Head, Hand, Heart: Reflections on a Practice

HEAD HAND H E A RT REFLECTIONS O N A P R AC T I C E

See page 21

See page 23

See page 25

HEAD HAND H E A RT REFLECTIONS O N A P R AC T I C E

CONTENTS t Irene Wellington Just like one who wants to learn to write: lines from Meister Eckhar t, 1948. Fold-out on paper, containing seven panels: black ink and watercolour.

Made for lessons given to the Marquess of Cholmondeley.

16cm x 87cm.

Foreword by Jean Vacher . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Why write? by Ann Hechle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 The threads that connect by Ewan Clayton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Edward Johnston .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10 Irene Wellington . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Ann Hechle .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

Aspects of Language: a visual exploration of poetry Figures of Speech: a Book of Discovery

.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Ewan Clayton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36

A Book of Hours for the Vernal Equinox

.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Acknowledgements .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

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F o r e w o r d b y Je a n Va c h e r t Tools and materials Goose and turkey quills, raw pigments, Japanese ink sticks and a grinding stone, reed and bamboo pens, burnishers for gold leaf, Welsh red gold transfer leaf, lumps of raw gum Arabic that acts as a binder for pigments.

H

EAD, HAND, HEART: Reflections on a Practice captures what lies at the heart of the Crafts Study Centre collections – progression. The creating of craft is about moving forward and this exhibition is about journeys, often of a personal nature, that will continue beyond the life of the show.

The exhibition draws specifically on a lineage and progression of a contemporary calligraphic practice dating to Edward Johnston, who at the beginning of the 20th century initiated the great revival of this art form. Based on rigorous research, understanding and the practice of historic letter forms, his influence passed from one generation to the next. Beginning with Johnston’s influence on his student Irene Wellington at the Royal College of Art, the exhibition makes these connections, and reflects the progression of voices found in the Centre’s permanent collection of

calligraphy. Ann Hechle and Ewan Clayton demonstrate the importance of taking this line of inheritance and making it their own, of developing what went before but also of taking it further. They show what practice means in terms of understanding, journey, tradition and how we have arrived at what is described as the ‘expressive’ calligraphy of today.

The names to be found in the Centre’s calligraphy collections are many, over 50 spanning the 20th and 21st centuries. However, these are outweighed by its two major holdings of work by Edward Johnston and Irene Wellington which number more than 150 and 200 titles respectively. These are supported by paper archives which add further rich contextual information. It is Ann and Ewan’s depth of understanding of the Centre’s calligraphy holdings, particularly those of Johnston and Wellington which permeates this exhibition. w

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t Irene Wellington Alphabetical Fragments (detail), 1957. See page 21.

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Child, H., Collins, H., Hechle A., Jackson, D. More than Fine Writing: The Life and Calligraphy of Irene Wellington, Pelham Books, London, 1986.

Ann and Ewan’s selection for the exhibition, together with their own work and loans from other organisations builds a narrative.

This narrative traces the threads that connect Johnston’s earlier practice with today. Both emphasise for instance, the importance of having the courage to work with tradition whilst also breaking through into unconventional means of representation. Ann’s choice of Irene Wellington’s Alphabetical Fragments (1957) – detail shown left – for example, shows how the use of collage helped to liberate her practice.

‘Perhaps more than any other piece of Irene’s work, this one has stretched our ideas of the scope and possibilities of calligraphy. 1’ The exhibition traces the threads in Irene Wellington’s work to that of Edward Johnston who was a great thinker. His search for the truth of the ‘thing’ opened a whole language by demonstrating that by doing, by

practicing the art of calligraphy, an understanding of it is found, and this can extend to the spiritual. Irene shared this tradition but used it as a springboard for creating work that she could call her own, as have Ann and Ewan in their turn.

The strength of all good exhibitions hinges on the personal insights that artists bring. The work included here is crucial in giving clarity to how the modern calligraphy movement has developed, from the beginning of the 20th century to today. For the Crafts Study Centre, this show marks a seminal moment for its collections.

The earliest piece in the collections, a work by Edward Johnston, dates to 1897. The exhibition therefore links 116 years of practice with today.

Jean Vacher, Curator March 2013

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W h y W r i t e ? by Ann Hechle

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HY WRITE? – is indeed a question we might ask ourselves. Now in the 21st century this has become a pertinent question – and a challenging one.

We have now many different ways of communicating: we type, we text; we hardly ever need to put pen to paper. At the press of a button our machines will do it for us. So what have we forfeited in the loss of the act of writing? Perhaps it is this: when we write we are – literally – in touch with the mark, the word. This feels powerful, as it is in doing that we understand – on a deeper than thinking level.

Because we create these marks, stroke by stroke, letter by letter, we somehow enact the shapes and letterforms, gathering in subconscious thoughts and feelings. Thus by the touch of a pen on paper many levels of meaning are captured and brought together. So this simple physical act can link and integrate the most

practical action with the most philosophical thought. It links our inner and outer lives and our sensual, emotional and intellectual worlds: Hand, Heart, Head. But also – and this is crucially important – each stroke of the pen carries the unique signature of a person, so the connecting thread that unites the levels is therefore particular: significant to each individual’s work and life.

The best word perhaps to describe this connected multi-layering experience is Synchronicity – ‘where two or more events occur in a meaningful way’. Jung called it an ‘acausal connecting principle’ and valued it highly as an alternative view to linear causality in describing our experience of the world.

It seems that synchronicities tend to appear when we are deeply engaged: in an experience, a project perhaps – something that involves the subconscious as well as the conscious mind (we dream about it!), and find

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ourselves living rather more intensely than usual. At these times when our deep interest is kindled, we feel energised; we pay attention, we notice the particularness of things – and the outside world springs into life: it has significance, and meaning, for it is not what we see but how we see that connects things together. It is often in this state that odd coincidences happen, and mysterious breakthroughs occur – an intuition for instance that what is true on one level is also true on another.

Gradually a personal hinterland grows into being, of thoughts and feelings that become interpenetrated and directly woven into our lives.

From this process emerges our own language (not to be confused with style) which belongs exclusively to us: vision and language become intertwined, and marked with a personal authenticity. From this hinterland then each work flows – fresh and living and real.

Edward Johnston and Irene Wellington both perceived writing as something that was vitally alive – a Living Thing – and experienced their art as being part of life as a whole – a way of being – though each travelled a different path, reflecting their own interests and personalities, and the contexts in which they lived.

Edward Johnston, the great pioneer figure of the modern calligraphic movement, devoted his life to the re-discovery of the edged pen, and through a painstaking practical and theoretical analysis of mediaeval manuscripts, he laid the foundation for a way of understanding letterforms that we still use today.

But, perhaps more significantly, Johnston understood that the making of living letters grew out of a practice. He grew to perceive that the qualities and disciplines involved in the practice of his craft had deeper resonances; and so, for him, the act of writing linked these different levels.

He explored these links in a private notebook, developing an extensive and profound private philosophy.

This is beautifully described in Ewan Clayton’s article in the publication Sharpness, Unity and Freedom , G. Fleuss (Ed), Calligraphic Enterprises, 1994.

Irene Wellington pursued a different path, a different Way. While Johnston advocated paring down to simplicities in the design and execution of letterforms, Wellington loved words.

She enjoyed reading, and choosing texts to write out; and came to see how, through calligraphy, she could bring her visual and literary worlds together. Through the arrangement of words and drawings, and by subtle changes of the colour, weight and styles of writing, she found she could create a mood which reflected her own inner thoughts and feelings. In doing so she stretched the whole concept of calligraphy from the formal roots of Johnston’s teaching to

the freedom of personal statement.

Her vision of the scope of the craft has helped make it the art form that we see today.

All craftsmen are of their period.

They cannot escape it: what they do is of their day. What is it then that will speak to future generations? One element perhaps is a kind of inner vitality that comes from a marriage of supreme (and often hard won) craftsmanship, and a deep personal search – to find the Truth-of-theThing.

Ann Hechle April 2013

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T h e T h r e a d s T h a t c o n n e c t by Ewan Clayton

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HEN ANN HECHLE and I came to think about this exhibition, with Jean Vacher’s help, we approached the show as a form of calligraphy research. Looking for the threads that connected four generations of practise we wrote to each other and spoke on the phone, we met and looked at images of work, we reminisced. Initially the most striking feature was the emergence of a geography of space in the calligraphy we looked at – one can see it in Irene Wellington’s Bailiffs of Lydd : physical placement, scale and structure told a story on many levels just like Edward Johnston had been doing in one of his earliest pieces – set out in ‘a sheet of meanings’. Ann’s work with sacred geometry shared this approach.

