Art in Action - Gaynor Goffe: Left is Right

Spiral staircases went clockwise so that the defenders would be coming from above and have a long swing with their swords held in the right hand. However, in Scotland in the Kerr Clan, there are a number of "lefties" e.g. Sir Andrew Kerr - his spiral staircase went anti-clockwise. I'm a Kerr by marriage and my son Andrew is yet to be knighted and thank goodness we are all right handed!*


But this makes the point that on the whole, things such as calligraphy and spiral staircases were designed for right handed people.
When I have taught lefties in a beginner class, I give them so much extra attention that I ask everyone to hold the pen in their left hands and attempt a simple zig-zag with the nib at 45°. I rest my case.


There are many ways that a left hander can approach calligraphy but they have to work it out for themselves. We can only suggest possible ways of holding the pen and paper. There are different degrees of left-handedness and each person has coped differently in a right handed world. So, some people may slant the paper upwards slightly to the left but it can work quite well to write completely sideways with the top left hand corner of the paper turned 90° so that it is on the top right. It is then possible to do a zig-zag without smudges. I knew a leftie guy of 16 who did very passable Gothic upside down.

Gaynor Goffe is probably the most famous left-handed calligrapher and I took these shots of her at Art in Action to show you how she holds her pen. She has her paper slightly slanted towards the left and twists her wrist at an impossible angle and writes exquisitely without smudging.

But not many people would be able to do this. Gaynor is exceptionally skilled and could probably do beautiful Italic with her left foot!

See her work at www.gaynorgoffe-calligraphy.co.uk

*b.t.w. I have two left-handed brothers and I first learnt Italic on my own at 15. In desperation, my mother had bought a little book on Italic by George Thompson, to help them write legibly and I took this to boarding school to while away those long boring hours at prep.

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Learning Italic

Capitals and minuscules:  Weekly, 3-4 hours for 6 months – 1 year

This is going to be a bit like my ideal Foundational Course, which should not be surprising. I think it begins to really diverge as we get further down the line with looser work, pen twists, wild flourishes and crazy tools. But the basics are just that: a solid training with enough interest to sustain the person learning. Foundational people may well want to progress to this.

Gestural people may have skipped Foundational, but they have lots of other hard work ahead of them.

My Ideal Italic Course - Minuscules

Tutor to supply an excellent exemplar or use a book such as Calligraphy made Easy by Gaynor Goffe

(I have to say this right here: Gaynor would have gladly written & worded the title – as she told me - and designed the cover, but no, the publisher knew better and got someone who does pretty awful lettering to do the title, using Gaynor's sophisticated Italic background. It happened to David Harris as well. It also happened to my son when he illustrated a book once – the jacket designer took one of his illustrations and made it a bit diagonal with a shadow and used some awful font – in the theory that "we know what sells" And was paid a disproportionate amount. End of my little rant.)

 My Ideal Italic Course - Minuscules

Tutor to supply an excellent exemplar or use a book such as Calligraphy made Easy by Gaynor Goffe

i)  family groups

ii)  n-necklace – anbncndnen etc. Short alphabetical word-list: ant, bat, cat etc.

iii) long-word alphabetical list: anthurium, buttercup, calendular, dandelion etc.

iv) playing with flourishes

v) writing with gouache, watercolour, Ink sticks of good quality (not the tourist gifts)

vi) moving down nib sizes

vii) layout of a long narrow poem with just two strategic flourishes

viii) as a historical base students would analyse Bernadino Cataneo*

ix) to get rhythm: Scriptorium or Continuous writing – lay out a pamphlet book of 3 folios of A3 to make an A4 pamphlet with classical margins. Write from left to right filling each line and breaking words at the end of the line even if its not logical.

x) for inspiration: Brody Neuenschwander, Julian Waters

xi) for artwork: working with watercolour and playing with flourishes and pentwists in abstract patterns.

xii) various small projects

Wearable Art - Kimono Series - Lin Kerr,
Exploring flourishes with a modern interpretation of Italic

My Ideal Italic Course - Capitals

 i) Monoline Italic capitals (these are narrower and sloped)

ii) refresher course on spacing

iii) edged pen alphabet in width groups.

iv) sentences in capital letters. (Not too much at this stage as it could be disheartening)
v) flourished capitals

vi) alphabet lists with flourished caps and minuscules: Alberti, Beethoven, Chopin

vii) moving down nib sizes

viii) scriptorium or continuous writing – lay out a pamphlet book of three folios of A3 paper. this time observe paragraph breaks and don't break words illogically, but still try for solid prose to get text blocks for rhythm.

ix) for artwork: a piece using some exciting technique like layering and including a few flourishes. It could be entirely in capitals or capitals and minuscules.

* Knight, Stan  Historical Scripts, Oak Knoll Press 1998

A Time to be Born - Kimono Series, Lin Kerr, using formal Italic capitals

I could go on and on with this series but actually I'm going to stop at this stage. Maybe some more about my theories and principles of teaching another day. I will certainly revisit why I love Italic so much, and also chat about gestural writing at some stage. I started with this after looking at Monica's fab.work, then being interviewed by a young Italian visual comms. student who was doing her thesis and wanted to consider "contemporary British gestural calligraphers" - interesting! Anyway the 2-day series has turned into an earnest 9-day series and I must get on with my ordinary life! Also writing syllabi off the top of my head is dangerous.

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