A Sphinx @ Sixty

So, I turned 60 today!  I'm feeling pretty great about it, despite a young mom at work telling me she couldn't believe I was that old because I'm so "spry".  Ouch.

Anyway, I've had a great day, taking off from work and spending the morning in San Francisco to visit the stunning Cult of Beauty exhibit at the Palace of the Legion of Honor which includes, among multitudinous other treasures, many original William Morris drawings, fabrics and wallpapers.  More peacock feathers and acanthus leaves than you can shake a nib holder at!

Afterward, at the legendary Greens for lunch, we enjoyed great food and a great view (yep, that's our Golden Gate Bridge, turning 75 on May 27th...and I guess she's pretty spry too).

Then my sweet husband presented me with THE coolest gift ever!  You can tell you've been with someone more than half your life when he knows you would be over the moon to receive one of these:

Whatever is it, you might ask?  (The waiter at Greens did!)

Well, have you ever wondered how the old penmen did those amazing perfectly-spaced lines for shading and definition in black-and-white, like this

or this?

Bookplate, 1900

Many used a now-antique drafting tool called a Sphinx Section Liner, also known as a parallel ruler.

They've been very hot items on eBay since pointed pen people caught on to them, sometimes going for several hundred dollars apiece.  Michael Sull demonstrated one (which had been a gift to him from Harvest Crittenden) at the Engrossing Spencerian Saga last October.  I showed Bob Hurford's write-up on the subject (IAMPETH Penman's Journal Summer 2010) to Bruce and he was fascinated with how it worked.  Who knew what he was doing out there in his shop these last few weeks?

Is it not a thing of beauty?!?  Gorgeous, smooth-as-silk fiddlehead maple and elegant brass parts, the straightedge raised just enough to avoid smudging, and finished off with a beautiful engraved plaque.

Of course I had to try it out as soon as we got home!  The old masters would have used a ruling pen (another must-have drafting tool) but I went with a G-Tec for my first try.  In the photo I'm kind of using it upside-down and backwards, but as Sheila Waters is fond of reminding me, we left-handers 'have to figure out our own way of doing things'.  Of course, it works perfectly!  And I will treasure it always.

I think sixty might be my new lucky number.

Calligraffiti

While researching annotations for my great-great-grandfather Charles' Civil War diary, I followed up on his reference to Brandy Station, Virginia, where he was sent in April of 1864 for medical care ("a rather poor place for a sick man," he declared).

It turns out the building in which he would have received treatment is now known as the "Graffiti House", because the walls of the second floor contain inscriptions, drawings, messages, and signatures of Civil War soldiers that were concealed under wallpaper, etc. for many years.  The graffiti, according to the Brandy Station Foundation website,  "could have been made by soldiers recuperating in the hospital, by other soldiers posted at Brandy Station, or by soldiers passing through the town."  There are signatures, drawings, and of particular interest to engrossers (check out that shading!), the "Maryland Scroll".  At one point the scroll was removed from the house and acquired by a private collector, but later returned to the Graffiti House in its frame.

"Maryland Scroll", Graffiti House, Brandy Station VA

"Maryland Scroll" detail, Graffiti House, Brandy Station VA

The building changed possession from the South to the North, and a Union soldier made his mark thusly:

"Army of the United States of America", Graffiti House, Brandy Station VA

Love the flourishing!

About a year ago, a stabilizing process was begun on the plaster walls and lo and behold, another signature was uncovered.  This is what Michael Sull might call "pedestrian Spencerian", but I think the "F" and "E" caps are pretty cool!  I'm guessing they are about a foot tall.

  I find it inspiring that at one time, handwriting was a skill that many could do so beautifully, even in pencil on a plaster wall.  By the way, here's what the building looked like when the Foundation acquired it:

Cheers for the preservationists!

The Saga Continues

One of the highlights of October was my third visit to Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio for the Spencerian Saga.  The sunset over Lake Erie the first night could not have been more welcoming.

This year it was the Engrossers' Saga--a once-every-five-year occurrence--and the 25th anniversary of the annual workshop.  I've already said plenty about the Saga here, but this one seemed to bring together a lot of things I had been dabbling with and helped me see how I could put them to use in a cohesive piece.  Stay tuned for that one...

From Ohio I went to meet my sister at my beloved Findley Lake, New York, to stay at the Blue Heron Inn bed-and-breakfast...in the Lakeview Room, of course!

