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?

My first work in the new studio in Umbria was a commission for a client who had seen an exhibition of my large kozo sheets in the Asia Pacific Museum of Warsaw. One sheet caught his eye and gave him the idea to commission three scrolls based on ancient haiku. The dream commission, of course!  The problem, as we all know, is to recreate the freedom and energy of a piece in a new work. We create in the moment, in a flow of ideas and actions. I don’t know about you, but I do not recall all the spontaneous decisions that happen when the spirit moves me. I grab this brush, a bit of that color, turn the paper upside down, play different music on the radio……..and all of this goes into the work. This process cannot be repeated. Something new has to happen.

It took at least six failed sheets before I achieved something worth looking at. What made the seventh different?  I am not sure, but somehow in the process I managed to forget the commission and do my own thing. I can use the first six sheets for all sorts of things: collages, boxes, book covers. Kozo paper is ideal for them all. The seventh sheet has the poetry I was looking for.  Two more failures and two more successes. That’s thirty meters of kozo paper to produce the three scrolls!

It can get you down, to be sure. How many of us have moments of fundamental doubt? I have them all the time. Pushing through that barrier takes a lot of energy and courage, both of which I usually manage to find. Here in the Umbrian hills the winds whisper: “dolce far niente, dolce far niente”.  But I have miles to go before I sleep.

I have enjoyed experimenting with my Yellow Submarine letters, trying out layers of transparent colors. This takes me back to childhood, when I would scribble a sheet full and then fill in the spaces with colors. Was that the beginning of my calligraphic adventure?

Spoleto continues to delight. What a surprise to find a lovely inscription by Luca Barcelona in the stairway of the Museum of Contemporary Art (The Collicola Museum). Encouraging indeed that the directors/curators see this as a fitting statement at the entrance to the museum. The Festival of Two Worlds took place this summer, with the usual covid restrictions. Posters for festivals past can be found around town. Here are two by our calligraphic brethren Saul Steinberg and Ben Shahn. The opening concert of the festival took place in the breathtaking Piazza Duomo, as usual. Did the medieval architects know they were creating the perfect outdoor concert hall?

All the while the olives and plums ripen in our field. Amity and Glenn Parks and Ellen Bauch, the co-owners of the house, arrive later this summer. By then the plum jam will be made and the truffle season long past.

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.

On May 16th I loaded the car with as many art supplies as it could carry, threw in my toolbox, power saw, computer, printer, a few short trousers and tee shirts, piled the dog on top and headed south. Orlando was as patient as his doggy brain would allow, but when we emerged from the Mont Blanc tunnel it was time to stop, take a long walk, and sniff the Italian air. We spent the evening with Anna and Domenico, good friends and the producers of my wonderful ruling pen and bracelets. Next day poor Orlando need convincing to get back in the car. Seven hours later we pulled up to our house in Rapicciano di Spoleto. Unlocking the door was a strange experience: this is now our house, I marveled, shared with Amity and Glenn Parks and Ellen Bauch. But it fell to me to infuse it with the soul of new owners.

That proved quite a challenge at first. The old owner, an artist from Rome, left behind furniture, sheets, towels, a kitchen full of pots and pans and a plumbing system that still functioned – more or less. He also left a lot of junk. Sorting out good from bad and driving the latter down to the recycling center took several days. What I couldn’t fit in the car the local second hand shop picked up. Day by day order emerged from chaos and the house began to breathe with fresh life.

Rapicciano is a tiny village about 15 minutes from Spoleto. We have a few acres of land with olive trees (needed pruning, still need feeding) and a truffle forest. I was soon initiated into the low level battle for these lumps of smelly gold from the ground. As Orlando and I toured the property, he dashed off into the woods barking. I followed and found two young guys with a bag of truffles. In my poor Italian I made it known that the truffles belonged to me. They kindly handed them over, perhaps half a kilo. Sadly, they were harvested way too soon and had almost no flavor. That was back in early June. The story in July is very different. I now have my man Franco and his pack of dogs. The truffles are mature. Day after day Franco returns with a kilo or more and pours them out on the garden table to be divided, half for him, half for me. The freezer is now full. How many do I need? Do I now have to take the things to market?  Not quite how I planned to spend my time here.  As I said, there have been surprises.

The house has a big studio. It took a while to get up the courage to start a new phase of artistic work. Slowly and with all the agony that goes with art making, I am getting started. More on that next time!

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.

For the last two years they kept me very busy making a new lectionary to replace one written in the 1980s. Accepting this commission put me in a very difficult position. I had not written formal, legible script for many years, and my fingers had run off over the horizon like wild stallions. They needed to be rounded up and taught to behave themselves!

For months on end I sat down, most mornings, to write a decent, simple, contemporary Carolingian hand. You’d think it would be easy for a professional. Not at all!  Weeks became months and the letters remained wobbly, the line unstable, the text block crude. I sent writing samples to my good friend Sue Hufton, who worked on the great St. John’s Bible. She gave excellent advice on the minutest points of form, flow, sharpness and freedom. More months went by without much progress.

In November 2019 my wife and I rented a house in Umbria and I shut myself away to write for several hours a day. After a month, I was still not satisfied. Something in the arches, in the o’s, in the s’s simply would not gel. One would be tempted to give up and hire in another scribe.

Back home in Bruges I gave it one more try. Sue sent me quills she had inherited from  Sam Somerville, a very great technician. She sent me pencils inherited from our teacher Ann Camp, still sharp as Persian arrows. And she gave me valuable tips on preparing parchment. With these talismans on my desk, the magic finally happened. A flowing Carolingian arrived.  I won’t say I am completely satisfied, but (as Gaynor Goffe always said) it will do.

Five weeks to write the 60 pages. Blessed, focused, zen days. Why did I ever stop writing formal scripts?  (Answer: the clients wanted something else.) I enjoyed every minute, every letter. And in sixty pages of GERMAN, I only left out one comma and one h!  It seems an old dog can relearn an old trick.

The full page paintings followed. Luckily my wife Nadine knows all about form, the human figure and composition. Daily consultations helped me avoid the worst errors. I am not a figure painter, but can muddle through when required. Two months were needed for the eight paintings. I enjoyed this as much as the writing!

The binding had to be spectacular, as the manuscript is processed up the aisle to the lectern on high holy days. I designed a panel that was laser-cut from copper, gold plated and fitted with rock crystal jewels in the corners.

It is remarkable that commissions like this still exist. I would agree to another manuscript in a heartbeat. There is such serenity in the action of quill on parchment. All those arguments in my head about art versus craft fall silent. That is true freedom!