Carl Rohrs has been a freelance lettering artist and sign painter in Santa Cruz, California since 1977 and taught Lettering & Typography and Graphic Design at Cabrillo College since 1984. He has been teaching workshops in modern pen and brush calligraphy techniques for unsuspecting calligraphy societies throughout the U.S. and Canada since 1986 and around the world (Europe, Australia, Japan and South Africa) since 1993. He is currently the editor and designer of Alphabet, the Journal of the Friends of Calligraphy (since 2015) and also from 1989-92. He was designer and co-editor of the 25th Edition of the Speedball Textbook (2021) and is editor and designer for the upcoming 26th edition. His brush lettering has been used as the masthead for Letter Arts Review since 2006.
Sara Loesch-Frank was raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico and moved to CA in 1976. She currently teaches for Mountain View-Los Altos and Sunnyvale-Cupertino Adult education programs. She previously worked at Sempervirens Fund on nature maps and lettering before finding an art teaching position. She and her husband, Curt Frank, teach The Science of Art Materials at Stanford as an intensive 3-week late-summer immersion class. The course grew from her experimenting with learning, making and using a host of various historical art materials that this class has evolved into a twelve-year commitment.
Grendl Löfkvist is the Director of Type West, Letterform Archive’s postgraduate certificate program in type design. She is also an instructor at City College of San Francisco and has taught calligraphy at a handful of Bay Area institutions including the San Francisco Center for the Book, Stanford University and Pixar. Grendl has ink in her veins; she was an offset press operator for 13 years at the politically progressive Inkworks Press Collective in Berkeley and she serves on the Board of the American Printing History Association’s NorCal chapter. She’s always on the lookout for macabre print, type and lettering lore.
A monthly social club based in San Francisco for mail artists, letter writers and people who love the USPS. If this sounds like you, then you've come to the right place! The Correspondence Co-op is a place for like-minded folks to meet other artists in a casual setting, make some mail art and share ideas. The SFCC meets the third Sunday of every month; no meeting in December. Sponsored by Book Arts & Special Collections.
Since first learning Babyteeth lettering from Dorothy Yuki in 2014, Dean Robino has been enamored of them. She uses them often and loves their geometry, whichever shape they take, legible or not, solid or open. She thinks they need to be in every letterer and calligrapher’s arsenal and is looking forward to talking about them.
Dorothy Yuki worked as a graphic designer with such companies as Macy's California, Williams-Sonoma, Bill Graham's Winterland, Sony and the US Figure Skating Championship. She serves on the board of Eco Sierra Gorda (part of the Sierra Gorda Biosphere) and is also a mentor and teacher of projects there. Since 2010, she has taught workshops on art and crafts at SCRAP-SF, Ruth's Table, FabMo, Techshop, Sunnyside Conservatory, Castle in The Air, SCTA, Artseed, Grupo Sierra Gorda, Aya Studio in Florida, Friends of Calligraphy, Society for Calligraphy and Pence Gallery (Davis). Yuki was advisor and master educator to Fashion Incubator San Francisco until 2020. She served as President of Friends of Calligraphy from 2013-2014.
Presentation: San Francisco's Transgender District in Photos
With Rev. Dr. Megan Rohrer
Celebrate Transgender History Month with Rev. Dr. Megan Rohrer, author of San Francisco's Transgender District. Dr. Rohrer will share images from the book, and will be in conversation with Christina Moretta, San Francisco Public Library's Photo Curator/Archivist.
Rev. Dr. Megan Rohrer, an activist, award-winning historian and finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in transgender nonfiction, leads regular walking tours of the Transgender District in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood.
Tick-tock! Here's a recent discovery from our collection: this is one of the beautifully engraved foldouts fromTraité d’Horlogerie by Jean André Lepaute (Paris: Chez Samson, 1767). Lepaute was clockmaker to the King. Mathematical contributions were made by Lepaute's wife, the brilliant astronomer and mathematician Nicole-Reine Hortense Etable de Brière (1723-1778), "who made her debut in calculating the tables on the oscillation of the pendulum."
This triennial exhibition features work by members of the Friends of Calligraphy, founded in 1974. KALLIGRAPHIAis a colorful, non-juried show highlighting a wide range of calligraphic techniques, from traditional methods dating back to the Middle Ages to expressionistic pen and abstract brushwork. On view are original works including broadsides, manuscript books and three-dimensional pieces. Friends of Calligraphy is an internationally known organization whose members are committed to furthering the art of beautiful writing. FOC sponsors workshops, lectures, and publishes a quarterly illustrated journal, Alphabet.
Free demonstrations by noted scribes will be held on Saturdays in July and August from 2:00 to 4:00 pm in the Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room, Lower Level, Main Library.
Aug 2: Carl Rohrs - Capital Ideas Revisited
Aug 9: Sara Loesch-Frank - How to Take the Ick Out of Your Italic
Aug 16: Grendl Lofkvist - Unrepentant Uncial
Aug 23: Dean Robino & Dorothy Yuki - Blocked? Try These Letters
This exhibition is presented in association with the Book Arts & Special Collections Center, home of the Richard Harrison Collection of Calligraphy & Lettering.
Moments from the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection