Survey No. 1 - Me

I thought I would answer my own survey - just for fun. My answers will be long because the kind people who responded to the survey gave me so much to think about. If any of you have additional comments after you ponder things for a while - please send them to me and I will add them to your posts.

Do you recall being interested in the alphabet at an early age, if so what age? 
My mom was amazed that shortly before my third birthday I demanded that she teach me how to write my name. My brain could not make the J. I would draw the pencil down and when it got to the curve, the pencil would flick to the right making a checkmark. I cried and cried. Eventually I got it. To this day I struggle with making pretty Js. I blame it on the fact that almost all of the letters are constructed from left to right - so J feels a little backwards.

Do you recall being interested in penmanship at an early age, if so what age? 
I had pretty much mastered printing by age 4 and asked to learn cursive.

Do you recall being interested in calligraphy at an early age, if so what age? 
No. I was strictly a penmanship person. Still am - in a lot of ways. I like penmanship and lettering over formal calligraphy.

Was there a person or a book you ran across that had a big influence on your path? 
Biggest influence - Cheryl Adams who taught calligraphy at the Des Moines Art Center which was a block from my house. It was very convenient to take all her classes. And then she decided to retire from teaching and home school her kids. So, it was pretty convenient for me to have her teaching career and all her addressing jobs just handed to me. If she had not retired, I doubt I would have had any reason to start teaching or would have been as involved as I am. But there is no way to know what might have been different.

Did you discover lettering/penmanship/calligraphy at a much later age? 
I was 42 when I started taking calligraphy classes. In college I spent a ridiculous amount of time changing my penmanship to look more like a classmate's. I admired beautiful penmanship but I was not a big fan of the Palmer method or the Zaner Bloser which is what I was taught in the third grade. 

What do you enjoy most about writing? I am mesmerized by the rhythm and patterns and feel. Then there is the interaction with people. Students are so inspiring. Sending mail and hearing that "It made my day" makes me feel really good. It is like killing two birds with one stone. I can selfishly do something that is my favorite thing to do - but I am also providing a little ray of sunshine to someone else. I suppose I could have done something more worthwhile if I had wanted to make a contribution to society - but mail seems to be my bailiwick. For me, teaching at the DM Art Museum has felt like a worthwhile contribution to the community. Someday I might write down all the stories about people who took a class and reported back at some point that finding an outlet for the creative energy was a huge benefit to their life.

What do you find most frustrating about writing?
I was a painting major in college and when I was in my 40s I went to a talk given by my painting instructor who was in his 60s. He pointed to a small area on a huge painting and said, "When I painted that, I finally felt like I was getting it just the way I want it. I was finally feeling satisfied with my work." I thought that was crazy because every square inch of all his paintings from his entire life seemed like perfection to me. But, it also helped me realize that the quest to please one's eye is ongoing. There is no harm in the feeling that you can do better. He may have been striving for something better for his whole life - but he did not bad-mouth his work. He was still putting it out there as something that he was proud of. So, while it is frustrating to never achieve that level that I am striving for - I do put out a fair amount of work that may have some problems - but I still love it and am happy to send it out into the world. As I always say - it's not the content, it's the process. I guess I am quoting someone - but not sure who said it first.


Do you have a specific goal? No

Can you describe any ah-ha moment where you discovered something that really helped with your journey?
My ah-ha moments happened when I took classes with some of the rock stars in calligraphy and I realized that much of their advice was exactly the same things I had heard from instructors I had during my college art classes. It helped to understand that expressing one's creative side is a universal urge and we are all kindred spirits on our quest.

If you have taken classes, do you recall why you signed up for your first class? 
Yup. A friend wanted to get out of the house and take a class and asked me to join her. She wanted to take an Italian cooking class. I already knew how to cook Italian food so I suggested taking Italic lettering. I enjoyed the class but was not hooked. A year later, suffering with cabin fever in February, I signed up for pointed brush lettering and that was the class that triggered the life long obsession. Somehow, the feel of a brush after my years of painting was the right tool to draw me in.

Have your classes met or exceeded your expectations?
Yes. Even with classes that were not my favorites, I always came away with something of value.

Do you think we all start with equal potential?
Potential for what? In retrospect - this question is too vague. I do believe we are born with strengths and weaknesses. So there must be some variety in our potential.

Why do you think some people catch on faster than others?
Because their strengths are dovetailing nicely with the task at hand. If we are talking about catching on faster - the question is more about how easy or hard it is to learn something new. For some people, the new skill may take longer than the average person to master, but determination might be the trait that will help them achieve a goal. We all know people with tons of potential who are lacking in determination or perseverance. 

Is anyone truly *hopeless* (at improving their penmanship)?
I think it depends on your age. The older you are the harder it becomes. When anyone under 60 says, "I'm hopeless," I respectfully disagree. Physically they are not hopeless. Mentally, they might be hopeless because they actually don't have any motivation. But that is a different issue and if people are determined to be hopeless, nothing I say is going to change them.

I have worked with elderly people and the amount of change that is possible seems to diminish with age. But, I would never actually tell anyone that it was hopeless. IMHO if you have not kept your hands and fingers very active with fine motor skills, it's going to be very difficult to change your penmanship. After several decades - penmanship is really ingrained. It was interesting to learn from the nurses who work with Alzheimer's patients that being able to sign your name is one of the very last skills that people lose.

Once I saw that the elderly people were not having any success, I switched the project to decorating words that I wrote and adding flowers and the activity was very well received. Calligraphy is too detail oriented and uniform. They did fine with more abstract subject matter.