Completed wall hanging. Must send to aunt. Walnut ink, Rotring inks, Sennelier fabric dyes, Dr. Martin's Irridescent gold, etc. This is number 6 at least.

Adolf Bernd

Here is a picture of the cover and one of the pages of the Adolf Bernd book, entitled (or subtitled?) The Painted Letters of Adolf Bernd. He lived in Germany from 1909-1994. Peter Thornton was instrumental in getting the book produced.

In the introduction Peter writes, "...to me it is Bernd's superlative use of colour that is the most impressive and satisfying aspect of his work. The more we look at the paintings of this modest and highly talented man, the more we can be rewarded by their sense of inventiveness. They not only have an ability to refresh the eyes, but the sheer joyousness of their invention and colours can truly uplift our spirit."

Happy Valentine's Day

Ken Williams

When I do a Google search for 'Ken Williams' together with 'calligraphy,' I get a bunch of references to a british comedian who died a few years ago. My teacher Ken Williams is obscure. Despite the high level of calligraphic excellence he achieved and maintained he has remained reclusive to the larger calligraphic community.

Ken does the most beautiful spindly italic. He is also known for his excellent copperplate. I once filched a piece from a trashcan in a classroom, a poster-size rough for the magnificent centennial diploma for UGA. It lives in my flat files along with Doyal's poster. Ken was big on retouching work; he relied heavily on the stat camera before computers. He could make anything perfect.

Ken earned his MFA at the University of Georgia in graphic design and then taught at East Tennessee University for ten years, where he also did design work for the gallery. He said it was easier to draw letters than to order typesetting. Thus he came to calligraphy from necessity (he says laziness), and he is largely self-taught. I think he had one calligraphy class as an undergrad at UGA with Vince Biboll (I may have this name completely wrong!), who was 'Mr. Graphic Design' at UGA in the '50's and '60's. (When Ken returned to teach at UGA he discontinued the MFA program immediately. It was underutilized, and the few students enrolled simply took the same classes as undergrads, but they did a little more work.)

He did a lot of work for ad agencies in Atlanta while teaching, and continues to do work for Yale University Press. For many years he went to Cortona to teach on the studies abroad program. Soon he began hanging out at the marble quarry in Arezzo, and took up letter carving. In Athens (Georgia) he carved letters on the marble pavement in a plaza next to the courthouse. (I can't think what they commemorate--it may be a Vietnam memorial--find out!) It is amazing to think how many people walk over them every day without a thought as to the labor involved. He taught a stone carving workshop for the guild in Atlanta once (about 1988). We each carved one letter on a piece of slate. (whatever happened to mine? purged in a move, most likely. don't know where my chisel is either.)

He told me that in all the years he taught calligraphy, Joey Hannaford and I are the only students who kept with it. This is probably because it was such a tough class, and he did not focus on the 'fun' aspects of calligraphy, although he did bring books to class to inspire us. He also taught from the standpoint of 'learning calligraphy will make you a better typographer.' (Or perhaps that's what he said the prevailing attitude was before calligraphy 'took off' in the '70's.)

This must be his second year of retirement from the university. He spends his time riding his bicycle and parachuting, among other things. I talked to him for a long time on the phone in early December; he invited me to visit his attic studio and peruse his considerable library. I really need to take him up on that offer. I also want to take a picture of the lovely lettering he did for the State Botanical Garden of Georgia sign.

I write all this to preserve this bit of history for myself! I love tracing calligraphic roots, too. Must pick Ken's brain more when I see him...

kids

And now for something non-calligraphic: my kids, outside in the sleet on a 'snow' day a couple of weeks ago. They are 7 and 10, both boys. One has improbably curly hair and the other has improbably blue eyes (given both parents have brown eyes). They have little appreciation for calligraphy, but vast appreciation for Runescape. Luckily they get along well together, so sometimes I can work while they are home.

Oh no!

Blogger made me switch to the New Blogger! I hope everything isn't all messed up. I am always the last holdout; I dislike change. I think the word for me is 'Luddite.' My fantasy is to live on a small organic farm with solar power and do everything by hand. Except I'll never give up indoor plumbing! And I still think the greatest curse on humanity was the invention of automobiles. How much healthier everyone would be if there were trains instead and people had to walk to the nearest stop! (I am not always logical; there are a million modern conveniences I could never live without! And I don't really want to have to shear sheep and spin yarn etc.)

