{"id":49,"date":"2006-02-08T01:26:00","date_gmt":"2006-02-08T01:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/?p=49"},"modified":"2006-02-08T01:26:00","modified_gmt":"2006-02-08T01:26:00","slug":"lettering-artists-online-part-1-john-stevens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/2006\/02\/08\/lettering-artists-online-part-1-john-stevens\/","title":{"rendered":"Lettering artists online – Part 1: John Stevens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here in Tallahassee, where the book arts are not exactly thriving, it’s easy to become disheartened. I am fortunate to have one friend, at least, who understands my preoccupation with serifs, ligatures, spacing, and the myriad concerns of the book arts.<\/p>\n

When I begin to think that the long hours spent practicing my ABCs might simply be an unsupportable self-indulgence, I take a break and stroll through the virtual galleries of some of the best contemporary lettering artists.<\/p>\n

John Stevens<\/a> is one of the lettering artists I revere most. Before I tell you why, I should explain that I was a musician before I was a calligrapher, and over the years I’ve amused myself by matching various well-known calligraphers to famous composers and musicians.<\/p>\n

I think of John Stevens as the Arthur Rubenstein of calligraphy. Both Stevens and Rubenstein share an expressiveness underpinned by impeccable technical fluency. And both have brought to their work a clarity of vision which combines breadth of perspective with attention to detail. The results have been fresh, contemporary interpretations which keep the best of historical forms without slavishly copying them.<\/p>\n

His piece entitled Namaste<\/a> is an example of these qualities: the spontaneity and expressiveness of the brush-lettered italic word belies the painstaking carving and gilding that followed.<\/p>\n

I wander through galleries such as this, and return to my lettering inspired. And I ponder Rollo May’s question: “What if imagination and art are not frosting at all, but the fountainhead of human experience?”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here in Tallahassee, where the book arts are not exactly thriving, it’s easy to become disheartened. I am fortunate to have one friend, at least, who understands my preoccupation with serifs, ligatures, spacing, and the myriad concerns of the book arts. When I begin to think that the long hours spent practicing my ABCs might … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Lettering artists online – Part 1: John Stevens”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-calligraphers"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bHT3-N","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/callibeth.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}