Calligraphy

Shakespeare Quotes On Marbled Paper

This project was a collaboration with papermaker and marbler Tom Leech. We selected quotations from Shakespeare plays, and Tom marbled individual sheets of paper to enhance each quote. I designed and wrote out the lettering to fit with the marbling and to support the sense of the words. All pieces are on 18" by 24" paper.

Shakespeare Calligraphy 1

“My library was dukedom large enough.”

--The Tempest

Shakespeare Calligraphy 2

“Gallop apace, you fiery-footed steeds.”

--Romeo And Juliet

Shakespeare Calligraphy 3

“What seest thou, in the dark backward and abysm of time?”

--The Tempest

Shakespeare Calligraphy 4

“Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs;
Being purged, a fire sparkling in lovers' eyes;
Being vex'd, a sea nourished with lovers' tears.
What is it else? A madness most discreet,
A choking gall, and a preserving sweet.”

--Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare Calligraphy 5

“Monster, I do smell all horse-piss, at which my nose is in great indignation.”

--The Tempest

Other Calligraphic Works

Entropy

Entropy
Printed in dark grey-blue ink
by letterpress on handmade paper, 12" x 8"
Printing and papermaking by Tom Leech.

Based on the Insular majuscule script, I designed this alphabet for Sixty Alphabets by GSE Briem, for which sixty calligraphers contributed limited-edition prints of alphabets they designed.

The design grew out of my many years' close study of the Book of Kells and other manuscripts and inscriptions; the piece became a vehicle for playing with some of the characteristics of insular lettering; the figure/ground ambiguity suggested the "tendency to greater randomness."