One among my first jobs post-college was working at a stationery retailer in Los Angeles known as Shorthand. On the job, I used to be surrounded by all method of writing devices, from fountain pens and Blackwing pencils to inky rollerballs and brush pens. I’d spend lulls between rushes doodling on check pads, like an ice cream parlor worker sampling the flavors, and located myself sucked into the world of cursive, brush lettering, and calligraphy. Although cursive is waning out of favor—a subject lately coated for PRINT by Chloe Gordon—I stay decisively on group script.
Calligraphy has at all times enthralled me, however till working at Shorthand, I had merely been a passive admirer. I leaped to spend money on my personal nibs and inks and fell down many a calligraphic rabbit gap on Instagram. Whereas on-line art-making sources are fantastic, there’s nonetheless nothing fairly like an precise educational e book you may preserve in your shelf as a useful resource. Skilled calligrapher, creator, and educator Margaret Shepherd understands this all too effectively because the creator of 20 titles geared towards educating calligraphy.
Shepherd has been an expert calligrapher for 55 years, together with her work at present housed on the Smithsonian Museum and the Uncommon Books Division of the Boston Public Library. She’s performed freelance work for schools and regulation corporations and has taught workshops and given calligraphy demonstrations all over the world. Her newest e book focuses on the historical past and depiction of American calligraphy, particularly, aptly titled Study American Calligraphy. The e book takes readers on a visible journey round america, studying easy methods to calligraph in a number of types alongside the way in which.
As a considerably novice calligrapher, I reached out to Shepherd to study extra about her love of the artwork kind and what her new e book provides. Her responses are beneath!
(Dialog has been edited for size and readability).
It’s a lofty query, however why do you’re keen on calligraphy a lot? What’s it concerning the artwork kind that compels you to dedicate a lot of your life to it?
It’s a great query. Mainly, I flunked the transition from easy “manuscript” letters we discovered in first grade to crazy, arbitrary “cursive” script that was compelled on us in third grade. I ended up with horrible handwriting—a kind of hurried printing—till ten years later when a good friend gave me an Italic pen. This opened up a complete new world; the issue wasn’t me; it was the constraints of cursive script. I collect that calligraphy provides a second probability to all these People who couldn’t study script or had been by no means taught—and there are lots of of us!
I used to be fortunate to have the proper teacher (Norberto Chiesa, a former pupil of Paul Commonplace) on the proper time (my early twenties) and within the proper place (Sarah Lawrence School). The course in calligraphy was solely supplied as soon as. Two college students took it. We spent months on the Roman capitals, beginning with weeks studying the letter O.
I’m satisfied that calligraphy is simply intrinsically interesting to everybody, from non-specialists to hobbyists and professionals, as a result of it engages either side of the mind.
I seen that after each campus occasion, folks saved the identify tags I’d lettered and posted them on their dorm room doorways. I’m satisfied that calligraphy is simply intrinsically interesting to everybody, from non-specialists to hobbyists and professionals, as a result of it engages either side of the mind. Scientists have decided that one aspect reads the phrases, and the opposite aspect sees the summary shapes. Put them collectively and it creates a wealthy, satisfying expertise for each author and reader.
I really like calligraphy as a result of it lets me spend my days turning fantastic texts into visible artwork.
Do you’re feeling a duty to assist preserve calligraphy alive in our hyper-digital world? Why is it necessary to maintain educating calligraphy?
For many years, at any time when I discussed my career, folks would mechanically remark, “Oh, that’s a dying artwork!” or another off-the-wall remark. After I started educating high-school artwork academics, I discovered that the low profile of calligraphy meant that only a few how-to-do-it books had been obtainable. So, I turned my educating supplies into a fundamental textbook, the primary of 20 books I’ve written about elements of the sphere. That e book, Study Calligraphy, remains to be in print, introducing freshmen to the fundamentals.
That’s how calligraphy will proceed to outlive and thrive— by becoming a member of the tradition in each nation the place it takes root.
However calligraphy has modified within the 50 years since I believed I had summed all of it up; America has lastly declared its independence from Outdated World alphabet types. The definition of calligraphy acquired greater, stretchier, and livelier. Now, any survey should acknowledge the affect of signal portray, graffiti writing, Native American photographs, folks artwork, protest placards, penmanship instruction, cattle manufacturers, and even the letters imagined by retro-futurists. My new e book, Study American Calligraphy, celebrates the New World’s stylistic independence from the Outdated World. That’s how calligraphy will proceed to outlive and thrive— by becoming a member of the tradition in each nation the place it takes root.
Postscript: I’m doing my half to withstand the hyper-digital world, by being fairly inept at its processes.
Nice Lakes area of each Canada and the US, Fraktur appears to have perpetual attraction.
What do you hope readers take away from Study American Calligraphy? What kind of expertise do you hope they’ve partaking with the e book?
I hope readers can take pleasure in studying concerning the wealthy number of alphabet types invented right here or modified to go well with American functions. Readers can admire the letters round them and perceive why they give the impression of being the way in which they do lengthy earlier than they choose up a pen. Even freshmen don’t should restrict themselves to historic calligraphy from Europe and England centuries in the past.
After ready a long time for another person to jot down a e book about American calligraphy, I’ve put collectively my very own introduction. With each alphabet I included, I requested myself, “What makes it American?” and “What makes it calligraphy?” Every alphabet provides a again story, a proof of the way it pertains to different American arts and easy directions for easy methods to write it. Readers will study what, how, who, and most of all, why American calligraphy issues. I hope they’ll really feel like Michael Sull, one of many early reviewers, whose evaluation began out, “Lastly!”
