California Cedar, the makers of the California Republic brand of wooden pencils and the Palomino Blackwing, their

modern interpretation of the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602, is throwing a party theyre calling called theBlackwing Experience, in New York City on April 17, to celebrate the opening of a week-long exhibit running until April 20 at the Art Directors Club. I think this is a cool concept as their tagline says, its the party for the pencil, and from what I understand, its not just the Palomino Blackwing or the EF Blackwing thats being celebrated, its the usage and history of all wooden pencils. I had a conversation with Charles Berolzheimer, president and CEO of California Cedar, who told me about the origins of this idea: We began to get serious about such an event when we started thinking about how to build upon influencer relationships we had established over prior years as well as to support building with the 602 new influencers who participated in our Klout Campaign (I wrote about it here -AW)launched last December. In working with our creative team in New York during the early planning stages we had a ton of great ideas and were looking for the right venues and the final partnership we created with the Art Directors Club we came up with seemed like a natural fit. Justin Oberman is an independent creative director who is working with CalCedar to organize this event. You may remember him from my post about his concept ad campaign for the Dixon Ticonderoga. We have a 64-foot tall 60-foot wide infographic timeline of the pencil entirely drawn with (Palomino) Blackwing pencils, Justin told me. He also talked about creating Ode to a Blackwing a video produced for the show. He mentioned that its all done with Palomino Blackwings and original Eberhard Faber Blackwings, except when drawing the logos of other pencil companies. Those are done with pencil brands represented by those logos.