Calligraphy and book arts in the studio of Beth Lee, Bozeman, MT
It’s been awhile! I didn’t realize how long. A road trip, a dead laptop, extensive house repairs … how the time flies. I have managed to get some calligraphy work done in those tiny cracks of time available. Here are few responses to a couple of the weekly prompts in an online calligraphy group:
This is one of my pieces no hanging at The Artists Shop all month long in downtown Missoula, Montana. I’ll be there September 20 & 21. I’d love to see you there!
I have done this basic layout several times since the first time I tried it in 1983. It’s a kind of capstone piece, I guess.
In 1983, I was a rank beginner, and completely self-taught at that point, and I believe it is the first “finished” piece I ever did. Just for, I don’t know, entertainment, here’s an image of that first piece. I’m pretty sure it’s a scan of a photocopy of the original, which I gave to my mother way back then. So young and ignorant I was! But so enthusiastic, and I remain so after all these years.
I’m so honored to have another solo exhibition of my calligraphy at the Artists’ Shop in downtown Missoula. Thank you, Ann Franke, for all your support! Ann will be hanging this show, and I’m looking forward to seeing what she does with such a disparate collection of pieces.
If you’re in Missoula during the month of September, please stop by. If you do stop by, please let me know your impressions. Unfortunately, I can’t attend the opening reception on September 3. But I’ll be there sometime after that date to see the show.
During the month of September I’ll be posting a few of the pieces here. So if you can’t get to Missoula, watch this space! As you can tell from the postcard, the show will, at the very least, include a broadside version of “Scintillate, Scintillate”. A manuscript book in this edition will be on display as well.
I’m so pleased that my artist book, Can’t Not Look: Democracy in America, has sold to the Bainbridge Museum of Art. I’ve written about it here, and I had contemplated making three of them. I had planned to update the tweets foldouts for two successive eras of the 45th presidency. Books 2 and 3 were completed except for the tweets. Those tweets were difficult enough to write in the first (and now only) book; now I find myself even more unmotivated to write them out. I also completed a camera-ready print version, but have made no move to get those printed. Here are images of a few more pages of quotations by our first 44 US presidents.
I realize that I’ve never shared the variable edition of 12 manuscript books that I made last fall. Here are photos of the three verses of The Water is Wide. 5 x 8 in, Bister and sumi inks on Arches Text Wove, lettering done with a no. 2 round sable brush. Book cloth over hard cover.
These books were the “comfort food” of the studio this past fall. The melody that goes with these traditional lyrics is the kind of tune that sticks in your brain, but it’s soothing.
I’m taking Luca Barcellona’s Advanced Fraktur blackletter class through the Society of Scribes, New York City’s calligraphy guild. The last of the three session will take place at the end of next week. Meanwhile, the floor of my studio is simply littered with sheets of blackletter practice. After a similarly structured class with Elmo van Slingerland, I’ve become a little more accustomed to working large. Most of the sheets pictured above are 18 in x 24 in. I’ve done these with a 6mm Pilot Parallel Pen on sheets cut from a roll of white butcher paper. Creamier-toned sheets are Strathmore Drawing 400 paper.
I haven’t taken blackletter from a teacher before, at least not in the past 25 years, and this has been a valuable experience. I missed the previous intermediate class, but I think I’ve been able to catch up. (Having taking two classes through Society of Scribes now, I’ve got to say that Phan Nguyen is the best facilitator ever. He makes the online experience a real pleasure.)
As I work on cards and presents for the holiday season, I think fondly of presents past. One of my very favorite pieces I ever made was for my mother. The text is the lyrics to “Here I Am, Lord,” one of her favorite hymns. The verses are ranged around the circle, surrounding the chorus in the center. It is hard to believe that I made this 24 years ago.
It has been a real joy to explore brush calligraphy with new confidence. I had known about the standard and extra-fine sizes of Pentel Color Brushes, and that the black barrels carry dye-based ink while the gray barrels carry pigmented ink. Through JetPens (do not click the link before you’ve hidden your credit card from yourself), I discovered that there are several more brush tips in the Pentel Color Brush collection. I really like the green-cap, “broad tip”, brush, although the amount of ink output was something to get used to
I also tried out the PCB that I filled with Bister ink in this post. I think it’s working fairly well, although, as you can read, that one long hair is driving me crazy.
