| When I was only eleven years old, living in Vijont, Italy, about 25 miles from Aviano Air Force Base, I found an old Christmas card buried in the bottom drawer of our bookcase. I stole it and carried it with me all day as I attended school on the air base. Every spare moment I found, I pulled out this deep, red card and stared at it. I allowed my fingers to trace the gold raised lettering printed on the front. It was written in thick, old world writing. Looking back now, it was a bit gaudy, but I was entranced and my passion for calligraphy began with that small card. Every day after school, those who lived far away from the base sat on buses and waited for every other grade to get out of school to join them. It was on the bus, waiting, that I first attempted to make my own letters; to copy the ones I had fallen in love with. They were horrible, absolutely horrible, but I kept trying. I traced the outline of each letter onto my schoolbook paper and colored it in with the side of my pencil. Still terrible. When I finally arrived home, I raced into the living room and proceeded to peruse through every encyclopedia book we owned. Wouldn't you know it, the "World Book Encylopedia" has as it's first page a dissertation on the letter of the alphabet that book belongs to, complete with a pictorial history of the letter itself, how often its used in the English language, the different ways it is pronounced, what it can represent when it stands alone, and a brief written history of the letter. (Did you know that the 5th letter of the alphabet, the "e," is the most frequent letter used?) I think this is where my love of the history of letters came from. Not only could I make the letter really pretty, but there was a substance there...a reason why you would want it to look pretty. Subsequent volumes showed pictures of charters, and ships logs, and constitutions, and a vast array of historical documents, all written in some form of calligraphy. Amazing! I was very tempted to tear each and every page out and seclude it in some secret place just for me, but thoughts of Dad and his belt made me think better of it. Instead, I made tracings of everything I found and continued to work at forming my own letters. I eventually got pretty good at drawing the letters out and then coloring them in. I think this is the reason why my letterforms are better than most. I didn't start with a calligraphy pen or a calligraphy marker. I started with a #2 lead pencil and an eraser...a lot of erasers. I drew each letter as if it was a picture. It wasn't until moving to Las Vegas, Nevada in 1985 that I discovered there were actually pens that could form the letters I had come to adore. Imagine the novelty (of which never wore off). My first pen was a Schaeffer Calligraphy fountain pen with a metal nib that I found at a Thrifty store on a trip for ice cream. You screwed the nib off and inserted a cartridge of black, royal blue, or red and wrote to your hearts content. It leaked a lot, but boy! Did I have a great time with that pen? I do have to say that I had to relearn everything all over again though, but it didn't take as long as it did the first time. Then, I discovered Desert Decor (now known as Desert Art Supplies) on East Charleston Boulevard and found a Speedball Calligraphy book, a penholder, and Speedball "C" series nib set. The gentleman at the counter suggested Higgins Eternal Ink and now I'm a customer for life. (Of both the ink and the store.) Again, it was a learning experience. How deep do you dip the nib so you don't turn your fingers black? How do you get rid of the excess ink so you don't have these huge inkblots all over your paper? How often do you rinse the nib off? How do you keep the letters crisp? What the hell is sandarac powder for? What's an Arkansas stone and how do you use it? How do you not over sharpen your nib so you don't tear the hell out of your paper? Too many questions. |
| ABOUT ERMA |