Martin Jackson: The Importance of Ink

So, good morning. I think the only thing Ryan forgot was I'm also good to my mother. Yes, believe it or not, I still have a mother. When I fought with my mother, I said, 'Mom, it's terrible what I said. I'm 76 today.' She said, 'What the hell do you think I feel?'

I want to reiterate what someone else said a moment ago: that is the wonderful crew here. So many of you who work so hard. I've been on that side for previous Creative Mornings. First time here, and now I know just how much work goes on behind. They are an incredible crew. We started this a year ago, my first contact with Ryan, and it's been slowly building up. So it takes that long. Someday, maybe I'm a bit slower than some of them, so they allow me more time. I'm not sure. I'm very, very lucky. In fact, just talking to someone a moment ago reminded me how lucky I am that many, many of my mornings, in fact most of them, are creative mornings. With the business I'm in, I generally sit down each morning at my desk with a blank piece of paper and more often than not a blank mind, just wondering what am I going to put on that paper. Because I'm just a traits person really. I'm not an artist. I'm a craft person. I'm just offering a service, just as a plumber or carpenter might. I have to work on deadlines, I have to work on budget, and I have to make something that's beautiful, something that's creative. That's the extra thing that I have to do. And of course, after doing it for so long, I do have some experience of doing this.

I've been doing calligraphy now for over 60 years. Oh, you don't... you see my nose? That's terrible. Why is everybody looking up there? It's also not very good writing. Would you tell it is that off camera? So I'm still learning. I'm still, even after all those years, I am still learning. And some of you will know the book by Malcolm Gladwell, The Outliers. Well, he suggests that to be the master of anything requires ten thousand hours of study. That equates to three hours a day for 10 years. Now I've been doing this for 60 years and I'm nowhere near a master. So either I'm a very, very slow learner or I'm maybe an outlier's outlier. I'm not quite sure. But I'm still working at it. I still learn all the time. If I got to be master, where would I go from there? I don't think there's anywhere to go. It's like that Peter Principle: I've reached my level of incompetence and I don't want to reach that too soon.

So what do calligraphers do? I think many people are surprised there are even people around who do calligraphy. I think if the two full-time calligraphers working in the Vancouver area were to have their annual general meeting, it could be held in a Smart car. We would not need to hire a banquet hall or anything. Yes, I think just very few of us. Well, we do certificates and diplomas, of course. And many, many years ago, our friends from Langara are far too young to remember, but I used to do all the diplomas and certificates for Langara when that was manageable. Can you imagine now the number of students across that? Doesn't happen. So they just spewed out like a sausage machine on a laser printer, which doesn't help a calligrapher's career, I can assure you. So we write poems for people. People say, 'Oh, I have this poem, it's so close to my heart. Can you write it?' And I just love doing that. We do awards, we do retirement certificates, teaching of course is a huge thing. Wedding stuff. I'm sort of trying to back away from the wedding stuff. There are too many bridezillas and got brides' mothers of bridezillas who come along just to chat with the calligrapher. 'Oh, could you do it in the same colors as the bridesmaids' dresses?' No end of that one.

So just recently, just to give you an idea of what does come, there are many, many long quiet periods with nothing. But I never just sit there biting my nails. I said to someone, 'Well, I sit in the dark basement listening to Mahler at those moments.' I don't. I try to rise above that. I sit at my desk, I'm always doing things. Then suddenly it comes: the email comes in or a phone call. And in a period of about 10 days, I had these projects. One was for a woman in South Korea. Don't ask me how she found me, but she did. Could I write a poem for a priest at her church who had been there for 25 years? And they wanted to write the famous prayer by Saint Francis. Lovely. Did it, shipped it off. Next one was a woman from New York had a family member in Vancouver reaching her 40th birthday. My God, I dream about 40th birthdays. Oh, to be so young. Oh dear. So that was nice to do. And another one was a company in Toronto who's the office for a Japanese pen manufacturer. They wanted some package design for some calligraphy pens. How sweet was that for me? And another young woman, jewelry designer in Vancouver, phoned and said she was ready to establish her brand and could I help to design a logo. That's lovely. I mean, she did amazing stuff and I'm working with somebody else who's creative. And you know, it was very easy to get along with her and she had beautiful initials. So they were the ones that allowed me to do that. If ever anybody asked me to do a monogram for their name and it's 'O' or 'R', I'll pass you on to another calligrapher. I just can't do that. But the one common thing about all these projects, there's nothing similar between any of them other than they all require beautiful letter forms or require some calligraphy. And so that is where I have to rise to the occasion and do that.

