OREANDA-NEWS. On 30 July 2008 was announced, that MVK sent the German Calligrapher Andrea Wunderlich to participate in the 28th International Calligraphy Conference in Chicago. As a representative of the Calligraphy Exhibition in St. Petersburg on September, 16th – 21st 2008, she informed the participants, faculty and organizers.

Every year, the Internatonal conference for lettering artists is organized by one American guild. This year it took part in Chicago, in 2009 it will take place on June 20 – 27, 2009 in Saint John´s University, Collegeville, Minnesota. The „Letters Mingle Souls“- conference was organized by co- directors Jim Chin and Lisa Kivland. These two and their various commities worked for at least three years to let the conference happen.

About 450 people met on the Northwestern College Campus in Naperville, Chicago. They all want to share the community and get training in lettering. Although there had been so many people, the feeling is quite informal, because everyone knows everyone. They were quite excited when a foreigner like a German calligrapher joined them and it was no problem to get part of the community. After telling the first paricipants of the exhibtion, the information spread all over the campus.

A faculty of 39 internationally known calligraphers provided variant courses for the participants. From „drawing“ to „Old Roman Rustics“, a huge range of themes were offered. People worked in their classes from morning till afternoon, then joined each other at the evening events and after that in the social tent. Also there were many different exhibition offered. For example „East writes West“, „The Painted Letters of Adolf Bernd“, „Faculty Exhibit“ and the“Participants Exhibit“.

Two very impressing events happend. On Saturday, Brody Neuenschwander and Niki Nolin presented their film „INK“. It combines elements of image, text, sound and dance. It was shown in participation of The Chicago Moving Company. Four dancers  had been on the stage, interpretating the film behind of them. Calligraphy on stage!

Another extraordinary performance was „The Music of Ink“ by Denis Brown. Lisa Kivland named him the „Rockstar of calligraphy“. It was a marvelous combination of dynamic interactions between sound and vision, word and image, classical and avantgard, manuell and digital. He was writing on huge canvas, while above on a big screen and beside ofhim videos were playing. All this interactions and watching the artist working with his complete body was really impressing.

It was a week full of calligraphy, joining the community and sharing ideas. It was a great opportunity to get the Calligraphy Exhibition in St. Petersburg well known to the USA, but also will in the countries of the foreign participants, as there are Canada, Australia, Japan, UK, Ireland.