Accessing the Analog Arts

It’s amazing to me what a hunger there is for the activities we used to take for granted: drawing, sewing, cursive.

This week I taught the second of two workshops at the New York Public Library, with a focus on cursive handwriting. The participants spoke: they were less interested in the crafts from last week. They wanted more cursive.

We worked on three activities: lists, letters, and journals. First, we brainstormed what kind of lists we can make: to do, grocery, and new year goals were a few that came up. Then participants spent time writing their lists. Next, we spoke about letters – I had brought paper and envelopes – and discussed who we could write letters to. Friends, family, someone in the community were mentioned. Finally, we journaled: although we attempted the three full sheets of Morning Pages (Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way), this was tough in the time we had left. The goal was to finish one page.

At Artist & Craftsman, where I did a workshop last weekend, I had three ten-year-old students who had never had cursive instruction. They were delightful, and I could not believe how quickly they picked up the skill, simply using cursive alphabet tracing pages, and having lots of time to practice. Here’s the thing about cursive: like anything else, the more you practice the better you get.

Cursive handwriting is just one activity in what I refer to as the analog arts that so many of us are yearning for in our wholly digitally-overloaded world.

The Calm of Creativity

Teaching at the New York Public Library. My happy place.

This week I taught the first of two cursive-and-crafts workshops with a focus on Valentine’s Day. Last summer, the classes focused more on cursive handwriting – its history, current status, and how to re-connect – and this winter the goal was to combine cursive with crafting.

I brought lots of art images from old appointment books, colored index cards, and letter writing paper. Students turned their valentines into collage, added notes, and most of all, practiced their cursive handwriting skills. There were worksheets, and we went over some of those pesky letters – for example a lower-case “r” -- which lots of folks struggle with.

Oh, of course, there were pens. Ball points, markers, and even some Pilot fountain pens. For some students, these were a first. But they loved them.

The best part? For next week’s session, the students wanted to focus more on cursive and less on crafts.

Made my heart sing.

The Letters of Miss A. G. Bushell

Mine is no mystery. And not nearly as elegant. However, I have every, single one.

My letter collection is still intact. From recent months, and years ago. Yes, indeed, even from childhood. The adult end met up with its former self when I cleaned out my dad’s apartment several years ago. There it was, untouched, in a childhood desk drawer, simply waiting to be seen. Letters from camp, letters from family, and, yes, letters from long-lost friends.

One is from high school and, just like that, I’m back, transported to the hallway, seeing the writer and how she dressed, her smile, as I now read her letter, pouring her heart out about – imagine – a boy.

Another is from middle school, a neighbor who moved away. How different her life was in sunny California, away from the grey of a New York winter, where we once made Lemon Squares together. She wrote out the recipe and my memory of her neat, manuscript printing matches the letter I now hold in my hands.

Then there are the ones unrecognized. I don’t know the writer. Were they friends not for long? Yet they took the time to sit down and write. I only hope I did the same for them.

As much as I adore the visual and tactile nature of my letter collection, what strikes at the heart is the sense of time, of its passage, of first loves and lost friendships, family that remains only in spirit, and memories that challenge us to think, reflect, and give context to a time gone by.

The Clippings of Mrs. H.R. Burdick

It’s a mystery, the contents of this box. Here’s what I know, so far.

Several years ago, I was cleaning out my aunt’s house. I found a box inside of a larger box, containing stamps from all over: Germany, Cuba, and the United States.

This box was nestled among clippings, hundreds of them, of letterhead(s) from mid-century American hotels, coast to coast: The Taft, the Biltmore, the Roosevelt. Beyond belief, though, were the train lines: the Los Angeles, and the Sunset Limited. The mind reels: there was a time when you could board an American train and write a letter on its personalized stationery.

The elegance of this speaks to an era when time spread out. I just started reading the letters of MFK Fisher and what is startling is simply the use of language for communication. This is no text speak time; this is when thoughts were developed, and full words were used. One pictures the writer, staring out the train window; locales pass by as thoughts come together.

To get back to Mrs. H.R. Burdick. It seems she collected both the stamps and the stationery, but not the letters. Luckily, there are many envelopes with multitudes of beautiful handwriting. Where does my aunt come in? Apparently, one of her many hobbies was stamp collecting, and she purchased these boxes from one David C. Burdick, of Sea Cliff, New York, the town in which she lived. One assumes David was the son of Mrs. H.R. Burdick.

There is no question that this treasure trove wants to become a book, or a museum exhibit. Or both. Stay tuned.

Austen, and Audrey, and Eric, as Well

They loved the letters, as did I.

At the second cursive handwriting workshop I taught this week, I showed the communications of Jane Austen, Audrey Hepburn, and Eric Clapton. Each had their own style. Yet there were similarities.

While Austen’s resembled the classic cursive of the 18th century – slanted and elegant – Hepburn’s was round and vertical, with no slant at all. Then there is Clapton’s, which is so distinctive it stopped me. It was the handwriting of a college friend, raised in England. Not quite cursive, but not just print. It’s a hybrid, and almost resembles calligraphy.

The reason for this? “In Britain, in the early 1890s, Professor John Jackson introduced vertical writing, which he felt had superior legibility, and was easier for students to learn.” (Lynn Diligent, Dilemmas of an Expat Tutor).

We spent most of the class writing letters to friends or family. Participants were so focused you could hear a pin drop.

The best part? One of the letters was addressed to me, thanking me for teaching the class.  

Jane Austen Letters

Audrey Hepburn Letters

Eric Clapton Letters