Calligraphy Anyone? by Tiffany Stevens

“Slow down” she said. Then she took my pen out of my hand to show me. She couldn’t put into words the movement she was describing.

On this Saturday morning in my intensive one-day calligraphy workshop, we were starting by relearning to draw a Roman Capital letter O. The instructor had sauntered around the rest of the class cooing encouragements at the other students work. “Oh, you’ve got quite an eye for this!”, and “oh, good, wow, I can see you’ve done this before” and “okay, you’ve got it, keep going.”

When she got to me, she stopped, cocked her head and stated quizzically, “it’s the letter O, they’re supposed to be round.” I stopped and lowered my head in a combination of embarrassment and frustration. “And you have way too many on your page already.” “Here”, she said while taking my pen, “let me show you.” “Slow down” she said, while she, in my opinion, painstakingly slowly drew a perfect capital letter O on my paper, adding grace and fluidly to my page of awkward and side sloped ovals. “Yes, yes, you’ll get it, just……..slower.”

I had found the absolutely irresistible sounding Society of Scribes online. The group offers one day lettering and calligraphy workshops at the School of Visual Arts, as well as longer classes spread over a series of weekends. I found the SoS when finally deciding to take an art class, after much expounding with my friends over glasses of wine and cigarettes about enrolling in an art course. Picking up where we had left off in college or slightly after, before more tempting but intense jobs and entertainments had come into our lives for the first time. Now pretty much done with our twenties and our first temptations with those things, we are getting back to basics, including feeding our art bug, not only through zips through PS1 or the Met, but by getting interactive with art again.

Back in calligraphy class, I thought, five more hours of this today is just going to be a complete pain in the ass. But, I slowed down. And I began to think that maybe this is my problem in life too. I tested my theory in the weeks following the class by practicing at my table within view of the TV all the letters of the alphabet with my ink and nib. Slowly. As I filled out the intake form for my first acupuncture appointment, I meandered my way while writing the letters and noticed the after effect of a laid back, thoughtful soul rather than the usual scrambled and frantic way my hand lettering comes across. On the note I send in every month with my rent check wishing my landlord a happy month, on the key for the mixed cd I made for my brother after his minor surgery I saw the same measured pretty hand. I did some of these after popping in my copy of Rushmore for the umpteenth viewing and realizing that the character I’ve always considered a soul mate of sorts, Max Fisher, founded a calligraphy club at Rushmore, and if any doubt had existed, I knew now that I was on the right track.

My interest in calligraphy had started after a midday trip to the Morgan Library. If you’re thinking about satiating the desire to take an art course and are thinking of lettering or calligraphy, give it a tour for some inspiration. Currently on view are original manuscripts of Victorian Bestsellers and Apocolyspe Then: Medieval Illuminations. If you haven’t seen the permanent collection of J. Pierpont Morgan, including the library and private study, you must. Illuminated manuscripts are a part of the permanent collection. There is also a biography currently on telelvision profiling the man and the collection.

When I visited the Morgan a few months ago, the Saul Steinberg exhibit was on and featured several of his faux certificates, lettered by Steinberg, most famous for his New Yorker cartoons. The certificates are visually pungent because they are beautifully lettered and physically composed with amazing color choice but are complete nonsense. Such painstaking work and it isn’t actually a certificate for anything nor do the words make sense. Obviously Steinberg is criticizing the formality of pomp and circumstance of the establishment. It is the paperwork to accompany Virginia Woolf’s criticisms of the academic, military and governmental procession of educated men of Three Guineas, it’s effect brings both laughs and consideration for how highly one values one’s own diplomas and such.

Another artist who uses calligraphic the swoops and marks in his work and is currently on view is Gordon Matta-Clark at the Whitney. Matta-Clark was the child of artists and trained as an architect before he became an artist and sort of anti-architect sculptor by destroying or reforming parts of buildings as social and visual criticism of the way we structure our buildings, society and lives. Particularly relevant is his work in Office Baroque (1977) a carved abandoned office building in Antwerp. The building became an arabesque of visual poetry under his hand. He does with saws and dynamite what Steinberg did with ink. And interestingly, on display is some of Matta-Clark’s early work, done in ink, as illustrations for their own sake and plans for his tree hangings and other early works which mirror the exuberance and character of some of Steinberg’s work. You can imagine someone executing his work with a pen, but imaging the fact that his cuts were out of a building, through the floors, walls, everything , the very scale of his work is jarring and inspiring and broadens the mind about exactly where swoops and serifs belong.

In case you are wondering, a few more hours into my calligraphy class we were again back to where we started, O’s, and I did manage some praise from the instructor. She recognized I had taken in her first lesson, and, like any good teacher now she had another. She leaned over my paper and whispered “Be aware of where you are looking.” I tried performing for her by looking ahead to show I was trying to do it right. She responded to me by pointing, “see I can see you are looking ahead at where you’re going to take the pen.” “Don’t do that” she continued, “instead, once you’ve started the letter, just feel it. Don’t look at where you’ve already been or where you are going next, look at your pen and just concentrate on where you are.” I’ve got some work to do.

No matter your level of expertise, there are many sources for one day or more intense art classes, start by looking here:

Society of Scribes

School of Visual Arts

Art Students League of New York

ps-if you are too lazy to take a calligraphy class, you can have a computer font made out of your handwriting here.