The Reed College Calligraphy Initiative

The Calligraphy Initiative in Honor of Lloyd J. Reynolds, a program of the Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, is introducing a new generation of Reed students and community members to the study and practice of calligraphy and paleography.

The Calligraphy Initiative was founded in 2012 by Cooley Gallery Director Stephanie Snyder ’91, as an outgrowth of the Cooley Gallery exhibition, Lloyd Reynolds, A Life of Forms in Art (2011), curated by Gay Walker ’69 (Special Collections Librarian, Reed College) and Stephanie Snyder.

The Calligraphy Initiative offers a series of weekly Scriptoria, free and open to all Reed College students, staff, faculty, and alumni. All materials are provided, no prior experience necessary. 

We will have three weekly workshops during the 2023-24 academic year. On Tuesday evenings we practice Chinese calligraphy from 6:00-8:00 P.M. in Trillium. Our lettering and paleography workshop meets every Thursday evening from 6:00–8:00 P.M. also in Trillium and our Italic handwriting and calligraphy workshop meets on Friday afternoons from 2:00–4:00 P.M. also in Trillium.

Please visit Reed’s  Calligraphy Heritage website to learn more about the history of calligraphy at Reed College, and to view a wide variety of critical resources for the study and practice of calligraphy. Please visit the Lloyd J. Reynolds Collection of Reed’s Eric V. Hauser Memorial Library for a complete list of holdings.

The Calligraphy Initiative is organized by Gregory MacNaughton ’89, Education Outreach and Calligraphy Initiative Coordinator of the Cooley Gallery. Contact Gregory at calligraphy@reed.edu.