I’ve been a Calligrapher for over 20 years….OK I wouldn’t really call myself a ‘calligrapher’ for a least the first 7 years but I had a love and a passion for mark making on paper.
Perhaps being told by my art teacher that it would be a waste of time pursuing Art at ‘O’ level and even less of a chance that I would become a Graphic Designer put a spanner in the works for me and I took ‘O’ level Physics instead (even more of a waste of time – except I can wire a plug!).
Little did I know when I picked up that first pen and dipped it into the ink, slavishly copying letters and attending numerous workshops by some of the top calligraphers in their field and ending up with a career that has spanned more than 2 decades.
I trained as a formal calligrapher. We analysed manuscripts, slavishly copied and tried to emulate the scribes of old, learned and processed the long and valuable history attached to the wonderful letters created over the many years, from the time that ‘writing’ as we know it began. And, not only calligraphy as we know it today, made with a broad edged tool, but we had to learn lettering as created by stone masons, wood carvers, pointed pen lettering from the cursive styles… it was a long and sometimes arduous road and sometimes without an end in sight. We looked at brush lettering of the Chinese Scribes and Islamic Calligraphers, from silk painted letters to the temples of Islam. The journey has been long….and still it continues.
I have done my fair share of certificates, family trees, place cards, heraldic shields and other more ‘usual’ mundane jobs to keep the wolves from the door but there came a time when calligraphy elevated into something greater than just a neat, formal letters on a sheet of paper. The word ‘Lettering Artist’ was given to me by my friend Michael Clarke from the US. I’d never looked at letters in this way before. Slavishly following exemplars became monotonous. By a stroke of luck I heard that he was visiting the UK to see a friend and took the bull by the horns and asked if he would honour us with a workshop. Amazingly he agreed and we ended up running a full weeks Summer School and the first US Calligrapher to visit and teach in the UK as far as I’m aware. Michael and I are still in contact periodically and I owe him a lot.
Then there was another calligrapher from the US Rob Leuschke who was coming over here soon after and I promptly wrote to him and asked if he would give my local group the pleasure of a 2 day workshop….he did!
The two workshops were different to each other in that Michael taught us how to use more unconventional pens than we were used to in the UK and took us away from the standard broad edged pen, Rob also showed us unconventional pens along with unconventional letters and while he was with us talked a lot about marketing our work and services. Both Michael and Rob are also Type designers.
Strangely the Americans have always been way ahead when it comes to lettering. In the Uk we tend towards ‘formality’, American Calligraphers are far more freer with their lettering and see calligraphy and lettering more as a marketable Art Form as opposed to the British who look at it more as a craft.
For the last 12 – 15 years Calligraphers have wanted recognition in the Art world. Most of us believe that we are not taken seriously for the Art side of our Craft. For years the debate has gone on over whether Calligraphy is an Art or a Craft. Certainly when you are learning it is a Craft. For some people it remains a Craft. There were many hours of practice, keeping the proportions to their correct form, shape, size and weight. Perfection was the order of the day and something to be achieved and strived for at any cost.
The Art side came for me when I learnt that changing any one of those components that formed the traditional and formal lettering…wasn’t ‘cast in stone’ (excuse the pun!) Suddenly combining traditional with contemporary made the work come to life, the letters started to live and breathe, dance about on a page. Although the underlying structure of the letters and my background training gave me a foundation for contemporary lettering…. I was transformed from a mere ‘Calligrapher’ to a ‘Lettering Artist’.
Most Eastern cultures combine their lettering with the spirit of the soul. Hard to describe unless you’ve been there and are an advanced calligrapher or lettering artist. Most of us would agree that it is a meditative process, a time of quiet and inner stillness that connects our core, minds, down the arm and flows out through the hand. The movements of the arm very much connecting to the movements of energy through our bodies. A spiritual experience that’s really difficult to describe to the layman.
Today, the problem comes when we are asked ‘What Do You Do?’ When you answer calligrapher you are met with a blank stare and the reply ‘Oh’. Modern day Calligraphers are so much more than people first realise.
We are: Graphic Designers, Artists in our own right, a lot of us are Bookbinders too, we letter with brushes like sign writers, some carve letters in stone and wood, we design logos and write out poems, we letter on canvas and walls, cloth and glass, so eclectically we are many things. We are Srtists with words and Wrod Artists.
Overall we are creators of a visual stimulus using letters as a vehicle of communication.
Like a spiritual path we are keen to share our knowledge with new beginners and develop, grow and learn from those more experienced. There is no end. Everything is continuous. We never become such masters that there is nothing left to aspire to. We are just as comfortable in a beginners company as a master’s. We make no distinction between the two. No wonder so many Calligraphers and Lettering Artists also follow a strong spiritual path. Calligraphy connects and uses many of our senses at the same time...sight, sound, touch and even small (yes EVEN SMELL - hmmmm freshly ground stick ink - the perfume of the East!).
We are Lettering Artists and Artists in Letters. A superhuman bunch of people, as fascinated with the sound of the nib plopping in ink and the noise as the pen is drawn over a page and we are splashing paint on canvas an lettering with a brush. A totally different tactile approach. We are connected spiritually all around the world. We have formed friendships that have lasted a lifetime and extend our hands and hearts of friendship as equally to brand new beginners of the Craft as much as the Lettering Artists that have dedicated their whole lives and made a living out of it.
We are all equal, we just come from different directions, we are going up different paths and are at different stages in our learning…..but the connection is there. What we call ourselves, be it Scribes, Calligraphers, Lettering Artists is not important, it is of no relevance . What is important is …. We all have the same passion….. We are one!
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