The Pentel Color Brush and weathergrams go together well, and I wanted to check up on my weathergrams. But last weekend it snowed about 10″ and the resulting piles of snow and slippery surfaces temporarily dampened my enthusiasm for walking. By Wednesday, the dry atmosphere had evaporated much of that snow, and we went out to see how the weathergrams are faring. Most of them are gone, but here are a couple that have survived. And the other photo? Well, there is a lunatic fringe of weather/fashion sense in Bozeman. Yes, it had been below zero for a couple of days, and yes, was up in the 40s when I took this shot, but really? Shorts and tennis shoes? As you can see, even Zeke was somewhat taken aback by this guys’ clothing choices.
Pentel Color Brushes are the bomb! And so are Bister inks. It was only a matter of time before I would combine them.
I’m continuing to enjoy Elizabeth McKee’s brush lettering class, so much so that my current book edition (going out the door tomorrow) is brush lettered. I’ve fiddled around with the Pentel Color Brush (PCB) a lot — emptying them, dipping them in watercolors and other inks, even using them as-is. The other day I emptied a nearly spent extra-fine PCB and refilled it with Bister inks. I have also been experimenting with making videos. So … here’s a video of me refilling a PCB with Bister inks. It turns out that Pentel Color Brushes and Bister inks go together well. I strained my ink through cheesecloth to keep out the undissolved Bister crystals.
I show the PCB already taken apart. Taking apart a PCB is a simple operation. Grasp that black ring at the top of the black barrel with a needle-nose pliers and pull. The central tube will come out pretty easily. Then rinse out (or wash) both the barrel and the central tube. That’s it!
My favorite store for Pentel Color Brushes is JetPens. I’ve used them a lot over the years, especially when I was doing daily alphabets.
How are you doing, 7 months in? I’m sometimes finding it difficult to focus. Read on for an example of my pandemic life in the studio.
Today, Thursday, which I know because Ed and I had a discussion last night about whether it was Tuesday or Wednesday, and were gratified to be able to determine that it was Wednesday without the aid of a phone or other digital device—um, what was I saying? Oh, yes. Today I came into the studio to continue work on a book edition whose deadline is rapidly approaching. (Do you remember last year’s book edition?)
But first, I decided, I should tidy up. The library table was especially cluttered.
A couple of days ago, I had lost the smaller half of the two-piece tip to my 0.2mm mechanical pencil when I was reaming a clogged lead. It had rolled off my drafting table to somewhere on the floor. I decide that this will be my starting point. Pulling away the chair, the portfolios, the rolling cart, stools, I find the tiny bit of metal almost immediately. Wow! It’s going to be a productive day, I think. So I ream the tip and put the pencil back together, and it works! Better and better. On a roll, I pull the other 0.2mm mechanical pencil out of the mug and fix the clog on it.
Things are going swimmingly. But I’ve pulled all this stuff away, so I take the opportunity to vacuum and mop the floor before replacing everything. On my hands and knees to scrub up a spot of pink paint, I see a dried trickle of ink on the wall. As I’m scrubbing that off as best I can, I ruminate on how long ago I might have spilled this Quink. (I can tell it’s Quink by the bluish color it turns as my scrubbing dilutes the ink.) Now sitting on the floor, I see other spots and flotsam that simply require action — the push pin, the dusty floorboard … the absolutely filthy floor protector! What happened here? Did I crush a pencil lead between the floor protector and the floor? Cue the vacuum, the mop, the scrubbing sponge.
I turn around to see our dog on the futon chair. He looks so adorable, I snap a picture of him and send it to my son. Logan is always happy to have another photo of Zeke. He messages back, do I have any “press(ing) needs” he can build me for Christmas. As if this is a question. Happy to take break, I look at bookbinding equipment for awhile. And learn a couple of tips about backing that I hadn’t known before, and yes, there are couple of things I would like. Of course.
But back to what I was doing: At this point, my studio is so far from being a suitable place for work on a book edition, that my courage almost fails. I clean and replace everything I took apart — to find the tiny pencil piece, remember. I do this, resisting the temptation to open the new issue of Alphabet that arrived in yesterday’s mail and sits invitingly on the surface of my drafting table. Instead, I clean under Alphabet.
I take everything out of the divided tray attached to the drafting table, and proceed to clean, organize and replace nearly everything, labeling envelopes for stamps, tabs, labels, abrasive papers, translucent sheets, etc.— all the small flat paper-like things I use so often in my work. As I organize, I briefly wonder at how I managed to acquire 25 different black pointed markers and somehow decide that I needed every single one of them immediately at hand. I discover three—count ’em, three—beeswax holders, seven random business cards, and three triangles. I decide that all three triangles must stay. When I finally finish, it is beautiful, at least to me.
I never do get to the library table. But somehow this cleaning and rearranging also rearranges my work on the book edition. When I settle down to work, I am heading in a new direction with renewed enthusiasm.
