Last Thursday was our 4th Meetup that we held under SF Modern Calligraphy. This time, Brittany (my co-organizer), got in touch with a local art store called Arch’s Drafting Supply in the Mission District and agreed to partner up. They hosted us like no one’s business. As we were talking about we want to set up our meetup in the store, they were so hospitable and even let us have wine at the event!

“Calligraphy Happy Hour” is what we’re going to call this Meetup and we were really excited because we learned out lessons from previous meetups and we didn’t want this one to have more structure and planning. Brittany and I met up and planned the whole attendee experience and what we want them to get out of this Calligraphy Meetup. We wanted the focus to be on the art of calligraphy through cards and since American Father’s day is coming up soon (June 15), we thought that would be a nice excuse!

The day of the event was so exciting for the both of us. We even created a to-do list days prior to make sure we have everything we need for the event. Graph paper, pens, rulers, pencils, calligraphy pens with different nib sizes, info sheets, signup sheets, name tags, wine, music, and everything else in between you can possibly think of. As we were setting up the session, it was starting to feel like, “OK, I think we got something here.”

The turnout for the event overall was pretty good, we had walk-ins, we had friends, and even the employees of the art store come in and join us. Surprisingly, the turnout from the RSVP-ed guests didn’t really show up. There was an older lady who said she was a professional calligrapher so Brittany and I were really excited to have her because we really didn’t have any professional experience to teach anyone. We were hoping this lady will give us some calligraphy 101, but she was more focused on the wine! We had a mother and daughter in our session because the mom saw talent in her daughter and wanted to bring her around people who also do it for inspirations. We also had some people writing to their loved ones and it was nice to see how happy it made them feel for creating something so personal.

As for Brittany and I, we were a bit disappointed because it didn’t go the way we originally planned. We had a whole introduction icebreaker planned but since everyone was late it was hard to do that. Overall, I thought it was very successful and so fun! I would love to keep this going!

Yours Sincerely,

Dandelion Traveler

09 Jun This entry was published on June 9, 2014 at 4:14 pm. It’s filed under Calligraphy and tagged Arch Drafting Supply, Calligraphy, cards, event, Father's Day Card, Ink, Meetup.com. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.