Later we started talking in terms of work (and indeed our lives) having structures and substructures. The calligrapher, we thought, was engaged in exploring the substructures of the text in relation to the words,

tools and materials that one worked with. Crucially this was happening in the present moment, in a kind of enacting. By acting it out or ‘through’ one was changed by the process. The end result, the finished piece, was the outcome of this process rather than a preconceived end-point that controlled the working process.

The craft served this enacting which came from an engagement from one’s centre with the subject of the work and its context; craft did not simply serve the design of finished objects, but rather the doing of calligraphy, stroke after stroke. The moment of completion was a blessing, an outcome, bestowed on work well done, a life well lived.

The poet, painter and inscription maker David Jones had very similar ideas about his work. But he went about achieving it in an entirely different way. He set things down in a sequence and let them turn out with all the accidental quality this imparted

but then he worked over the thing as a whole. He tried at first to get as complete a statement down (in as provisional a way as possible so one did not lose psychological freedom at this early stage), and then he could begin the process of adjusting the parts one to another – as in a painting.

This happens in calligraphy too when one is working on a scale of project that needs planning, but too much planning and the thing can go dead.

One wants to do just enough so that the scaffolding is in place for the performance, but not much more.

One needs to retain the freedom of working in the moment.

Johnston and Wellington left space for the provisional and accidental in their work because it had to be alive to them in the moment. They used annotations as a kind of riff on the process (as well as part of it). If one gets this process right then calligraphy, our inner life and events in the world around us act

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together, they are synched, clinched, synchronized, focused. Heart engages head and hand just as with a car the clutch engages the motion of the wheels with the motion of the engine and thus the vehicle gains motive force, and power. As we delved into this in the making of this exhibition it was as if we were rediscovering for ourselves the raw power of writing, a power declared in the word write’s shared root with wright and rite.

Ewan Clayton April 2013

The title of our exhibition came from a passage in Johnston’s vellum bound notebook.

On 15th July 1936 he is struck by the phrase ‘Living Fount’, ‘the important things are... its Fresh, Continuous, Life’ and this leads him to think of another fount ‘Pentecostal Fire’, but in his imagination he thinks of fire falling not only on heads but on hearts and hands as well. Realising he’s just written three words beginning with H he then makes a drawing of the three H’s interlinked with flame above each one, ‘the three Hs!’ he

writes beside it. This in turn reminds him of the song of the three boys sung by Daniel and his companions in the fiery furnace and he breaks into his notes with a fluent passage of writing ‘I saw a scribe writing the words – Benedicte omnia opera dmi dno [let all the works of the Lord bless the Lord!] a Tongue of Fire on his Head and a Tongue of Fire on his Heart and a Tongue of Fire on his Hand and the White Vellum was branded with these words in Penstrokes themselves like tongues of fire – living harmonious shapes’.

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Edward Johnston Up-Hill by Christina Rossetti, October 1897.

Vellum, black ink and red paint.

Christmas greeting made for Johnston’s cousin Hilda de Noe Walker. At this time Johnston was studying to be a doctor in Edinburgh (1896 –1898) and he had not yet begun a serious study of calligraphy.

16.5cm x 12.5cm

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Edward Johnston A Sheet of Meanings, 1897.

This note of Johnston’s design intentions for Up-Hill by Christina Rossetti shows that Johnston already had a keen sense of how all the par ts in a design could count as ‘telling’ elements in a meaningful geography of space and scale. 15.5cm x 19.8cm

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Edward Johnston ‘Let us set up a strong present tense’, Ralph Waldo Emerson, January 1899. Vellum, black and red inks.

In September 1898 Johnston began to study manuscripts in the British Museum.

He had been engaged to teach a class in illumination by W.R. Lethaby. It became apparent however that Johnston did not know where to begin so Lethaby suggested Sydney Cockerell act as Johnston’s mentor.