I'm not the master of all hands. Many calligraphers have their own favorite hands. 'Hands' is a style, by the way. And some specialize, some generalize. I have really just three styles that I do. And I thought it would be good just to show you how these work, because I am a calligrapher, it is a visual thing. And there's nothing, I think, more important than you seeing it happen or not happen. And if it doesn't happen, you will realize that I'm not actually floating from the ground here. I'm just a mere mortal. And with the theme being ink, I thought I should at least do something with a bit of ink. And so I have here something that's called walnut ink. Walnut ink is not always made from walnut. Often it's made from sphagnum moss, but also from the husks of walnuts. I'm dreadfully nervous here about spilling ink. My work area at home, my wife refuses to come within five feet of it because it's just so shabby and scruffy. There's ink everywhere. It's inevitable. So what I'm going to do is one of the styles that I would use if it was something for like a medieval period. And you have to capture the flavor as you write these letters. This is a piece of balsa wood. Remember the little children's airplane models? This is one I stole from a child at the beach. Then I ran, because I live very close to the beach. I hope you can see it's just a piece of balsa. So it's been cut square across the end. All our writing tools have that square cut. It's called a broad edge pen. This spit is not really very polite. I usually dip it in water, but I'm not doing that today. So here we are. This is called Uncials. So I will write... This is an absolutely glorious letter 'A' that we have in this alphabet. That is it. This is also the 'U'. 'U' is beautiful too. That could be a good name for a band, couldn't it? Think about that. So if I were asked to maybe design a cover for a book about Geoffrey Chaucer or something, this would probably be the hand I would go to. So very simple, quite elegant, very open, and mostly legible, which is of course the prime objective for calligraphy: to make it legible. I pride myself on that. My two mantras in life with my calligraphy: it's got to be beautiful and it's got to be legible.

The next style I would do is called, it has various names. It's called either Gothic or Black Letter or Old English. It's solid and chunky and very appropriate for things like, if you're doing again a poster for a concert of Bach's B Minor Mass or something, you know, Johann Sebastian Bach or something that needs to be Gothic looking. Anyway, let's have a look at this. There are some calligraphers who say that when you're using this style, it's a battle between black and white, and black has to always win. So there you can see the sort of dense flavor of that and how solid it is. Sometimes we have little decorations here and there to up the ante about its visual appeal. So the word Gothic sort of tells you everything you need to know about it. I don't use this for very many things. I would not recommend, for instance, using this for a birth announcement. Or maybe even a wedding. But maybe there are a few goths out there who would say, 'Yeah, that's just what I want.' Maybe not. Or this, I think, sort of bikers' tattoo things. That would be good for that. So that's the Gothic.

The next one, which is my go-to alphabet, my everyday alphabet, is called Italics. And Italics is oh, it's just so beautiful. And what am I going to write in it? I know this is right. Something, of course. So you can sense a rhythm here. You can see the way it falls into a little pattern. Okay. Well, I hope it's beautiful. I hope it's legible. But you can see how that just flows along. I mean, it is just so nice to write. And it is also the style to which we would want to add flourishes and things like that. And so if I were writing, for instance... You know, again, trying to capture what you might feel is a feeling you get about something. You know, this is sort of a bit musical. It dances a little bit. And we should try to make our letters dance or even move. So you can see why I love this alphabet, because it just lends itself. We don't always do this, believe you me. This is just showtime. But we love to do flourishing. Most of my stuff is just straight, tiny little pen. I mean, pens that are a half a millimeter or less in size, going up to whatever sizes. And it's mostly laborious like this. But this is where you see them work and the different flavors that they hopefully give to you.

