshop in Bridport, Dorset in the early 1930s.

Talks & Gatherings

June's Letterheads meet in Epsom is now sold out, and so the next big gathering that I know of will be in Cambridge, New Zealand, at the end of October. And then there's the 50th anniversary event in 2025, details to be announced...

If you're craving that in-person fix, then tickets for July's Berlin Letters are now available, the Society of Gilders Conference is coming in August, and there's a Walldogs Meet in Amelia FL in November.

The Complete Commercial Artist: Making Modern Design in Japan, 1928–1930 from Letterform Archive.

For talks, there are now more and more 'hybrid' events which can also be accessed online, including: Always Now: Typography and Semiotics (London, 14 March); The Complete Commercial Artist: Making Modern Design in Japan, 1928–1930 (San Francisco, 7 March); and It’s a Gas: Neon’s Early History in America (Cincinnati, 21 March).

And, exclusively online, we have: You Are Not Alone Murals: Allowing Vulnerability Into Your Art and Life (22 March); Type Revival for Period Film & TV (2 April); Moving Type: From Static Lettering to Type in Motion (26 April); The Fairground Painters with Amy Goodwin (9 May).

That's a wrap for this periodic Worldwide Events News email. Look out for another one soon, and email me (sam@bl.ag) with news of any workshops, exhibitions, talks, or gatherings that BLAG readers will be interested in.

All good things, Sam