Master penman Michael Sull, Ronald Reagan’s former calligrapher, was the guest speaker Sunday at Barton Community College’s Shafer Gallery. He gave a detailed history on artistic penmanship and calligraphy, and demonstrated the techniques that yield intricate, beautifully detailed script.
“And, that’s how it used to be done,” he said as he handed BCC Executive Director of Business Technology Jane Howard an extravagant version of her signature. Sull said the decorative posters and certificates adorning the gallery’s walls represent a time when honoring achievements was more important. “You could write it out on a computer and it would say the same thing,” he said. “But this is a way to honor somebody’s life, or glamorize or make something special – it’s really an American art form.”
Shafer Gallery’s newest exhibit is “History Writ Large: The Murals of Pat Potucek featuring selections from the International Association of Master Menmen, Engrossers and Teachers of Handwriting Calligraphy Collection.”
The murals, which were painted in the 1970s by Pat Potucek about early settlements in the Great Bend area, were recently donated to the Barton Community College Foundation by Bank of the West.
Raymond Fertig of Ellinwood commented that the murals speak to him, particularly one that reflects how wheat harvest was performed in the early parts of the 20th century. “I can really identify with these,” he said. “My father spoke about pitching wheat, and we had an old header barge on our farm that my father used.”
The exhibit will be available through August 13.