What to Say
A bit of an essay and art.
There’s an essay on the burner that was, at first, about cursive writing and penmanship. Then I wandered into the lack of cursive writing in public schools (and its rejuvenation); then I rhapsodized about the beauty of individual letterforms and how they look filling a page, from there to collage art that incorporates letterforms… a pleasant writing ramble that pushed me right past my Wednesday deadline.
To be kind to my vagabond mind a new grandson did arrive last week and his father, my son, is besotted, and my daughter-in-law overwhelmed, by love.
I get videos of a milk drunk infant, or an infant asleep on his father’s chest, or his mother’s chest, or his little legs still curled under as if he was still in the womb, or his little hand along side his still downy cheek, or the little moue he makes before he’s ready for the breast... and, and, and…
It cannot be resisted, nor should it be, and so I am “behind.”
But I still wanted to post something that gives a taste of the upcoming essay about a love of handwriting and letterforms—especially letterforms, also called typefaces—so sharing a few of my letterform collages that disassemble and reassemble individual letters and blocks of type into something expressive.
Typography is the craft of endowing human language with a durable visual form, and thus with an independent existence. Its heartwood is calligraphy - the dance, on a tiny stage, of the living, speaking hand - and its roots reach into living soil, though its branches may be hung each year with new machines. So long as the root lives, typography remains a source of true delight, true knowledge, true surprise. ~Robert Bringhurst, Canadian poet, typographer & author
The better people communicate, the greater will be the need for better typography—expressive typography. ~Herb Lubalin, American graphic designer
As I never saw my father or my mother, and never saw any likeness of either of them (for their days were long before the days of photographs), my first fancies regarding what they were like, were unreasonably derived from their tombstones. The shape of the letters on my father’s, gave me an odd idea that he was a square, stout, dark man, with curly black hair. From the character and turn of the inscription, “Also Georgiana Wife of the Above”, I drew a childish conclusion that my mother was freckled and sickly. ~Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
Besides being a passionate essayist I am: *A poet and writer, working on a memoir and a YA novel based on a Celtic myth *A teacher on Insight Timer. https://insighttimer.com/valeriespain *Certified Mindfulness Mentor
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Regarding AI: I do not use AI in any part of my writing process: from conceiving and nurturing ideas, to editing drafts, to writing the final essay. All the imagining, writing and editing is the work of one human. We don’t need more content. We need heart-centered, human content.