Cockerel, who had been secretary to William Morris showed Johnston Morris’ experiments with calligraphy, manuscripts he owned and lent him examples of Morris’s writing. Cockerell also took Johnston on a tour of manuscripts then on public display at the British Museum. It is from this moment (late October 1898) that Johnston’s calligraphy improves. He had found his ‘point of departure’, such points remained an important concept to Johnston for the remainder of his life. The influence of the late work of William Morris is felt in this script. The quotation from Emerson appears also on the dedication page of Johnston’s textbook Writing and Illuminating, and Lettering (1906). 28cm x 23cm

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Edward Johnston A page from Margaret Alexander’s Lesson Book, 1933. Pencil and ink on paper.

From 1903 Johnston taught at the Royal College of Ar t as well as the Central School of Ar ts and Crafts, he also gave private lessons. Margaret Alexander attended the Slade School of Ar t and was introduced to Edward Johnston through her father’s friend Huber t Wellington, then registrar at the Royal College. She took private lessons with Johnston at his home in Ditchling. Johnston created a for ty-page record of those classes for her. 21cm x 16.2cm

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Edward Johnston Easter Greeting for Rev. Lamb, 1931.

made on the second day. On the third day

Black and red ink on Hammersmith

Johnston wrote the sections in red ink. It is

handmade paper. Johnston is in playful spirit.

was in the spirit of a project such as this that

The piece took him three days to make.

Johnston’s student Irene Wellington found

The first draft was rejected: a fair copy was

much inspiration. 17.8cm x 24.8cm

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Irene Wellington A Diary: 26 Days and 25 Nights of Summer.

this opening is in four panels, each complete

There are also points of rest, and therefore

Leather binding, 77 written pages: five fold-

in itself but counterpointed by the others.

of focus. This diary provided a point of

outs. Black ink and red paint on paper, 1934.

Note the horizontal eyeline which holds

departure for both Ann Hechle’s book on

The diary is of a holiday taken by Irene and

the central plane. Within an apparently

Sacred Geometry and Ewan Clayton’s Book of

her first husband Jack Sutton. The design of

symmetrical plan there are subtle differences.

Hours for the Vernal Equinox. 33.5cm x 50cm

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Irene Wellington ‘For the absolute good’ 1941. Two folds of vellum, black ink and red and blue watercolour with quills. Raised and burnished gold. Sent to Edward Johnston for Christmas 1941. 14cm x 9cm

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Edward Johnston Letter of thanks to Irene Wellington, 1941.

Johnston’s letter of thanks for Irene’s ‘For the Absolute Good’ included painstaking criticism of the preparation of the vellum and the extended serifs on the S: an example of the exacting standards Johnston expected of his students. Even though this was a gift and Irene had left the Royal College of Ar t eleven years previously, Johnston felt he still had responsibility to maintain his criteria of absolute pitch and point the way to fur ther excellence.

27cm x 9cm

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Irene Wellington ‘Deep Springs of Happiness’ from Robert Bridges’ ‘Testament of Beauty’, 1942. Black ink, watercolour, crow quill on vellum.

A present for Charlotte Wellington’s birthday. The Wellington’s were supporters of Irene whilst she was in Edinburgh. Hubert was principal of Edinburgh College of Art. Charlotte was mortally sick; Irene had spontaneously bought her a bunch of violets but was struck with remorse at how soon they would wilt at Charlotte’s bedside.

This card became a more permanent substitute for the flowers and an oblique acknowledgement of the greater journey Charlotte was now undertaking.

14cm x 9cm

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Irene Wellington The Borough of Lydd, 1948.

Vellum with black ink, red and blue watercolour, raised and burnished gold.

Irene’s affection for her father and for the place of her bir th found expression in this piece of work. Using the same hand in three different sizes Irene achieves contrasting densities of texture arranged in blocks, which give a three dimensional quality. The central text comes to meet you, the smaller annotations drop back. The flag-flying banner of the heading holds the whole design in place. The management of the white space lends calmness and dignity. This piece hangs in the Guildhall at Lydd in Kent.

76cm x 50cm

Irene Wellington

Irene wrote in a personal note: ‘Own

days.’ In pieces such as these, made for

On being given a Norfolk Turkey for

text and background carol of ‘The Holly

friends, Donald Jackson observed that Irene

Christmas,1950. Bodleian paper, Cockerell

and the Ivy’; purely personal spontaneous

was able to ‘shed conscious techniques and

combed paper, red leather spine. Chinese ink

gift to the Marquess and Marchioness of

intellectual constraints to achieve freedom.’

and watercolour. 39cm x 24cm

Cholmondeley…Sheer play. Designed and

These creations became gateways to a new

executed within the spare time of three

freedom in the rest of her work.

