Calligraphy
I have been doing calligraphy since 1974 when I first picked up a broad
nibbed italic pen. I view calligraphy almost as a performance art, done as
much for the doing as for the final product. In keeping with the idea of
performance art, I usually don't use pencil lines to guide the lettering.
Most things that I do are pretty ephemeral, however I do sometimes keep
things for sentimental reasons. Here is a sampling of my work from about
1979 to about 1992. Much of this is quite unpolished.
There are now larger versions of these pieces that I have re-scanned at
100 dpi. These scans were done on a UMAX Vista-S6E scanner on a Pentium PC
running Linux using the SANE
scanner software package. Click the images to see the larger versions.
- I made this calligraphic logo in 1990 for the
Central New York Aikikai of Syracuse. (9 kb)
- This is a piece of a letter I sent to an admirer who wrote regarding
this web site in 1997. (15 kb)
- Here is a piece of a poster I made to advertise my work in
1985. (11 kb)
- This bit of doggerel verse was lettered for someone who wanted to put
a few lines in a card to give with a gift. This is my calligraphy, not my
words. This is a blackletter done in 1987. (36 Kb)
- This is a quick bit of Spencerian copperplate script I did
in 1990 for a simple invitation. I was just learning the style
at the time. (43 kb)
- This membership certificate was done in 1979 for a whimsical fraternity
at the University of Wisconsin. As I recall, no one in the group
actually was issued one. The leaf work and the calligraphy are mine. (105 kb)
- I like to play with the pen to see what will come out. Sometimes I get
ideas by making alphabets for foreign languages such as Russian. This is a
stanza from a Pushkin poem which I did sometime between 1990 and 1992. (20
kb)
- Here is
another bit of doggerel verse, done for the wife of a friend. (Again, the
verse is not mine.) This alphabet, a variation on half uncial, crept up on
me after about 1988 and is still taking shape as I play with it. (42 kb)
- This is a reproduction of a proof of Quadratic Reciprocity that I did for a T-shirt in
1978 for the Ross Number Theory Program. The original was lost, but I have
tried to make this as close as possible to the original given the tools that
I have now. I used lines for this one. (400 kb)
