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after >> artist's way @mac: week 2

June 10, 2005

mhcc calligraphy: class 10

by gl. at 7:46 pm

all we did today was display & briefly discuss our final projects. my project was the first few lines of the poem i wrote for maya's birth on the sink marbled-paper. it's rotunda primarily using a tape 2 nib and accented w/ a tape .5 nib w/ j. herbin grey pearlescent ink on arches text wove. (see? even calligraphers have their version of exif geekiness. ;)


[click on the image for a larger version]

after the wedding commission, it was a relief to have all the materials cooperate this time, and i'm really pleased w/ the result, especially since sven created a terrific dimensional frame made entirely of black foam core and copper wire. the only issues were that i discovered i couldn't erase the pencil marks without also lifting the black from the background, and the pencil lines were very difficult to see in the grey/black contrast. this turned out to be a project that took about 15-20 hours of my time, but i don't mind working hard on something if there's hope at the end of it. most of lettering for me is finding the right line spacing, especially as i tend to design calligraphy as if it were typography. but between the wedding commission and this project, my right hand is actually swollen; i've never had that happen before, not even when i stayed up all night making christmas cards while michaelmas talked to me over the phone.

throughout this project i kept thinking of the time michaelmas & i went to an sdfc meeting when charles pearce was lecturing, and he talked about how, if you're going to do a piece, it ought to be a piece based on your own words, in part because calligraphers are almost always copying the words of others (especially in the form of quotations). he talked about it in terms of having a unique and potentially political voice, but having just spent so much time with just 4 lines of my poem, it had better be words i want to be heard.

posted by gl. | June 10, 2005 7:46 PM | categories: calligraphy, classes & workshops