Oh, there's one other thing. I thought, you know, with these big pens, I've often thought I got a good idea once, but I'm not sure if my timing was right. I thought, wouldn't that make a terrific logo? I think someone beat me to that one. And it must have been a calligrapher, I'm sure it must have been a calligrapher, because look at that, just a calligraphic stroke. The theme of this presentation is ink. Now I have to tell you that until someone suggested that to me, I'd never given another thought to the fact that ink is as much a part of me as the blood in my veins. I use ink every day in one form or another, whether it's bottled ink, stick ink, or whatever type of ink. It's something that's always there. I'm a bit embarrassed to say this, but before I came, I thought I'd just better check what ink I do have. I had 83 bottles of ink and 11 ink sticks. And you say, why so many? Believe it or not, some of those are just so specific to one project that I have to have them. Many of them were colors. And of course, you know, we love working with color. By the way, what color is that dress? I'm still figuring it out. And are you all wearing Marsala, which the Pantone Institute tells us is this year's color? I'm looking around. Yes, I see one young lady with some Marsala here. But you're a leader of fashion, obviously. I'm still working at it. I'm a simple black and white guy here. For most people, the word ink never enters your mind, only when you have to take a bank loan out to replace the cartridges on your printer at home. You say, 'Oh dear.' That's the only time you use the word ink, isn't it? Not for me. It is a huge part of my business. Also along with the inks, I thought I better check how many pens I had. It gets worse. I counted within arm's length of both sides of my desk: 179. Why do I need so many? I've used them all, actually. And they're what I call my 'just in case' pens. I might need this just in case. And chances are that little moment is going to come up at some time or another. And with those bottles of ink, all those bottles of ink, I can assure you, how many? 86 bottles? I can make far more than 50 Shades of Grey. Maybe not having as much fun, but... You're not going to see the notes on the back of these things. There is something so special about things written by hand. Absolutely essential. I mean, there are some things that cannot be done any other way. Can you imagine writing a love letter, for instance, in anything other than your own handwriting? Or a letter of condolence, or a thank you letter. In England, and in my family, thank you letters are huge. They've drilled into my children and grandchildren, 'Have you written a gram?' And you know, one of the things they say is the reason that the English don't have a sex life is they're too busy writing thank you letters.

Am I a dinosaur? Maybe I am a dinosaur. But I'm still alive and kicking and trying to inspire people to perhaps even get involved a little bit in calligraphy. Or at least the greatest thing you can do for yourselves or for someone else's birthday is to get them a fountain pen. Get away from the ballpoint pen, which is just that horrible, nasty monoline that skitters all over. Just the feel of a pen in your hand, it's so beautiful. And you don't need to spend a fortune. I've seen calligraphy fountain pens for $12 and up. Stay away from the big $400, $500 things. They're no better. They all eventually clog up and dry out and give you a bit of concern. But get a fountain pen. It makes your own writing absolutely beautiful. I think younger people need some role models to help them to say, 'Yeah, maybe calligraphy isn't...' I mean, what if Miley Cyrus said, 'I've given up twerking. I'm taking up calligraphy.' That'd get a few people's attention. Or Taylor Swift says, 'I'm taking a sabbatical for the next year. I'm going to learn calligraphy.' Way to go, Taylor. Or if Harry, Hermione, and Ron in the Harry Potter series had said, 'Hey guys, let's go off and do some calligraphy.' It's those little things that will get somebody's attention somewhere. Thank you. I'd like to bottle that and play it when I get home.

