{"id":11125,"date":"2020-01-05T13:47:01","date_gmt":"2020-01-05T20:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11125"},"modified":"2020-01-05T13:47:01","modified_gmt":"2020-01-05T20:47:01","slug":"mescalito-meets-calligraphy-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11125","title":{"rendered":"Mescalito Meets Calligraphy Class"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_11126\" style=\"width: 1450px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-11126\" class=\"wp-image-11126 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?resize=625%2C427&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Death is a whorl, he said.\" width=\"625\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?w=1440&amp;ssl=1 1440w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?resize=300%2C205&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?resize=1024%2C699&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?resize=150%2C102&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?resize=768%2C524&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?resize=439%2C300&amp;ssl=1 439w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/death-is-a-whorl.jpg?w=1250&amp;ssl=1 1250w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 625px) 100vw, 625px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-11126\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Given my choice of text, what do you think that I had been reading back in my dorm room?<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Cleaning out a stash of frames, mats, framed photos, some of Dad&#8217;s old watercolors, etc. today, I found this.<\/p>\n<p>It is work from my beginning calligraphy class at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reed.edu\/calligraphy\/history.html\">the study of calligraphy shaped the visual identity from the 1940s\u20131980s in particular, and to a lesser extent today.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ii3QxK8VFb8\" width=\"480\" height=\"274\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reed.edu\/calligraphy\/palladino_interview.html\">My teacher, the former monk Robert Palladino,<\/a> was forced out in the 1980s, apparently by a cabal of humanities professors who felt that calligraphy was just pretty writing but not really intellectually serious.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reed.edu\/calligraphy\/palladino_interview.html\">That is my take on it; in his interview Palladino says that his half-time job was sacrificed so the studio arts program (always an orphan) could hire a full-time sculptor.<\/a> But I think that he was too nice a guy (and hampered by his half-time appointment) to be an active player in the game of faculty politics and to build alliances to fight for his program. (I saw something similar happen to two other professors, who had in common that they were female and foreign-born.)<\/p>\n<p>The professors who sneered at calligraphy were wrong, of course. If you took<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reed.edu\/calligraphy\/reynolds_television.html\"> Lloyd Reynolds&#8217;<\/a> or Palladino&#8217;s courses, you ended up getting a whole history of the Western tradition, since the study of calligraphy \u2014 like music\u00a0 history \u2014 brought with it lineages of thinkers, rulers, and texts. And in everyone&#8217;s favorite anecdote, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reed.edu\/calligraphy\/history.html\">the fact that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs sat it on one of Palladino&#8217;s classes influenced the screen fonts and graphics of Macintosh computers a decade later.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reed.edu\/gallery\/Calligraphy_Initiative.html\">Since 2012, an effort has been made to bring back the formal study of calligraphy via &#8220;the Scriptorium.&#8221;<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Me, I just took one semester&#8217;s worth. I was a little overawed by my roommate, who sucked down calligraphy like oxygen and went on to become a professional calligrapher and graphic designer in San Francisco. I was a toddler scribbling on the wall with a crayon compared to him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Cleaning out a stash of frames, mats, framed photos, some of Dad&#8217;s old watercolors, etc. today, I found this. It is work from my beginning calligraphy class at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, where the study of calligraphy shaped the visual identity from the 1940s\u20131980s in particular, and to a lesser extent today. My teacher, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[83,12],"class_list":["post-11125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-education","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2Tr","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":634,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=634","url_meta":{"origin":11125,"position":0},"title":"A fine italic handAfter thirty\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"A fine italic handAfter thirty years, the idea of teaching schoolchildren to use a type of italic handwriting instead of (ugh) this seems to have migrated eastward across the Rockies.Coloradans mainly have the late Reed College art professor Lloyd Reynolds and other Oregon calligraphers to thank. But the really thankful\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8621,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8621","url_meta":{"origin":11125,"position":1},"title":"Before The Pomegranate There Was Iron Mountain","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Having more or less majored in poetry in college, I was always involved in the world of \"little magazines\" (the more literary term) or simply \"zines\"((I also helped to put out an underground newspaper in high school, which actually turned a small profit. Our overhead was low: one staff member\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8621#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/Iron-Mtn-1.1.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7390,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7390","url_meta":{"origin":11125,"position":2},"title":"Vikings, Monks, and Cultural Biases","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 4, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I bailed on Game of Thrones. I watched the first episode, liked parts of it (Jon Snow, obviously), but decided not to devote the necessary hours. Ditto the books. Generally, when I open a book and read something like . . . \"My lord!\" blurted the messenger. \"The Zardakar have\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7390#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"vikings_lagertha_3-AB","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/vikings_lagertha_3-AB.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":212,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=212","url_meta":{"origin":11125,"position":3},"title":"Stonehenge still rockin' The BBC\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 20, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Stonehenge still rockin' The BBC marks the solstice with a recap of the tumultous history of public festivals at Stonehenge since the 1970s. In the 1980s, Prime Minister Thatcher took a hard line (doesn't it sound like John Ashcroft today?): \"Mrs Thatcher would later tell the Commons she was 'only\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7007,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7007","url_meta":{"origin":11125,"position":4},"title":"How Halloween Came Back to Derry","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 6, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"A short video (Irish with subtitles; English) describing how a large public Halloween festival in the Northern Irish city of Derry began in a pub in the early 1980s and grew from there. And while some speakers, including folklorist Jenny Butler, do discuss the ancient festival of Samhain, you will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5999,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5999","url_meta":{"origin":11125,"position":5},"title":"Iron Mountain Ritual Site To Be Restored","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 1, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"When M. and I read this item in the Colorado Springs Gazette, our hearts soared. When we were newlyweds and bought our first house (a barely winterized 1920s cottage, 740 sq. ft.), it was just outside the lower left boundary of this photo of Iron Mountain in Manitou Springs, Colorado.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"Iron Mtn., Manitou Springs","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/McGees-house.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11125"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11131,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11125\/revisions\/11131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}