Dressed Down Weekend with Pat Blair
October 28, 2019
Hello! It’s been a couple months since I last shared on here.
I wanted to jump on to share about my weekend while it is fresh in my mind. The Idaho Inkspots Calligraphy Guild invited Pat Blair to Idaho to teach about pointed pen variations. I previously studied with Pat at the Letterworks conference in Utah in 2017 and was excited to learn from her again. I was not disappointed!
Friday night she gave a presentation on her work at The White House. Pat Blair worked as the director in the Calligraphy Office at The White House for 12 years, retiring last year. She worked with two other full time calligraphers and a data entry person. They were in charge of all presidential, ceremonial and social events; often working with quick deadlines. The Calligraphy Office works closely with the First Lady’s, Social, and Press offices. Pat shared, they took their role seriously to support the Presidential office, regardless of political party, and never took it for granted.
The Calligraphy Office has been in existence since the 1800’s, primarily working with the First Lady for social events. However, the scope of work has changed throughout the years. It used to be the “Social Entertainment Office,” but the name changed in the 1980’s. While it used to be customary for guests to respond to invitations with handwritten notes, email responses have become the norm. It was fascinating to hear about the thought and detail that went into each invite, menu, place card, event. and special project.
Class started on Saturday morning with a solid review of class Copperplate letterforms. As I’m wrapping up teaching an 8-week Copperplate class this week, it was humbling to personally go back to the fundamentals. It’s so easy to go on auto-pilot. It was nice to slow way down and take it all in. When you take your time like that, practice becomes soothing and meditative.
In the afternoon we started to vary characteristics of the Copperplate letterforms. We varied slant, pressure, spacing and x-height, while staying true to the letterforms. It’s amazing how changing one of those characteristics can change the whole look, feel and personality of the text.
Sunday we focused on a script Pat developed called “Dressed Down Pointed Pen.” While this is based on the same oval shape you find in Copperplate, we drastically changed the letter slant from 55 degrees to 72 degrees. All while keeping in mind the letter form. Every stroke we made felt intentional, which I liked.
Everything about this workshop reminded of the quote from the movie Uptown Girls, “Fundamentals are the building blocks of fun.” Once you know the rules, you can learn how to break them. In this context, you can do that all while maintaining the integrity of the letterform.
Now I wish I had a couple uninterrupted days to play and integrate what I learned!