One of the projects that I worked on that seemed to gather more attention than I probably thought it ever should was the fact that I did work on Bill Gates' wedding reception. It was back in 1996. It was an enormous project for me. Over 500 guests, and I had to do, in the end I counted 2,700 items that I did that had to have some calligraphy on. You know, envelopes within envelopes with envelopes and little bits and pieces. All these pieces here had at some point my work on it. I had to write something on these things. Now, just in case you get any idea that I was a major player in this, I have to ground myself every so often. I made this little chart, as you can see: Bill Gates, his wife-to-be, personal assistant, Seattle, organizer, Vancouver organizer, graphic designer, local printer, blind ambassador, die cutter, engraver, assemblers, stamp lickers, and Mark and Calligraphy at the bottom there. That really is about as much as I was. A part of this, a small part, an important part, but nevertheless a small part. And I lost money on that job. No kidding. I underestimated so much. And the pressure of that job was absolutely the worst I've ever had. There was no time. Everybody was on me all the time. And the graphic designer I worked with lived in Deep Cove. I'm in Kitsilano. Twice a week or sometimes more, we'd have a rendezvous behind a hotel in North Vancouver. My wife knows all about this. Well, she'd hand me a new list of names, I'd hand her a bunch of finished things. And it was not an easy job to work on. And I would never want to do it again. And of course, I never thought I'd be able to make up the money I lost, and I never did. But I did do two more jobs for them. When he moved into his beautiful big house on Lake Washington, they had a housewarming party. Some party, I bet. So they had these wonderful invitations. And then they had a big bash for the millennium. And some of you were far too young to remember the millennium, but it was a huge affair. And people went mad. They said the end of the world is going to come. You know, all these experts were going around lecturing people what to do about their computers. Planes were going to fall from the sky. I had it up to here with this. So I created a little button, and my wife and I, we used to wear it around. I only made 10 by hand. And I don't know if you can see this, but it says something about the millennium. And we would wear this. And the best thing was people would come up and say, 'What's that?' And then I'd say, 'Well, they'd say, 'Oh, is it love the millennium?'' We all know it's a short, sharp word. And talking of short, sharp words, you know when I make a mistake or drop a blob of ink onto my paper, I know three or four that come straight out, snap like that. Sometimes all together in a big long string. But I wonder about the poor monks back in the old times, worked in the monasteries. What words were left for them to use? I mean, there's a very limited choice. 'Oh dear.' They can't say 'Oh my God.' They can't do it. So I'm lucky because it gets it right off your chest. And immediately, I work with some incredibly cool things too. I hope I can just briefly show you some of these. Look at these. These are antique quill knives. These could be two or three hundred years old, some of these. And I use them for cutting quills. When I cut a quill, I start with a raw feather like this. We still write with this, believe you me. We write with this. We write on this is a piece of goat skin. We write on goat skin just the same as this piece of vellum here, which is from about 1650. It's what's left of an old manuscript. See the similarity and the look of the material. So we work with the same materials. And here's another beautiful little manuscript. This is from about 1650, Spain. You know, I look at these, I study these. I can see the guy who did this. Sorry to say it's a man. There's very few records of women calligraphers. There maybe were some, but they never got any notice. I can see where he filled his pen, where the line was a bit stronger than the previous one, where mistakes were made, where he'd scratched it out. And I try to build up a picture of this man. And I think, well, you know, he may have looked like me. Similar hairstyle, probably. You know, there were cool guys in those days too. But you know, who did he look like? Did he look like George Clooney? Whoa, yeah. Or do you like, you know, I don't know. You'll have your own ideas. But a real person, real living person doing what I do, you subscribe, doing beautiful letters. And this little piece here, this is even earlier, done in 1400 and something. This is a single page from a lady's personal little book of prayers that she would have to refer to every day. If you look at the size of this writing, it's not a millimeter high. This is one of what have been hundreds of pages at that time. Can you imagine that? Every piece of written information had to be done by hand. Every single piece. And there were scribes who spent their life doing these beautiful, beautiful things. What else do I have? All these amazing ink sticks. Look at these. These look so good I want to eat this. Isn't that beautiful? You know, you just grind this in a little dish and you can get the consistency of ink that you want. It comes in red. And these beautiful designs that are on this tiny little thing here cost nearly $40. But it's just in case. I have antique watercolors that are 100 years old here. This is raw pigment. I will make my own colors for very special jobs. For the most special jobs, I will cut a quill, I will grind my own ink, I will make my own color, and I'll work on an animal skin. And that is as close as I can get to what would have been done back in those days. And those people who are my role models, really, believe you me, I do have a lot of heroes in my life, some living and some not now. I have no idea about the time, but I think on that I would like to thank you all for your patience. And I hope that at least you know a little bit more now about what a calligrapher does. Thank you.

