Birthday Gift Book

A dear friend, who is a talented artist and is always making lovely things, recently had a birthday. For a while now I have been working too much (a boring mantra, for sure) and although my lettering gets better from all the practice, it's hard to find time to do fun and artistic things. So, since I received a beautiful handmade book for my birthday from her one year I wanted to reciprocate with a handmade gift. The cover was made using some paste paper that I painted. The project took longer than I had expected but it was fun finding the ribbons, sentiments and embellishments. Happy Birthday, Lisa!

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Gestural Writing

Two weekends ago I had the great fortune to study with my new calligraphic hero, Yves Leterme. He is a wonderful teacher, so organized and helpful in his critique. It was a lot of work but so rewarding, and I had a blast! Most days my work requires that I mainly write pretty script letters and pull swashy flourishes for a wedding something-or-other. Yves, however, had us thinking outside the box (one of my favourite things to do). Here are some of what I consider to be my best words of the weekend...

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Morning Dervish

On a good morning — those mornings when I don’t stumble directly to the kitchen for coffee — I start the day with the five Tibetan Rites. The first rite is whirling, like a dervish. And so Morning Dervish came to be.

This dervish has now whirled south to be a part of an exhibition at the Naples Museum of Art, entitled The Saint John’s Bible and the Art of the Book. Needless to say, it is honored to participate!

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New work-in-progress

Sneak preview of some of new work — quite experimental at this point. I’ve recently taken an acrylic painting course with Timothy Hoey (Tim Rocks!) and he helped me start moving in a new direction with glazes and textures... fun!

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Natural Calligraphy

At first glance, calligraphy seems to be so focussed on the man-made. Drawn or pen-made letters, philosophical quotes, rulers and grids. We study the history of letters, which intertwines with the history of today’s dominant cultures.

Because I draw so much inspiration from nature, I’ve often wondered why I don’t paint watercolour landscapes or florals or pet portraits? Why am I so strongly drawn to letterforms? Why, when I doodle, is it inevitably a letter? Something so removed from the natural world.

Or is it? Recently, I've been paying attention to the many shapes in nature that mimic calligraphy. Or rather the many shapes in nature that contemporary calligraphy mimics! Sit back and look at the photos at right — the calligraphic shapes are obvious, but take it one step further and identify a contemporary calligrapher who uses these forms in their work — the relationship is surprisingly easy to see!

Perhaps what we seek in our calligraphy is the replication of nature’s casual grace, simplicity of pattern or riot of texture. For all the years of human design history, nature still leads us forward with an ever-changing environment filled with inspiration.

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That Guy

Here's the Helzberg Diamond television commercial that features my calligraphy. Any work that I had done for film prior to this was done alone in my studio, so it was fun to be on site to do the lettering, and on camera, too! Well, at least the pen on the other side of my hand was....

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The Getty

At the beginning of this month, my husband and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. Playing hooky from work we went to the Getty and enjoyed some time away from real life.


This shot was taken out of the front window of the driverless tram that takes visitors up to the museum from the parking area below.


I loved how the sunlight looked on this painting. It was an unusual moment to see any painting there splashed with light as the shutters on the roof (shown below) close when the automatic sensors detect the heat of the sun passing in front of them.



There is such simple gorgeousness everywhere . . .


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As we were leaving the sun came out ... love the lavender trellis!

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