Calligraphy, ancient and very alive
Once a beautiful but necessary form of writing that goes back centuries, it’s now mostly practised for pleasure
CAMBRIDGE, ONT.— Ever since she was a child, Aline Chan has written with a nib pen. Whether it’s a pointed tip fountain pen or a nib and a pot of ink, she scribbled elegant school notes in Trinidad at a time when perfect handwriting was mandatory.
“I like the pointed pen. You can govern over it. You can make it thick and thin with just a bit of pressure,” she says.
Today, Chan teaches calligraphy to people curious enough to learn this ancient and once essential skill. The Breslau woman’s artistic hand is often requested in local classrooms and workshops all over southern Ontario.
“Calligraphy never used to be an art form. It was just the way people wrote,” Chan says.
Used for bills of sale, land deeds and other important texts and documents, calligraphy was once a beautiful but necessary form of writing that goes back centuries. Now the perfectly symmetrical swirls and curls of calligraphy are mostly practised for pleasure or for their artistic qualities.
Chan sits in a small back room behind the storefront of Phidon Pens in downtown Cambridge. Scraps of fine French paper are scattered on a table, each one with a different style of calligraphy inked onto it, from medieval block lettering to thin curlicues.
She has a basket full of nib pens she likes to use. Some of them have tips that are flat, square and about an inch wide, and others have incredibly fine points. One unusual pen in her collection, and a personal favourite, is an oblique pen — a pen with a nib that is attached to the side of the pen at an angle.
“This creates sloped writing,” Chan explains.
Calligraphy has a meditative quality for Chan, who has been practising the craft for decades. She loves using potted ink so she can dabble in a variety of colours. The walls of her home are adorned with framed pieces of quotes and phrases written on high-quality parchment to showcase her fanciful calligraphy skills.
To Chan, calligraphy is more than just a way to write, it is a way to express oneself. “It feels like you’re creating something.”
Chan is part of a shrinking group of calligraphers who make up the guilds in Toronto, Hamilton and Guelph. They were once much bigger, but there aren’t many traditional calligraphers left now, she says.
“It is dying. We’re trying to keep it alive.”
Despite dropping membership in the guilds, Chan says she has noticed an uptick in interest from people wanting to learn this beautiful craft. Chan often has people come to her workshops at Phidon Pens to learn how to elegantly pen their own wedding invitations or to simply pick up a new skill.
“Many people are coming back to writing by hand,” she says.
In her workshops, Chan teaches traditional styles of calligraphy — from Book Hand, a hand-lettering style that goes back centuries, to Italics, a style similar to cursive handwriting.
She fondly recalls a retired 90-year-old doctor who took one of her workshops to work on her handwriting skills.
“She improved a little bit, maybe 20 per cent. It takes a lot of practise.”
Basic handwriting, like cursive, is a passion for Chan, who is a teacher. She is often called into elementary and high school classrooms to teach cursive, a skill that is no longer mandatory in schools.
“The loss of cursive is the loss of our signatures,” Chan says. “It’s an important skill to have.”
Whether it’s through cursive handwriting or the sweeping, swirling strokes of a nib pen, Emma Fretz of Waterloo thinks there will always be a need for calligraphers practising their art.
From wedding invitations to signage and decor for people’s homes, she keeps busy with her craft. The 21-year-old university student is also intent on keeping this historical craft alive.
“I think of it as doodling with history and significance,” she says.
In a world where young people are bombarded with social media and technology, it is refreshing to pick up a pen and some paper and just create something by hand, Fretz says.
She says she hears similar stories from the young people who frequent her calligraphy workshops at Seven Shores Cafe in uptown Waterloo, where her clientele is made up of mostly young, professional women.
“They all say they want more creativity in their lives,” Fretz says.
“It goes beyond being a trendy skill. It is so deeply rooted in history.”
She taught herself calligraphy a few years ago when she was determined to make her own Christmas cards. She soon fell in love with the craft. “It was just so satisfying,” she says. Fretz’s style of teaching is quite the opposite of Chan’s, who focuses on a very traditional method of teaching calligraphy and cursive. Her introductory hand-lettering classes use only pencils and felt pens.
“It takes the stuffiness out of it and makes it more accessible,” she adds.
For her own work, however, she prefers to practise traditional methods of calligraphy with pointed pens and pots of coloured ink.
Whether it’s a piece of watercolour artwork accompanied by calligraphy, or a sign board for a wedding or local business, Fretz thinks the practical nature of this art form will help keep it alive.
“I don’t think calligraphy will ever go away. There will always be a need for it.”