I would like to think so. The first question about writing with feet, I have to admit I've never ever experienced that. I've seen a drummer who plays in the band with his feet, I've seen people driving cars with their feet, I've seen people playing pianos with their feet, but never writing. So maybe there's a pioneer movement we have to start out there. I'm not making fun of that, but I'm sure it could be done if people have the dexterity to do those other skills with their feet. Absolutely, just getting the right pen and somebody just to give some basic instructions. And as to grandmothers, being a grandfather and my wife being a grandmother, we certainly have a big role to play in helping our children to fulfill some sense of nicety about things and politeness. When someone sends you a gift or gives you something, how difficult is it to sit down and write a card? There's something so personal in something handwritten. It's from you direct to that person. There's a link. Don't worry about your writing. That's not the issue. I had a client who came to see me. He had fallen in love with his dance instructor and he wanted to write these love letters. But he said, 'My writing is no good. Will you write them for me?' I said, 'Absolutely.' So I was writing, he was pouring his heart out. And he came back the next week with another one, and another one. Then there was a gap, and he called and said, 'Martin, how's it going?' 'It's not very good.' He said, 'The problem is she was far more interested in the calligrapher.' Maybe when I was 18 or 20, I should have known this stuff. But anyway, yes. I hope that was some answer. Grandmothers do play a huge role. And whether they can teach their children calligraphy, I don't know. But they can remind them of the importance of writing something by hand.

Thank you. That's an absolutely critical question. Why am I here today? Because when I was 14, we lived in the southwest of England, a beautiful rural part. At that time, my uncle came down from the north of England, Sheffield, where we were all born, a filthy industrial city. He came down to do some bird watching. He was a little older than I, so he disappeared and I was not too much interested. He went back home. A couple of weeks later, I'm walking through my living room and I noticed on a tabletop a letter. So I normally would never ever stop to look at things like that, but I did. And I looked at the envelope. I thought, 'My goodness, that's something amazing.' And I pulled the letter out and it was heart-stopping for me. I read it: 'Dear Auntie Margaret and Uncle Peter, thank you so much for having me. I had a great time.' And I went to my mother and said, 'What's this?' She said, 'Well, it's from Uncle Jeffrey.' I said, 'Well, what is it?' She said, 'It is calligraphy. Uncle Jeffrey is a calligrapher and an art teacher.' I said, 'Wow. Can I take the letter?' Of course. So I took that letter. And from that day, we all used fountain pens in those days. Mine wasn't a calligraphy fountain pen with that little square tip, a normal one. From that day, my writing was copied from this. I would spend all day writing 'Dear Auntie Margaret and Uncle Peter' and then I branched out to other words because I felt I had a bit more competence. It was two years before I found a little book by a calligrapher called Tom Gordy, 'Beginning Italics', that I realized there were so many things I didn't know. And that was something as trivial as that. Think about that. It might be you walking down the aisle here today. Something's been left on a seat. You pick it up and it changes your life like that. I would wish that everybody had a moment like that in their life. Because for me, it's made me just exactly who I am and why I'm here today sharing this with you. And how would my life have been without that? Would I have ever found it? Maybe not. What would I have become? It's just an incredibly trivial moment that's so important.

Well, he would never have known about any of this. As most people about to get married, they're not involved in all parts of it. You know, the wives and whatever, wife-to-be. But it happened for me that the graphic designer working on this wedding called me and said she needed a calligrapher. My name had been given to her. Could we meet? And we met. And she said, 'Here's the story. Whatever I tell you now, you have to first of all sign this non-disclosure secrecy thing.' Oh my God. I said, 'No problem. I'd sign anything.' And so she said, 'I'm working on a wedding. And we've been making proposals to them for weeks and weeks and we cannot find a font that they think is working.' So I said to the person, 'Well, we could try calligraphy.' And they said, 'Well, let's try it.' So she said, 'Could you do some samples?' And I said, 'Certainly,' not knowing what I was getting into. And here is the truth. This is 1996. She said, 'When you get the list of names, you know, you have to respect the secrecy.' I said, 'Well, I won't even tell my wife, because she'll be dying to know.' And when we got the list, we looked through and I recognized her name. But my wife said, 'Who is he? Bill Gates?' That's how savvy we are. Not were, are now even. But I mean, that was it. But it was just a question of they couldn't find a font. And if anybody in the world could have a font, who better were they in a position than they were? So I got to do it.

