more calligraphic play

This tender, yet profoundly wise remark by Mary Ann Evans, writing under the pen name George Eliot, put me in a mood one evening to play around in pencil with simple monoline Humanist Bookhand letterforms--stretching serifs, bumping letters into one another, generally letting the letters enjoy a childlike good time--but soon, what began as an hour or two’s exuberance, turned into an all-nighter, so caught up was I in the game. Months later, wanting to add another layer of childhood experience, I decided to letter it with crayons--albeit crayons honed to a fine point as mine had never been--and, still later, to frame it with a see-thru  crayon sharpener brim full of the shavings from my efforts.

The deathbed

response--so it is said--

of the revered late 19th century stage actor, Edmund Kean,  

on being asked

his perspective on death

at the end of a long and distinguished theatrical career.

Published in a Calligraphers Engagement

Calendar

dedicated

to the Arts

(1991)

NATURE

on Earth, Air, Fire, Water --in the different styles and from the differing perspectives of a Greek philosopher and a Japanese poet

Calligraphers

Engagement Calendar

2002

Prologue to a Meatloaf song;

roses figure so prominently in its imagry that I chose a light-weight, hand-dyed rose red paper for the text that proved a challenge to write on.

The background is another handmade paper, this one embedded with real rose petals.

2007

.

©ann alaia woods 2008