I decided to put some of my new-found skills to work as I signed the guestbook.  Maybe no one will ever see it, but I love knowing that it's there!

Back home, while messing around on the internet I discovered that my son had been named "Mr. November" at his college back East.  Not sure what that's all about, but used it to adorn the 3 X 5 card that will be enclosed with his exam-week care package:

Onward to December...!

Cursive Catastrophe

Civil War Diary of Charles Wesley Foulk

Did you catch "The Case for Cursive" in yesterday's New York Times?  Apparently there is a new generation of children who not only cannot write in cursive, they can't read it either!  The biggest concerns seem to be that their block-lettered signatures will be easier to forge, and (rather secondarily) that the fine-motor-skill benefit of fluid writing may be lost.  Cursive, one elementary school principal posits, just may not be a "21st century skill".  Hmmmph.

But what I found the most distressing was the account of a 22-year-old and her cousin who found their late Granny's diary but couldn't read it. “ 'It was kind of cryptic,' [the young woman] said. She and the cousin tried to decipher it like one might a code, reading passages back and forth."

Seriously?  Are those of us who can read cursive going to become sought-after specialists, the dying breed able to interpret archival material---say, my great-great-grandfather's Civil War diary (the first page of which is pictured above)?  I'll admit Charles' authentic Spencerian (according to Michael Sull) handwriting is sometimes challenging to read, but that might be because he was writing with a dip pen in the freezing cold in his army tent.  I'm just saying...

On the upside, I see a new opportunity for parents here!  When our children were young, my husband and I used to resort to speaking a little Spanish when we didn't want them to know what we were saying (which worked well until their Spanish got way better than ours).  Nowadays mom and dad can leave each other notes in plain English that will just look like lovely scribbled designs to their offspring!

In any case, it seems that diary-snooping may be severely curtailed in the near future.  So go ahead and let'er rip in your journals, scribes!  No one now under twenty will ever know your secrets.

West Coast Saga

The first-ever West Coast Spencerian Saga with master penmen Michael Sull and Bill Kemp concluded over two weeks ago, and I'm still digesting it all.

It was a completely different experience from the longstanding Geneva-on-the-Lake Sagas, which are retreat-like in nature, held at the beautiful Lakehouse Inn on the south shore of Lake Erie in October when the air is crisp and the leaves are turning. Platt Rogers Spencer himself lived, taught, and is buried in Geneva.

In April the Berkeley venue, Castle in the Air, is busy, lively, and very connected to the Fourth Street goings-on, with lots of great places to eat and shop during breaks from the pen and ink. Art seems to be in the very air there. And... just a twenty-minute drive across the Richmond bridge from my house!

Both experiences are awesome: the former rich with penmanship history and the latter showing Spencerian's relevance in a contemporary setting.

Bill's digital overhead projector enabled this kind of detail! Sure beat struggling to watch over someone's shoulder. This is a comparison of the Nikko G and EF Principal nibs...

At the top is my final project: My life has a superb cast, but I can't figure out the plot, a quote I love and neglected to attribute to Ashleigh Brilliant. The script is Spencerian, of course, in Dr. Ph. Martin's Bleedproof White with embellishments in Spectralite gold. I used an EF Principal for the text and a Nikko G for the offhand flourishing.

Castle in the Air has published all of our final projects on its blog. I was amazed at the variety and ingenuity as the participants--who ranged from first-timers to twenty-year veterans, hobbyists to seasoned professionals--showcased the variety of techniques we had learned during the week from . It was a fun and lively group!

And the entire week we had the strangest feeling someone was watching us...

End-of-an-Era Envelope

This was the last envelope I sent to a dear old family friend before she moved from her lakeside home of sixty-five years to a high-rise retirement community on Lake Erie---where, by all reports, she is having a blast. I can hardly imagine Findley Lake without her. I would see her during summers my family spent at the lake, and we corresponded regularly the rest of the year thoughout my childhood and beyond. She still writes me long, "newsy" letters, as she calls them, at least a couple of times a month, in hand-addressed envelopes, of course. I try to reciprocate in kind.

The script is, of course, Spencerian, and the blocky lettering is after a style (unnamed?) designed by the inimitable Michael Sull. The ink is Dr. Ph. Martin's Bleedproof White, with the cartouche detailed in Spectralite gold. And of course, the Queen of Hearts stamp is perfect.