Well, when I make a mistake on a page, there was Hermann Zapf, the great type designer and calligrapher, once said, 'If you don't know how to get rid of mistakes, don't make them.' But of course, that doesn't work. I make mistakes all the time. The one I mentioned in my presentation about the 40th birthday piece was a perfect example. This woman had asked four members of her family each to write ten words about their sister who this was being presented to. And I was to make this into something spectacular. And it really did turn out very nice. I used all these great colors and lovely flourish letters. Wonderful. Somebody came to pick it up, took it away. About four weeks later, I had a phone call. I knew right away by the tone of the voice, you can tell. 'Martin...' I thought, 'Oh, what's coming?' She said, 'Oh, the piece was lovely, but you left three words out. There's only 37.' I said, 'Wouldn't you like to still be 37?' You know. She said, 'Well, I'm sure she would, but no.' So in that case, I had to do the whole thing again. There's no other way. And I was happy to do that because I felt so guilty and so bad that I made this silly error. I just left a line out. And it happens. Normally, if it's something like a word is spelled incorrectly, razor blade is my number two tool of choice. I don't scratch it out. I shave the surface of the paper off so it leaves a smooth surface. And then I burnish it down with a burnisher. I have a burnisher here. I want to show you this burnisher because it's a remarkable burnisher. That's right, it's right here. It's called a dog tooth burnisher because it has a dog's tooth in the end. Somewhere there's a dog with a tooth missing that's having trouble eating his meat. But no, and then you burnish it down to make it smooth, then you write back over it. And the other question, sorry, was how long? Oh yes, yes. Well, you know, that depends on the person, whether you can devote these three hours a day for 10 years. The perfect example, the most wonderful example I have, is that last year I had a young Japanese girl who came to Vancouver to do English. And she got my name from some of the students I taught in Japan. She'd never done calligraphy. She wanted to learn calligraphy. And I said, 'Well, I don't teach, but I'll be happy for you to come. I'll show you the tools, where to buy them in Vancouver, give you some examples, and you can go.' She said, 'Thank you.' She came. I spent one hour with this young woman. She's watching, looking, listening, just like Japanese students, to absolutely focus. I said, 'Come back in two weeks.' She came back in two weeks. She had a file full of things she'd done. She spent two weeks, seven hours a day doing this. She opened it and showed me. And I didn't say anything. She's, 'Oh, what's his problem?' I said, 'There's no problem. It's absolutely incredible. It's perfect.' I said, 'How did you do it?' And she said she'd spent seven hours a day and she's copying everything around her because her English was not yet at that stage where she could write easily. The back of the cornflake packet, the beer can, bus ticket, anything. So that is the first time in my life I've known somebody work so quickly. But it depends how much time you can put into it, how much passion you have for it, and enthusiasm. And that should help you to get through. Thank you.

I wish I had a simple answer, say, 'Yes, you go to this place at this time and this instructor in the little group.' I joined before we began the questions. I said that is one of the saddest things that's happened in Vancouver at the moment. Nobody seems to be teaching. There was a short course offered at Capilano University by a good friend of mine, Renee Alexander, a wonderful calligrapher. I don't know if they're going to repeat that. You have to just keep your ears and eyes open. There's a Calligraphy Society in Vancouver. But sadly, calligraphy has taken a different direction and they've gone into more fancy just letter forms and 'let's have fun,' which is fine to keep people's interest. And I wish there was somewhere I could tell you to go. Keep your eyes and ears open for the community colleges and night school programs. I just hope somebody takes up the slack. If only there was a support partner of Creative Mornings that was a college that had a publishing program where calligraphy could actually... Wait, Rachel's telling me something is... Very... This just in: Calligraphy workshop, March 24th, 2015. Sign up at foxandflourish.com forward slash workshops. Foxandflourish.com. I've learned something today myself. Wonderful.

It's staggering to me that there's no cursive writing taught anymore. It's absolutely unacceptable to me. I know that even everyday stuff now, you put on your smartphones and your iPads and whatnots. But you know, if that is lost, if a generation is lost, it's never going to catch up again. They'll never go backwards to do that. And I don't know what the answer is. Because when the authorities and the education systems say it's no longer of any value, we might teach printing, that should be enough. It isn't enough to me. Because it's part of your personality. And I would never ever criticize anybody's handwriting. It's so personal. And when I see people who say, 'I can't do it, I'm not doing any fancy writing,' I say, 'Just try it with this fountain pen.' And you know, immediately they start to take more care with their letters. They think more about what they're writing. They check their spelling. Everything comes up. And they've proven this in many studies in the school system. Once a child has some handwriting that they love doing, everything comes up with it. And that is going to be a part of children's education that is gone. I hope that madness will not prevail and that common sense will perhaps bring it back. I don't know how that could work.

That would be wonderful. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you. I have something for you. It's all of our handwriting. Thank you very much.