Remarkable Invention

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The 11th Leonardo Challenge

Remarkable Invention

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The 11th Challenge

The Common Pencil
Just as the printing press spread reading across Renaissance Europe,the pencil spread writing. Wood or metal or paper supported a carbon and clay stylus ever ready to mark, cipher, or draw.

Its Eraser
The eraser followed the pencil. Leonardo used a knife to scrape away mistakes. Felt cloths worked; gums of plant resin worked better. Finally a tropical latex was named rubber by the chemist Priestley to honor its superiority in rubbing out error. The eraser as we know it was born.

The pencil and eraser served craftsmen, tradesmen and artists whose ideas grow in the constant vision and revision of creativity. These loyal servants of the creative hand became entwined with its work. Who has not stared at a pencil hoping it might invent answers of its own accord?

The Challenge
Make the pencil and/or the eraser the subject, not the servant, of your inventiveness. Shape them, compose with them, construct with them. Play with their forms, functions and meanings. Make art that is truly of the pencil.

The 11th Leonardo Benefit
Thursday, April 7th 5:30 - 9pm

Celebrate creativity.
Enjoy fine champagne,
and savor inventions
from the creative kitchen of Doug Coffin.

Support the the work of the Eli Whitney Museum
through your presence and your purchase of
artwork invented for this event.

Of a helicopter that will not fly:
An eraser emboldens a pencil.
Only an imagination free to err will find truth.

Principal Underwriter
The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation

Sponsors
Brown-Forman
B-P Products
Lehman Brothers Engravers
Robert Lisak Photography
Contributors Artspace
Moka
Service Point

Pencils drawing on Gravity


Fine food, festive spirits, & Remarkable Inventions
The 11th Leonardo Challenge • April 7th, 5:30-9:00
The Eli Whitney Museum • 915 Whitney Ave. Hamden, CT

Mongol Horde


Why are Pencils Yellow?
In the 19th Century, the finest graphite came from China. Manufacturers used names like MONGOL and the color yellow to associate their pencils with the Orient.

Fine food, festive spirits, & Remarkable Inventions
The 11th Leonardo Challenge • April 7th, 5:30-9:00
The Eli Whitney Museum • 915 Whitney Ave. Hamden, CT

Moving Pencil


The 11th Leonardo Challenge • April 7th 5:30-9
The Eli Whitney Museum • 915 Whitney Ave. Hamden, CT

Tickets at the Door

Thank You

70 ARTISTS, 10,000 PENCILS, 300 GUESTS.
For the 11th Leorardo Challenge,

Thank you.

It was a remarkable celebration.

The 11th Junior Leonardo Challenge

Pencil Anatomy

Sunday, April 3rd 3pm – 5pm

pencils and erasers…

With imagination,

Your challenge:
construct a pencil study. Use cloth, wood parts, wire, paper and your imagination to create a stick figure at work or play.

Young Museum members contribute eleven dollars and their creativity in a workshop to benefit the scholarship fund and to erase obstacles to learning.

An event made sweeter by the creative chocolatiers of MOKA.

rsvp 777.1833 or kz@eliwhitney.org

dance,

draw,

design,

doodle,

disguise,

dress up,

& dream.

THE ELI WHITNEY MUSEUM • 915 WHITNEY AVE
HAMDEN, CT • 203.777.1833

Chorus Lines


The 11th Jr Leonardo Challenge • April 3rd, 3:00-5:00
The Eli Whitney Museum • 915 Whitney Ave. Hamden, CT

Mark McCarthy

Mark McCarthy

Michael Bower

Michael Bower

Tim Nyswander

Tim Nyswander

Wm Brown

Wm Brown

Polly Fiddler

Polly Fiddler

David Silberkleit

David Silberkleit


Bill O' Connell

Bill O' Connell


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