Calligraphy as a Career?

Have you ever considered calligraphy as a career?  Many people are professional freelance calligraphists, but to have a calligraphy career outside of freelancing?  This article features Ann Miller and her excellent career as a professional calligraphist, including her tenure as the president of a calligraphers society and as a professor of calligraphy.  Maybe this will spark new ideas for taking your hobby to new heights.

Spotlight: Ann Miller, ’64, MA ’65

Cyberspace Calligraphy

Glenn Matsumura

AFTER 1978, when a California funding crisis short-circuited a tenure-track job teaching art, Ann Balaam Miller was “irked for quite a while.” She had studied painting and lithography at Stanford with Nathan Oliveira and Richard Diebenkorn and enjoyed working with students in turn. It was frustrating to have “all these teaching ideas that never reached fruition.”

STANFORD Magazine: July/August 2004 > Class Notes

William

technorati tags:Calligraphy, Calligraphist, Calligraphy+Career

Are You a Left-Handed Mess?

Are you a south-paw writer making a mess of your paper? If you are, you might enjoy this webpage. It is all about tips for left-handed calligraphists. Well, okay..It mainly shows you how you can hold the paper to better your writing for a few different south-paw writing styles. It even shows pictures to illustrate the points. The best part is that it is rather short and too the point.

The Left-handed Writers Page

What we can do.

Many left-handed writers have trouble with several kinds of writing tips. Points may catch on a corner or on an edge, digging into the paper. The worst of these are the extra-fine, needlepoint, flexible, and italic nibs; however poorly-designed mediums and stubs can also be nasty for lefties. While broad and broad-oblique tips usually present no problem, any of them can be problematic if they are poorly-adjusted or even just a little bit sharp in the direction of writing.

The Left

technorati tags:Calligraphy, Calligraphist, Left-Handed+Calligraphy, Left-Handed, South-Paw

Are you on the List?

While searching around for some interesting calligrahpy resources to share with you today, I found this cool little site. It is a calligraphers directory. The particular page that I have posted below is a United States calligrapher directory. From this directory, you can find calligraphers in each state.

Are you on the list?

http://www.cynscribe.com/usascribes.html

If you scroll down the page a little, you will also see a list of the various calligraphers guilds out there. So, if you would like to find a guild in your area, this might be rather helpful.

If you are not in the United States..Please stay tuned. I will keep an out for a similar resource that
lists the calligraphers of various countries . This site does include some, but the directory is not nearly as navigable as the directory for the United States.

technorati tags:Calligraphy, Calligraphers, Calligraphy+Guilds, Calligraphers+Directory

Making Money with Calligraphy Artwork

This is kind of a fun article about a young kid making money by selling calligraphy artwork online.  Is that something you have ever thought about?  If this kid can do it, surely you can too.  Even if you don't want to run a full blown internet business, perhaps you can still take an idea or two from here.

Simple Gifts offers ‘illuminating’ artwork

Kobi Shaw/for Dunn County

NewsBy Kobi Shaw, Correspondent

Did you ever wonder who is processing your order when you buy from a catalog or shop on the Internet? It could be the folks who live right next door.Cottage industries are often the invisible, silent economies of a community, taking many different forms. In fact, without a bricks-and-mortar presence on a city street or in an industrial park, many businesses seem to exist below the radar. While these industries may not have a sign on the door, they do have a name and face.

Archives: Story

P.S.  It says the story is from archives, but it was only puyblished on July 3, 2006

technorati tags:Calligraphy, Artwork

Improving your Handwriting and Calligraphy Skills

This is an interesting article.  It isn't aimed directly at calligraphy, but it is written by a calligraphy and handwriting coach.  This article, or web page rather, provides lots of tips for improving your handwriting, and some of which can inevitably be used to imrpve your calligraphy skills. 

Tips for improving your handwriting

By Dyas A. Lawson

You’ve decided you want to improve your handwriting and you’re probably hoping a fountain pen will do the trick -- maybe a friend told you it would. Maybe you’re just adventurous and you want to try your hand at calligraphy (or you might, once your handwriting improves). Good for you!

handwriting tips

technorati tags:Calligraphy, Handwriting, Tips

Is Calligraphy Only Meant For Paper?

This is an article that made me think.  So often, we, or at least I, think of calligraphy as the art of beautiful writing on paper.  Usually it is in the form of letters, invitations, cards, etc.  This article made me think about all of the other possibilities that we could apply our simple writing to.  What about a beautiful picture on silk, with a proverb, or some other inspirational writing, or even something as simple as "Welcome to our home." 

The women in this article is from Istanbul.  She is a calligraphist where women are not expected to be.  She has used her painting skills to transform the work of calligraphy masters from paper to silk and other materials to create beautiful pictures.  One of her pictures is featured in the article.

Ink Meets Silk this Time
By Musa Igrek, Istanbul
Published: Wednesday, July 05, 2006
zaman.com

Calligraphy is often described as “the love of paper, ink and reed pen.” An exhibition titled ‘Turkuaz Calligraphy” at the Beyoglu Municipality Art Gallery hosts calligraphy works painted on silk, fabric and leaves, as opposed to the description above.

ZAMAN DAILY NEWSPAPER (2006070634556)

technorati tags:Calligraphy