About
typewriter
Poetry
&
Paint

Typewriter Poetry & Paint is available for bookings offering interactive guest engagement and live creation of art and poetry. Typewriter Poetry & Paint was started by Isaiah Halpin, a jack of all trades who has worn-through many differing professional hats in the industries of hospitality including decades in adventure tourism guide, fine dining, construction, rigging, and festival build and operations. In 2022 he shed his shyness and began sharing his private poetic internal world of softness and truth-seeking through the written word. He had always been a writer and poet though his practice was simply hidden away in countless notebooks dating back through adolescence.

He believes the art and the heart of the poet is of one peeking into the mystery, seeking and finding the weave that holds us all in this dance of the modern world and the timeless aspects of story and philosophy, and poetic reflection. As he began sharing his poems and writings through social media, many people who had known him for most of their lives were surprised by the depth and the sweetness of his writings offered and it was this act of sharing that began the next chapter of his journey into becoming a “poet for people”.

One of the people who noticed and encouraged this newfound consistent sharing and pouring of heart into the world of social media was Shane Knode @ecstaticexistentialist, a old friend from Evergreen State College, who had spent 10 years moonlighting as a typewriter street poet, unbeknownst to Isaiah. It was the sharing of art and poetry that this rekindled relationship and placed a typewriter into Isaiah’s hands in service to the lovers and friends on Valentines Day at the Seattle Aquarium’s After Dark in 2025. Ever since that day Isaiah@HeartToPenPoetry wholeheartedly ran and swan dived into the artform of being and becoming a:
‍ ‍

typewriter-poet
in service
to each guest
sharing and creating from
prompts and stories
to be reflected and gifted
back to them
as a poem
read aloud,
solely made in the moment
for them to keep.

Since this turning point Isaiah has flourished and developed a style of his own in interactive art-form and practice of being a typewriter poet. He has performed for well over a thousand people at music and art festivals, private events, as well as for the general public on the city streets across America. Within the first months of writing with a typewriter instead of a pen, Isaiah began watercoloring his paper as a form of expression built into the paper itself. He created a painted sign saying, complimentary entry… poetry the price of admission, and made poems for people \ in public places by donation, which he still does when not booked for special events.

This practice of painting the paper eventually sparked the next chapter into Typewriter Poetry and Paint, Personalized Painted Poems event activation and collaboration with Lindsey Orrin, @Flamgu.com. When time and schedules align to perform together their collaboration is a seamless act of sharing and creation and fortunate coherence that offers both live-typewriting and live-painting of each individual poem keepsake.

For the pop up activation we require very little other than  a conversational space and a 5x5 ft foot print in order to live create and interact with participants (which is easily transported by hand).*When appropriate we prefer the expanded the activation to include a larger 10x10 (and up to 10x20) Art and Poetry Gallery as a backdrop and interactive space for guests to interact. We offer and encourage a consultation to learn about your event and further curate and tailor our activation specifically; as well as  learn about other potential collaborative and participatory programming opportunities, such as workshops and poet performances.  

Thank you kindly for your interest to learn more about us as we always look forward to finding aligned clientele and opportunities to share our truly unique family friendly interactive engagement, culminating in personalized painted  poem keepsakes for participants and curating the expanded Art and Poetry Gallery inspiration & installation.

If you are interested in learning more and potentially booking Typewriter Poetry & Paint for your next event please fill out our contact form from the link below.