Thanks, New Blogger, for giving me the opportunity to grouse about human technological advancement.

calligraphy in sleet on the deck

Last night, as I was sleeping

I love this poem! It is not working out exactly right though. The gold letters get lost against the blue background. And I have to say the gold is real gold leaf, which I have attached with Jerry Tresser's size. I also used walnut ink--which I made myself--for the brown background. As well as the usual lineup of acrylic airbrush pigments and pearlescent inks.

I am planning to do this again on paper with the acrylagouache to see if I have more control. The paper is a beautiful purple handmade sheet with mica in it, made by Nancy Carter in Athens. Hope I don't blow it!

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvelous error!–
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvelous error!–
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt–marvelous error!–
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Lat night, as I slept,
I dreamt–marvelous error!–
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

Antonio Machado
translated by Robert Bly
from the book Risking Everything,
110 Poems of Love and Revelation

Busy busy bee

This has been a really busy week for me, and it's not over yet! Tomorrow is the Bridal Show at the Gainesville Civic Center, at which I will have my own booth. I've been busy preparing for that: making more samples of envelopes and invitations, including an album. I found the album in Helen last weekend at the cross stitch store. It is a beautiful thing, covered with handmade paper full of pressed flowers and leaves. I will leave the clear protective cover on it, otherwise it will quickly turn brown. (People's hands are so much dirtier than they realize! And I am not a clean freak either.)

John made a sign for me to put on the table. He also printed out a bunch of information sheets for me to hand out, and took care of business cards. I am to have a real website, although the account is 'still pending changes' so I can't set it up yet. John had already spent a lot of time preparing the site pages, and loading them on his site, but I don't want prospective clients to have to key in 45 letters or so for my address, so we're changing it.

Also last week was National Handwriting day. Tuesday, January 23. I did a 50 minute lesson at my son's 5th grade class, and in the afternoon had a table at the local public library to write names on bookmarks to give to patrons. We set up the books the library had about calligraphy, and the librarian in charge of adult programming had made a great vertical poster about John Hancock and National Handwriting day. She included the bio I had provided her with, as well as the info on Atlanta Friends of the Alphabet. There was a decent turnout, including several people who came just because they are interested in calligraphy. I had a great time talking to them.

And of course, the biggie still hanging over my head is the quilted wall hanging for my aunt. It is hard to finish it for many reasons...I just want to keep experimenting! And then I end up overworking each piece until it becomes muddy, and then I think she won't like it if it is muddy... also I wonder what to do about the binding; whether it should be a traditional quilt binding, or do a wierd hand sewing job with the fake fur yarn, or maybe bind with a fat ribbon, or leave the edge raw (nope).

When I work on many things at one time I am so stimulated creatively! I am overwhelmed with possibilities!

Sometimes

I'm working on a piece for my aunt. She commissioned me to do this a loooong time ago. I've been remiss. It is to be a quilted wall hanging. This is one I thought could be for her, but it's not right yet. Not happy with the roman caps title, among other things. I'm doing more of them, on a finer muslin, which is creating other problems having to do with the ink bleeding into the fabric when I use a lot of ink (acrylic airbrush pigment) at once. This, even on freshly bought 100% cotton muslin, unwashed so the size is still in it. But the one here is on a heavier weight cotton fabric--I think it is 'duck.' And it is great to work on! Why didn't I buy more of this this morning? Because it isn't really what I want to use for quilting. Decisions, decisions. Something lost, something gained.

Calligraphic Folly

I figure the point of doing something like calligraphy is so that you can 'do whatever you want.' It doesn't have to be a poem by Shakespeare written in black ink in an appropriate hand.

In honor of the new year I have dredged up one of my favorite bits of nonsense. I think it appeals to no one except me, and even I sometimes ask myself, when I come across this in my big box of fabric things, "what were you thinking?" Most people look at this and say, "Is it a placemat?" For it is exactly the size of a placemat, just because it worked out that way. And now I'm thinking, what a good idea. Yes, it's a one-of-a-kind placemat.

