"The municipal swimming pool at Sloat boulevard and the Great highway was formally opened yesterday with the national swimming championships of the American Amateur Union. Thousands watched the day's events. The pool is the gift to the city of Herbert Fleishhacker, president of the park commission. It is the largest of its kind in the world, being 1000 feet long and 150 feet wide. The public will have access to the pool or the ocean beach adjoining from the bathhouse." - Illustrated Daily Herald
Presentation: The Many Flavors of Blackletter
Calligraphy by Raoul Martinez [20- -], from Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin (1953)
Raoul Martinez had an informal exposure to calligraphy while he was in college. In 2009, his interest was rekindled by the Kalligraphia exhibit. He started taking classes offered by Atelier Gargoyle and Friends of Calligraphy, where he fell in love with all things blackletter. Raoul’s artwork has been shown at the San Francisco Public Library, the Oakland Asian Cultural Center, Filoli, the Presentation Center and the Sebastopol Center for the Arts, and has been published in the Speedball Textbook and Alphabet. Raoul hosts the Blackletter Brunch, a monthly online salon for blackletter enthusiasts.
The Book of Kells is more than a beautiful book - its history and its script and decoration are fascinating.
Meredith Jane Klein fell in love with calligraphy in high school. Originally self-taught she has studied with many internationally known calligraphers. For many years she attended Ward Dunham and Linnea Lundquist’s monthly Black Sabbath classes that focused on blackletter and uncial. She has used uncial, both as texture and text, in pieces, artist books and cards. She teaches for Friends of Calligraphy, other guilds and at local venues. Meredith’s initial love of the artistry and the insular majuscule hand in the Book of Kells have deepened with her studies as she began teaching the hand in 2020.
Sky-diver, car hop, architectural renovator, art director and free-lance book artist, Suzanne Moore was among those chosen by Donald Jackson to create contemporary interpretive illuminations for the Saint John's Bible. Suzanne layers lettering, painting, printmaking and drawing to create contemporary manuscript books and limited-edition books, which cover an array of subjects: Sequoyah’s invention of the Cherokee writing system, the spirituality of gardening, Bob Dylan Song Lyrics, the multi-faceted story of Scheherazade and the many faces, symbolism and spirituality of the digit Zero. Her ongoing obsession with the letter Q has resulted in the creation of several manuscripts books over the last 20 years. A variant edition exploring reclaiming and rescuing the letter Q - Rescuing Q. Quandaries and Queries - was purchased forThe Harrison Collectionin partnership with Friends of Calligraphy.
The Genealogy and Family History Symposium is a two-day conference featuring speakers from the San Francisco Public Library and local genealogy organizations covering a diverse range of topics. You will learn about resources at the library, both physical and electronic, that will aid your research, as well as how to search for specific ancestors like Chinese, Irish, Jewish, Japanese and more.
Lettercarver Christopher Stinehour demonstrates his learned method of carving a letter into a piece of stone, showing the process that has been part of a long tradition since the Romans carved the great Imperial caps of the Trajan inscription: staring with a drawn letter on a piece of paper, transferring the layout to a piece of stone, then carving, with hammer and chisel, said letter into that hard slab.
Christopher Stinehour, a longtime member of Friends of Calligraphy, works as a letter cutter in Berkeley. He started carving letters in wood during his high school days. He participated in a Friends of Calligraphy sponsored letter carving workshop lead by English carver (and Gill apprentice) David Kindersley in 1976 and then studied with John Benson in Newport RI in the 1980s. His work has included many architectural commissions, gravestones and plaques: working in his shop and also in situ at various job sites.
Blanche Pastorino (1909-1996) owned and operated Galerie de Blanche, an art gallery café on the 4th and Channel St. pier in Mission Creek. A mecca for artists, figures such as Ruth Asawa, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Imogen Cunningham flocked to the establishment for Blanche's shrimp cocktails, coming as much for the fare as for the artistic ambiance.
Although Galerie de Blanche shut its doors in 1988, Pastorino continued leasing the 4th and Channel St. pier until 1998 - maintaining it as a public garden. Locally known as Blanche's Garden, it was a veritable museum of San Francisco memorabilia, with 100-year-old crab cookers from Fisherman's Wharf taking on a new life as flowerpots.
In addition to the gallery, Pastorino's interest in art included collaborating with her close friend, Ruth Asawa, to raise funds and expand programming for the School of the Arts (now Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts) and other art institutions.
The Blanche Pastorino Papers includes her personal papers, original artwork, photos, video cassettes, correspondence, clippings, scrapbooks, and event programs. The archive is open for research at the San Francisco History Center on the 6th floor of the Main Library.
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.
July 5: Raoul Martinez - The Many Flavors of Blackletter
July 12: Meredith Jane Klein - Scribes, Script & Art in the Book of Kells
July 19: Suzanne Moore - Speaking to the Eyes: Word as Image
July 26: Christopher Stinehour - Lettercarving in Stone
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.
Rooted in 19th-century political pamphlets and 1930s science-fiction fanzines, zines have emerged into a powerful medium for independent expression and cultural exchange. The DIY ("do it yourself") spirit of the 1970s and '80s fueled the creation of an array of diverse zines, spanning themes from punk music to skate culture and queer identity. Characterized by their underground nature, zines have played a pivotal role in amplifying marginalized voices and documenting social and political movements while fostering a sense of community by challenging dominant narratives.
In capturing the creativity and energy of the movements they represent, these printed works serve as time capsules that spotlight key cultural and artistic trends.