A life of learning and curiosity continues ...

1991 Photograph by Michael Thorne

It was 1986 when I was approached by the Crafts Council of the ACT to teach calligraphy. I had only been learning calligraphy for a few years though I was already through my Showcard and Ticket Writing and Sign-writing Certificate and well into my Diploma of Calligraphy and Bookbinding through the Roehampton Institute UK. I felt I was neither ready to teach nor prepared for it but the lass on the end of the phone said she had seen my work and would I be prepared to "give it a go"? So I did.

Thirty-seven years later and after a lifetime of learning, sharing and guiding others, the time has come for me to farewell the classroom and the zoom room due to a rise in lecture & presentation requests and my ever increasing want to add to my artistic collection and calligraphic repertoire. All my current teaching commitments will be met until the close of 2023. How fortunate to have made so many friends here in Australia and around the world and to have have the opportunity to travel and learn and share extensively in my field. I have been wanted, welcomed and included.

I know I will miss the classroom and all that that preparation, research and experimentation involves. I see the move however, as an exciting step in into a world of curiosity and learning and I am truly keen to know where it will end up. My studio and its contents beckon me. My mind is brimming with ideas, research initiatives, articles to be written and just the pure urge to make more things with my hands.

There will still be travel. There will still be a sharing though my lecture series and there will still be calligraphic works telling the story of my own zeitgeist. It is, after all my purpose here. There are also some very special people who I will enjoy spending some more quality time with. And, here are some of them.

Hamish and Mads, serious and curious about making things.