Following is an article just written for the Canberra Calligraphy Society.
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Twenty-twenty started as quite a frightening year for many
in South East Australia. Traumatising communities from the Queensland border to
our beautiful Tasmania. Bushfires that had been raging throughout various parts
of the country since September 2019 were now out of control. By late December
Canberra residents and other visitors were trying to flee the south coast. We
here in Tasmania also had our own bushfires to deal with. Twenty-twenty started
badly and then turned worse. An illness, an emergency, a pandemic.
On the twenty-fifth of January the Australian news headline
read:
The first case of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has been
confirmed by Victoria Health Authorities this morning. The patient, a man from
Wuhan, flew to Melbourne from Guandong on 19 January.
On the twenty-sixth of January I flew to Canberra to spend
some much-needed family time and to catch up with hometown friends even thought
the fires were still burning. Everyone was talking about the fires and shared
their experiences. Our communities had common concerns which effected everyone
if not physically then psychologically. The world was sympathetic to Australia
as times were very hard for most in the bush. At the same time though our minds
became over-engaged with first of all the small changes we had to make due to
the coronavirus then much larger consequences of the pandemic. We experienced lockdowns,
job losses, hygiene regimes, supermarket scrums and, yes, a whole new world
order not seen in our generation.
As a calligrapher and artist running a studio based practice
and a healthy teaching program I, like everyone else had to adapt and work
positively in a way that didn’t see me loose my mind, my work and my sanity.
And I am extremely fortunate unlike many to be able to control my own working
environment. On March fifteenth I cancelled a five-month teaching tour of the
northern hemisphere. An endeavour that was two years in the making was gone in
an instant. I was so relieved even though there were neither ongoing
commissions nor any type of income. While I enjoy all my teaching adventures it
is extremely hard work as I am the one responsible for each and every person in
my workshops to reach their potential indeed exceed it.
Whilst I had cancelled everything we were still having
workshops here in Australia by visiting internationals. Our lettering shed was
still going and face-to-face classes were still happening. Late March I took a
workshop by American book artist Daniel Essig as well as signing up for classes
with Marina Soria.
At the end of March I was to go to Sydney to teach for the
ASC an Arthur Baker workshop. Thereafter
we were to welcome Marina to Hobart. I spent a good deal of time on the phone
with Shas Baker discussing the state of covid affairs as borders were starting
to close. At first we hesitated about doing anything drastic but at the last
minute the Tasmanian border closed and though I could get to Sydney, I may not
have been able to return home. I suggested to Shas it could be worse for Marina
if she continued her travels here. Cancellations started all over the world
from then on even though many still believed it would blow over in a month or
two after which we could carry on.
The first thing I did was look up the last world pandemic,
the so-called Spanish-flu of 1918, I wanted to know how long it lasted. Two
years. I wanted to know the countries affected. The entire world. So in my mind
I knew it was going to be a long time before we would become a healthy country
again.
With no work and no income I was fortunate that my partner’s
position in the Orchestra was safe and our income was solid. My accountant bless her, wrote to say that I
might qualify for JobKeeper. A miracle. For the first time in my life the
Australian Government gave me some money. Pure relief.
I signed up for a course run out of the University of
Tasmania and received a commonwealth-supported place in The Wellbeing Toolkit that lasted one semester. I chose my
units well:
·
Human Performance in Extreme &
Unusual Environments
·
Making Home
·
Arts in Health and Medicine
·
Stress, Self Care and Mindfulness
Each module related to me personally feeding my mind with
the power of positivity in particular the last three. Making Home was not about
fluffing the cushions in the lounge room but rather about our home environment where we are safe and feel comfortable, a
space of simplicity and beautiful, useful things. It enabled me to have my/our
place home where I could be content. With
the idea that this would spread to our immediate community. My time (and my
mind) was starting to fill up.
Meanwhile in the studio I messed about doing what I do best,
making art. Fortunately an interior designer from Sydney needed artwork for a
new hotel lobby that they were decking out. These were works to “blend-in” not “stand
out” so after many trials and tribulations I managed to sell a few works. This
kept me busy while studying.
I started filming little snippets of calligraphy training to
put “out there” for a small price. As one of my overseas slots was to do
Foundational Hand course filming with Harvest Crittenden of Acorn Arts I
managed to organise myself with the technology to complete all the filming from
my studio. Voila, we now have a FH course running on the Acorn Arts Platform. I
am extremely happy with the results having run our first five-week session all
online. I am on hand for the five weeks to interact with my students on a daily
basis. I mark up all their work and feed it back to the forum. Now with the
videos all done it gives us the opportunity to run it perhaps twice a year.
Then along came a word I had only heard on a car television
advertisement zoom, zoom, zoom! A friend from Europe wrote to me to ask would I
mind if she suggested my name to a friend of hers who ran a platform of
teaching lettering arts via Zoom. What’s zoom? With hindsight it seem a pretty
silly answer. Sure, why not? So she put
me in touch with Riccardo Ali and the rest is history. I have taught some
workshops for Riccardo on his Calligraphy Italia platform, Adolf Bernd, Art
Deco lettering, Gold leaf sgraffito and a four week course on Hermann Kilian.
When Pam Kemp and I were in England a few years ago I taught
at Ardington School of Crafts run by Yvonne & Simon Sonsino. As part of
their initiative to keep the school open they started a series of classes
called Ardington Academy Live Plus. Over the past year I have also taught for
them via Zoom five x four weekly workshop. The classes included: classical
Italic, Hermann Kilian, Cnut Charter Hand, Versals & Ampersands. With the time-slots for me in Australia going
late into the night or early in the morning it has certainly been a marvellous
worldwide experience from the comfort of my own studio. Phew, I am exhausted.
I have also taught a few workshops for other Societies
around the world some gratis and some paid just to keep everyone’s head, hearts
and hands active during the pandemic. But there is one more activity I have undertaken
in my covid-stride this past year. In March my poet/calligrapher friend Linda
Lanza started a small group of friends to take part in creative writing
sessions. Run out of Linda’s New Jersey studio I jumped at the chance to meet
with the group of like-minded artists on Sunday mornings at 6am. On a weekly
basis we have a new theme along with prompts and word catchers and a great deal
of encouragement to write. If we wish, we share or written works, some poignant
some wretchedly sad, some deep and meaningful and others fun and flippant. Originally
the sessions were to run for a few weeks the duration of this pesky flu but of
course we are still meeting. We are now up to our 46th week of writing
with no let-up in sight.
I am very fortunate enough to have sat out the covid-19
pandemic on my backside in my studio wearing pyjama bottoms and a beautiful
blouse, keeping warm and creative making art and sharing with friends in winter
and keeping cool in the now summer months of twenty twenty-one.
“Humankind is a
curious creature. We are
makers of things and
survivors’ of obstacles.” Gemma Black
