On Friday afternoon, I had a chance to discuss handwriting with two ladies of letters: Kathleen Burch {designer, typographer, and co-founder of the SFCB} and Patricia Curtan {artist, designer, printer, and incredible cook}. Kathleen said, Even though I don’t think my handwriting is beautiful, I can make it look good on the page because I understand spacing so well. I also came up with a print-script that seems more legible than my cursive writing. Patty said, I think anyone can write well. It’s about being totally there with your pen. You have to be truly present. Walking and breathing are automatic, basically unconscious. You have to think about writing as conscious, to feel a connection with the surface.
Kathleen commented, I once made a truly beautiful lowercase a, inspired by David Lance Goines’s Introduction to the Elements of Calligraphy. It took me three days of practicing to make a letter that I liked – anyone would have liked it! Patty asked, Do you remember that sequence at the beginning of The English Patient? Where a hand holding a brush is copying the fish that are painted on the wall of the cave? For me, that captures the essence….
Felt & Wire met a couple of stylistically very different calligraphers at the National Stationery Show back in May. Claire Reyes has named the various hands she offers after places she loves. It turns out that Uzes is her everyday handwriting: Uzes, a small town in Provence, is one of my favourite spots. I visited a shop there that only sold paper and pen items. The owner had received mail from around the world and displayed it all over the store. It was the perfect paper post gallery. And here’s how Claire described the luscious package she recently sent us: Rather than forward Felt & Wire an envelope full of samples, I wanted to create a mini sample board that would highlight some of my writing styles at first glance. I chose black and white inks, with a hint of orange ink, to provide a minimal tone. The elastic bands are a simple method of holding the samples together, and I love the grid pattern they create. And so do we.
Bernard Maisner is a calligrapher who has turned his hand to creating custom stationery and sublimely elegant accessories for entertaining. He’s swashy and swooshy and suave. And formal and fancy – and fast. He wrote my name on a big envelope, covering it with curlikuhns… in a matter of minutes. How I would love to use it as an evening bag, but instead I’ve hung it in a gold wood frame.
Variety is the spice of life – and of penmanship. When Tobin Johnston at Whole Spice in the Oxbow Public Market carefully wrote Turmeric on my little baggie, I complimented him on his style. He smiled and said, That’s nothing. I’m a graffiti artist, and my favorite thing to write here is Himalayan Pink. I’ll buy that, and did. {Actually, Toby’s favorite thing to write is poetry.}
My new penpal Samara O’Shea likes to close a letter {always handwritten} with a quote that she selects for her correspondent. My first note {of many, I hope} from Samara ends with this from John Donne: What printing presses yield we think good store. But what is writ by hand we reverence more.
Spice photo: Johnny Milgram