I think I was thinking of my grandmother. Just because the bit of lace with which I adorned the edges is from a trunk of hers from about a million years ago. I have never yet met anyone else whose house has a 'trunk room.' It was above the old kitchen in her antebellum home and was accessed by going through a little hall and up about five stairs; then it was the room on the right. (The room on the left was the 'back bathroom.') There were marvelous things in those trunks: clothing and accessories from several generations of ancestors. Whenever we played hide-and-seek someone always ended up in the trunk room.

At any rate, I hope the new year contains some folly--in the best sense of the word--for all of us!

My 2006 Christmas card.

Whoa! A private school (the Mary Erskine and Stewart's Melville Junior School in Scotland) is having students use fountain pens to do their work. They say good handwriting is as important as ever and helps build self-esteem. I love it! I am encouraged! There may be hope for the world yet!

excerpt from the AP article:

Ten-year-old Cailean Gall has been using fountain pens in class for two years. It took the keen soccer player one month to master the pen and, like all pupils at the school, still has regular handwriting lessons.

"At the start it was hard because I kept smudging, but you get used to it," he said. "I still have to use a pencil for maths, and now I find it strange using the pencils. I like it because it makes me concentrate much more on my work."

Cailean now uses his fountain pen even for non-school work, but classmate Katie Walker, 11, prefers to use ball point and pencil when not in class.

"I use it for schoolwork and homework only," she said. "It is quite easy using a fountain pen once you're used to it. My parents say it's improved my work enormously."

The children learn a handwriting style developed by teachers at the school, which charges $12,500 a year. New teachers are also put through a course on how to write with pens — as well as refresher courses on literacy and numeracy — before they are let loose in classes.

and:

Some people in wealthy nations argue that handwriting is becoming less important because of the growing use of cell phone text messaging and typing on computers, but the school disagrees.

In August, for example, examiners at the Scottish Qualifications Agency complained they had difficulty deciphering the scrawl of many students on exam papers used to determine admission to universities.

"We talk of the paperless office and the paperless world, but this is not true," Lewis said. "You still need to have proper handwriting skills."

Where is my sumi?

I once read an account written by a woman who went to Tibet to a Buddhist monastary for a period of time. She said that while she was there many of her personal items disappeared: hairbrush, lip balm, eyeglasses, things like that. But on the last night they were all given back to her by the monks who had removed them surreptitiously as part of her training. I suppose the lesson was that we don't really need 'things.'

I like to think there is a similar explanation for the disappearance of certain things since we moved three months ago. How two large bottles of sumi ink could have vanished I'll never know. That large brown bottle sumi is the workhorse of my inks. And some of my favorite books--the ones that were on top of everything else! And an entire box of my kids' toys. I suspect monks have been creeping about my garage--where all that stuff should be--when we're sleeping. I'm hoping they give it back soon.

In particular I really need the rest of the mat cutter to finish up a freelance job...

It was over a year ago that I did this piece. I was using it to see what pigments can go on top of other pigments, and learned that Rotring airbrush pigments bleed horribly when written over a thick acrylic fabric paint. These are all song lyrics from Coldplay, Keane, and the McGarrigle Sisters. All just music I was listening to at the time! I think I will redo this piece...some things were working out nicely and some weren't. What was I thinking using that lavender?! Actually, the lavender letters were the first ones I did and as I went along they became incongruent. I think I will work on this some more, in January, and then put a picture up of the whole thing, maybe even ironed.

Sometimes I do psalms. This is part of one. I liked the way it felt as I was writing it, but then the paper ended...these things happen! Actually, this was part of a book I was making as a calligraphy journal. I got carried away and started writing before assembling the thing, and now pages are all over the place and cut up. The point of doing calligraphy in a journal was to not have to use lines. Which is why this lettering is all wavy and crooked.

This morning I was diving in my flat files and I found this. The paper is called something like 'Indian river' paper; it is made in India, I think, and comes from Daniel Smith in Seattle. The background is black sumi ink with gouache brush lettering on top. It was a larger sheet of paper, but I cut something out so there was a hole...that is why you can just see a portion!

Doyal

Doyal Lewis was a friend of mine when I lived in Decatur, in the late '80's to mid '90's, when he died of cancer. I could never invent a more Southern Character. He was raised somewhere in north Georgia on a farm, one of many children. As soon as he was old enough he escaped to a more urban life. He had been in the military and always appreciated it when someone sent him a card for Veterans Day honoring his service.

