How can I know what I need to learn when I haven’t been taught something yet? And when I know a little something about certain options, how can I identify which parts of my spotty knowledge could use an upgrade? This was some of the conundrum we faced when choosing among the 23 classes offered at Letterhead 40 this year in Cincinnati. As it happened, four of the workshops focused specifically on letter design, and then many of us were left with the impossible task of choosing between Calligraphy 1: Flat Pen and Brush with Carl Rohrs, Classic Hand Lettering with David Kynaston, Basic Hand Lettering with Mike Myer and The Block Letter: A Sign Painter’s Bread and Butter with John Downer. The answer to my questions can be found somewhere in the direct experience and enthusiasm of good teaching. People who can help us find the answer for ourselves.

The workshop teaching environment also allows us to witness our own efforts side by side those of the master work. It takes a fine teacher to guide us across that gap in experience between new learning and on-going master learning. Live teaching can do something no book can do, which is show what it looks like to do something wrong and fix it. The teacher can help us develop our critical eye so we can gain a new perception. They can also help us sense what is unique to ourselves that should be encouraged and point out flaws the instant they happen. And even more important, a teacher can translate a passion and love for the craft very directly, and demonstrate first hand the “the bad-ass attitude” that all master practitioners seem to have, which naturally pushes them along their chosen road to higher levels of mastery.

Carl Rohrs has that fire and has taught calligraphy for over 30 years. His Letterhead credentials go back to the beginning of the movement. Over time he has become a key figure in the practice and teaching of artistic display calligraphy as it is used for varied purposes, including signs. I think I spent more time taking notes on his philosophy and teaching than I did practicing, because for me the most important point of being in the presence of a great teacher is how they motivate and impart enthusiasm for their craft. Carl taught us how to appreciate the shape of our writing tool and how the flow of the marking medium defines a style. He helped us see that what differentiates all hand lettering from the digital and printing arts is that it is made by mark making artists. This should be obvious but the modern world has turned the human touch into a rarity within artistic practice.

In Carl’s class we got a sense of how the many historic styles of letter design have been influenced by the tools of the time. In the present we can now choose between a range of options from which to make beautiful personalized marks. Perhaps these marks were originally widely done with charcoal, lead, bird feathers, metal nibs and animal hair but now there are wonderful modern alternatives. The same work can now also be done conveniently with markers, fountain pens, calligraphic flat pens and synthetic brushes that all have something in common with the past and yet still add something new. The practice of calligraphy will always hold the allure and charm in which every mark shows some of the artist’s unique signature. At a time when most lettering is standardized and codified for printing and mass consumption, we find that calligraphy and brush lettering brings us back to the creative spirit by virtue of the tool and the artist.

Calligraphy lends itself well to personalized teaching in a small classroom. The teacher has to be there to impart both the joys of the craft as well as the frustrations. It is necessary for students to find a way into that “zone” of creativity that the teacher inhabits. We sit there and practice while trying to “think” about everything the teacher is saying, but at the same time we are not really thinking at all, but rather gaining first-hand experience and learning how to cultivate a more sophisticated eye for what mastery looks like. We are also learning by example what it might feel like to attain some of that ineffable flow that can only be attained by constant practice, so that we too can partake in the magical muscle memory that may some day finds us “at one with the tool.”

To paraphrase some of the wisdom Carl imparted in the class:

“You want to become mindfully calligraphic. You want to remember that nothing in calligraphy should ever become too automatic. For example, it is a mistake for the artist to use the pre-set nib diagrams to determine proportions.You align the size and proportion of the lettering with your eye, not the chart. People think the goal is for the work to become automatic and standardized, but the good calligraphers are ceaselessly feeling with every stroke and asking themselves what are they trying to do with each given gesture. At the same time the tools have secrets they want you to find. They might be saying, hey dummy, there is something here you can use if you can become aware of it. You might learn to recognize a happy natural accident, which can occur as you make a stroke gesture, and you might find that some part of your innate signature has begun to emerge as you interpret the strokes, and it becomes possible to wind up with some great stuff.”

John Stevens, the great lettering master who used calligraphy to design a myriad of brush and carving work, said, “Each stroke should have interest, no small stroke or serif is less important. Let us remember at the same time that consistency is not the goal, but rather we want all of the forms to flow together so that the hand-lettered signature effect can be visible. As a matter of fact soon after plotters came out I stopped using tape when I had to paint modern fonts like Helvetica, so that there would be some sense of a hand-lettered feel to the work I was doing. There is no point in trying to imitate the work of a machine.”