There's a new calligrapher in town

Wild & Madder have been slightly de-railed by the extremely short notice regarding online learning. So apologies for this rather late blog written at New Year but only appearing now. Our week has been filled with a frantic gathering of resources, planning lessons and Teams teaching but now it is the weekend. Hooray!

Handwriting is your self-portrait. Apparently. As an artist who has done more than my fair share of self-portraits (if you saw them you would know this was not from vanity) I find this a rather fascinating concept. My biggest problem with writing is that I am left-handed with an overhand hook. Writing with a fountain pen at school was quite the ordeal as I dragged my hand across my recently applied script and smudged the whole lot. Left-handers are quite skilled at adapting our approach to everyday tasks in order to function in a right-handed world but at my ripe old age, I still smudge my work and I still find certain tasks tricky (tape dispensers cut better right to left than left to right, who knew!).

So, Katie is the calligrapher, the one who every time we mix up a new ink dips her beautiful dip pen in and whips up some fabulous looking script that sends me brimming with envy. I have tried to do calligraphy for years but have always found it too overwhelming. Moving my hand to a different position just felt too awkward. But, with Wild & Madder inks sitting on my desk, mocking me, calling me, I decided to have another go. It is of course a different world now, a world of online tutorials, a world full of You Tube presenters telling you that some of the best calligraphers in the world are left handed, a world where I have beautiful handmade inks that need to be appreciated and used so that I can fully understand how you, our customers, can use them.

So, I have forced my hand into a different writing position, I have been diligently doing various calligraphy exercises and then yesterday I actually wrote some legible words that looked quite good! The joy of using our own inks, of watching the colours develop, of reflecting on the quality of line on paper. What an absolute thrill! I can’t wait to get back in the studio today and do some more. I want to make more colours, I want to try different viscosities, vary the opacity….everything!! Move over Katie, there’s a new calligrapher in town!