Christopher Calderhead : : Studio Notes
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Table of contents Text-based artwork : Recent projects including a series of environmental projects, the arrow series and artists' books. Applied lettering : A portfolio of lettering and illustration projects with practical application, including work for clients, illustration, and lettering for publications. Some samples of ephemeral lettering projects. Books : Letters From New York is a series of paperback anthologies of the lettering arts published by the Society of Scribes. Illuminating the Word tells the story of the The Saint John's Bible. Over a decade in the making, this modern manuscript book is being created by Donald Jackson and his team of calligraphers and artists, who are using the best of traditional means to produce a throughly modern work of art. One Hundred Miracles explores the depiction of miracle stories in Western art. The Calligraphy Workshop, currently under production and due to be published in March 2011, is an introduction to the practice of calligraphy. The Book of World Calligraphy, also under production, looks at calligraphic traditions from around the globe and includes guides to tools, materials, and cultural traditions, with practical instructions for writing each script. Letters Arts Review : I have been the editor and designer of Letter Arts Review since 2007. See back issues, including tables of contents and selections. Read these guidelines for submitting article proposals, or these guidelines for preparing commissioned articles and artwork. Our Annual Juried Issue includes contemporary work from around the world; read this on submitting to the Annual. Essays and talks : Calligraphy: Is It Outsider Art? The Alphabet archive : For four years, from 2003 to 2007, I was editor and designer of Alphabet, the journal of the Friends of Calligraphy in the Bay Area. An archive of issues is found here. Studio Notes archive : Old news posts are archived here.
About : Christopher Calderhead is an artist, author, and educator. He is the editor and designer of Letter Arts Review, and he created the book series Letters from New York. He is the author of several books, including Illuminating the Word: the Making of The Saint John's Bible, and he has published articles and reviews. His main artistic concentration is in text-based art. Classically trained in formal calligraphy, he currently works in a variety of styles and media. He teaches at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and at Bronx Community College. He graduated from Princeton University, where he studied art history. He studied calligraphy and bookbinding at the Roehampton Institute in London, and he holds an MDiv from Seabury-Western Theological Seminary. He lives and works in New York City.
Artist's statement
The contents of this site © Christopher Calderhead. |
Studio Notes : 22 April 2010
Image from an art project in progress, working with the social construct of the passport. The American Shad was chosen as an example of a local migratory animal. It's a tragedythe shad no longer run on the Hudson River in sufficient numbers to provide a fishery. This turns out to be an appropriate post for Earth Day. Studio Notes : 18 April 2010
From a Saturday workshop I taught at GTS on making rubbings. We explored the 19th century chapel for inscriptions and textures to use. While the participants wwere busy doing their rubbings, I made the rounds, and then made a few rubbings of my own. I tried rearranging the texts of some of the memorial plaques. Studio Notes : 2 April 2010
Observed: I was going through old photos, and came across this shot I took of an Islamic flag from a mosque in New Mexico. The design is entirely composed of writing: a study in textures, weights, and arrangement.
It reminded me of a photocollage I made a few years back, of a decrepit sign on Steinway Street, now destroyed. The traces of the sign were revealed when the storefront was refurbished; the store had been called Godney's. Studio Notes : 2 April 2010 A collaboration with Anna Pinto. For the last four years, Anna and I have done a demo at the Society of Scribes annual Holiday Fair. We've wanted to do more than sit there and show that we can do nice writing—instead, each year we've made a finished (if spontaneous) piece.
At the 2009 fair, we decided to make a quilt of paper. We asked people coming through the fair to write down one thing that conjured for them either the holidays, home, or New York City. We copied out the texts people gave us, and ornamented the piece with pochoir stars, Xs, and apples (corresponding to our three themes). The individual pieces of paper were sewn together to make a quilt.
Studio Notes : 30 March 2010
Some vernacular truck painting. The Mac Donuts truck has passed my window several times, but I finally captured them today on camera. Studio Notes : 29 March 2010
Studio Notes : 28 March 2010
This is the most recent in a series of photocollages with lettering that I've been making. This one recounts an expedition to find an interesting vegetable became both a piece of art and dinner. I set out to find the most interesting leaf at the greenmarket. Studio Notes : 28 March 2010
In my department at Pratt, those of us who teach electives need to sell our work to the students. In the case of calligraphy, perhaps I need to sell my work to my typographic colleagues as well. This art was made for a promotional poster to entice students to sign up for next fall's calligraphy class. Sell the sizzle, not the steak. |
