the art of handwriting

I've always been a paper and notebook whore.  And because of that, some kind of a pen-whore as well.  I remember when text messages were too expensive to send a little "hello" to the person sitting just next to you.  And there was that lady at the pager company who always got your messages wrong.  So the best thing was to pass colorful post-its with handwritten notes of nonsense, with a secret prayer that it won't be intercepted by your buttoned-up professor.  Soon, we got sick of just black and blue pens.  And those scented ones were okay at first, but later on drove our sinuses up the wall.

Then, someone discovered colored gel pens.  And then they even had some with glitters.  It was like writing with nailpolish.  Or trying on a whole palette of lipstick all at the same time.  I remember having a whole satchel of different brands, of all possible shades of purple and gold.  The white pen over black paper was such an innovation, it was like walking on the moon.  I was later given a set of calligraphy pens and parchment paper which I enjoyed thoroughly, until it just wasn't "in" enough to compete with the neon pinks and greens of the ballpoint world.

Somewhere along the way, writing by hand became a chore.  And those lovely pens got stashed in some obscure drawer in our attic.  We exchanged emails for cards, text messages and chat for letter narratives.  My prolific notetaking was replaced by frantic typing (I'd like to thank my piano lessons as well for my finger dexterity).  At some point, writing was just painful.

But, passions will always find a way to creep into your life, I suppose.  Preparing for our wedding, we decided to address our invitations by hand, instead of printing on stickers or feeding the envelopes into the printer.  Also driven by the fact that the paper we chose isn't printer-friendly.  So there I was, buying calligraphy pens and writing on 200++ envelopes.

And now that the wedding's done, here I am back-stroking in thousands of typefaces to design custom logos for soon-to-wed couples.  The love for beautifully written and designed letters reawakened, and I'm enjoying it immensely.  I remembered the old calligraphy kit I had when I was in high school and decided to take a chance at looking for it in our attic.  Lo and behold, it's still there!  Nibs are still okay, the plastic pen casing still intact and the inks are still liquid (miraculously).

Right now I'm itching to go home and practice with my old-new babies.  I can imagine ink-blotted pages and dye on my pinky's knuckles.  It's so exciting (and refreshing), welcoming the art of writing back into my life.

Who knows, maybe I'll expand to hand-written invitations and logo designs.  Tee hee.

Spread the Love, guys.  The art should be here to stay.