Tiny Handwriting

It’s fascinating how a small comment or image, barely acknowledged, can shape my ongoing projects. Last year, watching Aimee Lee weave tiny tiny baskets from paper scraps I was taken with how she collected every piece of leftover paper, no matter how small, to use in some project or other. My matchbox books are a reaction to that experience—among other reasons, they started as an attempt to use up the huge box of paper scraps I carted from California to Santa Fe.
Last fall, I saw one of Margy OBrien’s books and commented to her about her lovely calligraphy. She sent me the name of the book she’d learned from; I did nothing about it. But since then I’ve started paying attention to handwriting. And especially my own. I do the crossword puzzle in the paper every morning, I write shopping lists, over the holidays I wrote letters and cards, and every night I write a haiku. For years I’ve done the crossword puzzle with a special pen—it makes me feel more confident I think. So instead of writing my haiku with whatever came to hand, I’ve started using a particular sharpened pencil. And my notebook is the neater for it.
And later this month I’m taking a workshop called “Tiny Handwriting” taught by Carol Pallesen. Here’s the description: “Make your letters small, smaller, smallest as we work with tools conducive to tiny writing: microns, crowquills and sharper edged pens. Spend two fun-filled days learning three alphabets – Monoline Italic, Clothesline Caps and Willow by Hand – and investigating the demands that tiny writing places on these tools. The results will be used in 3 miniature book creations.”
The picture is the how letterforms are taught in the Nelson method. I remember learning my letters from a book with a page like that. It’s apparently still taught, and the handbooks are still available.