Pandora herself couldn't make such a mess. The Blue Box has to be opened slowly, but even so 35 years of calligraphic sketches explode onto the floor. I'm not sure how this started. The Blue Box arrived from Houston halfway through the 1980s filled with chocolate mint Girl scout cookies (used to be my favorites before the Belgians taught me what chocolate actually is), Hook 'em Horns coffee mugs and who knows what else.
Most people go to a flea market looking for old furniture, vintage clothing, and classic LPs. Calligraphers may do the same, but when a table piled high with old documents comes into view, the fever strikes - hard. I tried to bargain, but there was no budging: 40 euro for a full volume of early 18th century legal documents in Latin.
What do they say about dreams coming true? "It is a dangerous thing". The new studio is set up and ready to go. The frames are built and the kozo paper is stretched. A whole crate of Golden Liquid Acrylics is on the table. Two dozen brushes, new and used, wait patiently. The sun is shining and the espresso is doing its work. The perfect moment has arrived. But where is the idea?
Two months into our Italian adventure and I could already write a novel about all the unexpected, strange, wonderful and sometimes not so wonderful things that go on in the Umbrian hills. As I brushed off my rusty Italian and put the house in order, spring has turned into a scorching summer, and Nadine and I have begun to adapt ourselves to local rhythms and customs.
What do you do when a saint looses his shrine? And what if he was not much of a saint anyway? That was the dilemma I faced when I entered a competition to design a new shrine for a medieval saint - and won! This mystery man rested for more than seven centuries in a marvelous shrine of gold, enamel and jewels. But curatorial issues won out over ancient pieties and the shrine was moved to a new museum.
I have worked for the Archdiocese of Paderborn in Westphalia for many years, doing painted wall inscriptions for exhibitions, stained glass for the choir school, monuments for public spaces and even inscriptions for two immense bells for the cathedral carillon. Paderborn was an important residence of the Emperor Charlemagne; and so it seems fitting that the archdiocese, like the emperor, should keep calligraphers busy.