I knew him late in his life, when he was retired from his teaching job and had been with his partner, Charles, for over 40 years. I used to hang out at their house, for Doyal was a consumate teacher and always wanted to show me--or anyone--what he was up to. At this time of my life I was between jobs and only lived a few blocks away; I could easily walk over and stay for hours. He had had a fabulous studio built to house his elaborate silkscreen operation. He sold silkscreened cards of his calligraphy at a few shops around the city. They'd occasionally invite me to stay for supper, which was nice as my new husband's schedule at the newspaper meant he never got home before 10pm.

At Friends of the Alphabet meetings he always had a smile on his face and a twinkle in his eye. Everyone seemed pleased to see him, but not everyone liked him. He was full of jokes and witticisms, many so arcane they missed me entirely. He was also full of stories of growing up in Georgia, or the good life he lived with Charles in their grand house in Atlanta. Often the stories involved people long dead and wound all over with many asides, and it was a struggle to keep up, especially with his slow, drawling accent.

He affected to take me under his wing, I think, and advise me on the ways of the world. For I was hopelessly naive and ignorant. He brought me with him once to the the italic class he taught at Dekalb College, for he had decided to groom me to take over for him (although I didn't know this at the time). His world view involved layers of intrique and political sleight-of-hand among his friends and acquaintances. He spoke of our calligraphy guild, Atlanta Friends of the Alphabet, and the power struggle between the young and the old (which I never did see). He seemed to think the young were trying to wrest power from the old, but the old would never give it up. And now all the old of which he spoke are dead and gone. Or very nearly.

He surprised us all by having a poster printed up (25" x 33") of a bunch of quotations and words about the state of Georgia and Atlanta to sell to make a 'little money.' It was a high quality poster on heavy paper, and I still have mine. He really needed to have teamed up with an illustrator though, for the shape of Georgia itself is blank, and a huge blankness it is! But he had that kind of tenacity where he could sit for hours lettering. He said he took up calligraphy when Charles became so ill, and he had to wile away the midnight hours somehow as he stood watch and nursed him.

I eventually found a job and we bought a house a few miles away. I was busy between the fixing-up of the house and the new job, so I didn't see Doyal much anymore, and it came as a shock to hear he'd been diagnosed with cancer just months after Charles' death. Even more of a shock was his own death just two months later. He's been gone now for eleven years. I put the poster up here, with a detail, in memory of Doyal.

Pointed Pen

There was a lively discussion on cyberscribes (around September 24,2006) about the history of pointed pen calligraphy and its merit. Some accused Edward Johnston of denouncing the pointed pen genre of the 1800's as atrocious and thus being directly responsible for its demise in the twentieth century. You could almost hear the pointed pen supporters sharpening their vintage nibs in preparation of doing battle to protect pointed pen's reputation.

There are lots--or at least several--pointed pen styles. The two with which I am most familiar are Copperplate and Spencerian. Copperplate is actually an engraving term. Spencerian is a style in which only the capital letters are given any weight; the small letters are entirely composed of hairlines. There are other interesting terms too: Zanerian, for one. I just love that word.

When John Stevens taught a workshop in Atlanta years ago he refused to used the term 'copperplate,' feigning ignorance of the word. He would only call the style pointed pen. He used a pointed brush to letter the most beautiful lettering, which we in the class really wanted to call 'copperplate.' (I have that piece.)

On the IAMPETH website there is part of a piece by Brian Walker that has a contemporary feel to it. Look at Mike Kecseg's piece too, especially at the lettering around the seal at the bottom. (see his website too.)

But otherwise I have to agree with someone on cyberscribes who said these sort of reproduction certificates have a frozen-in-time look. It is probably politically incorrect to say this; some find this sort of blanket statement an indictment of their work. I can understand doing such a certificate once, just to see if you can, but to do nothing but the same thing over and over without exploring new avenues of growth and exploration would be the death of me.

However, nothing is black and white! I greatly admire the work of many pointed penmen and women. I have come to know many in Atlanta who excel at pointed pen work. It quite takes my breath away to see the beautiful envelopes they do. (I wish people would attempt more pointed pen artwork though.) And I wish I could do what Mike Kecseg does; he has taken this letterform to a new level.

As for websites, Paul Antonio's stands out as one I visit frequently. He is quite hard-working, dedicated and has a thorough education and understanding of what he does, something that not many of us can claim.