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t previous page:

u Irene Wellington

Irene Wellington

The Bailiffs of Lydd, 1972–1973.

Alphabetical Fragments, 1957.

Black ink, red, blue, and white watercolour,

Collage on a background of Cockerell

shell gold on vellum.

combed paper.

Irene’s last major work hangs in the

Perhaps more than any other piece of

Guildhall at Lydd. It is difficult to arrange

Irene’s work, this one has stretched our

such a mass of information of over 400

ideas of the scope and possibilities of

names of differing lengths with their dates.

calligraphy. Even today, when expressive

The whole piece is framed at the base by

work is widely seen and accepted, this

passages that evoke a deeper sub-structure

piece still seems adventurous. In 1957 it

of meanings: the round of the seasons

was exceptional. The fragments are drawn

and the changing fortunes of the borough.

from Irene’s handwriting Copy Books;

To the left, the sinister side, is Dungeness,

work by Walter de la Mare and John

where the warning beacons flared, and

Masefield; the raven from the design for the

where a nuclear power station had been

Brockley County School Roll of Honour.

built. To the right was the reminder of

The footprint is Irene’s own, a trial run

the other duties the bailiffs held towards

for a piece made for the Marchioness of

the poor and the community and its

Cholmondeley. ‘In praise for brother Fire’ is

celebrations. Irene had the assistance of

from the Canticle of Brother Sun and Sister

some of her younger students in laying the

Moon by St. Francis of Assisi. The foal (Irene

shell gold band and painting the letters

had a special love for horses) is a fragment

upon it, amongst them was Ann Hechle. The

from an etching done at the Royal College

band of letters at the top draws inspiration

in 1928. 45.5cm x 61cm

from the work of the poet and writer David Jones. In her final major piece Irene’s work was still developing. 86.5cm x 104cm

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u Ann Hechle Autumn. Student work, 1958/59

out – design decisions arose from meaning

Irene Wellington taught calligraphy at the

decisions – so that there developed an

Central School from 1944 –1959. She taught

intellectual and visual coherence to the

par t-time – coming in one day a week; and,

page, which resulted in a kind of geography.

writes Ann, ‘I was lucky to catch the last two

For instance, following the geography of

years of her teaching. Irene designed this

the piece:- the direction of reading is clock-

collage for me to do, during my first year at

wise. The main text on Autumn starts –

the Central School.’ 55.5cm x 60.5cm

unusually – on the right-hand side. The text (and the plumb-line of the capital letters)

‘As students we were expected to work

take the eye down to the bottom right; the

on a substantial piece, as the complexity

animals then run across the page where the

involved encourages a stretching of

richness of autumn diminishes into winter.

boundaries. In such a piece, a genuine and

The central image is half leaf / half tree, and

detailed search has to be made to find the

the birds are sitting in the branches waiting

relationships of thought, text and mark; and

to migrate. Above lie the bulbs deep in the

to discover how all these sit together and

ear th waiting for spring. The link between

inform the design. To embark on such a

spring and autumn are hinted at in Shelley’s

work is an exceptionally challenging thing

great poem; as does the ‘O’ that connects

to do; and as a very young and raw student

the two top areas. No wonder I couldn’t

I struggled with this piece for about two

do it!

years – and it remains unfinished!

But in designing the piece for me – a

Irene used – and introduced me to – many of her favourite poems: Vita Sackville

pencil sketch first – I saw the way Irene

West’s The Land, Early English Poetry, Helen

worked. With a landscape full of text and

Waddell’s translations of Medieval Latin

images, these were somehow all sifted

Lyrics, Shelley, Keats.’

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A S P E C T S O F L A N G U AG E : a v i s u a l e x p l o r a t i o n o f p o e t r y b y A n n H e c h l e An onomatopoeic word: murmur, buzz, splash – short-cuts us directly through to experience. Its sound is its meaning.

A pun is more complex. Take for instance the intellectual example ‘Earth Matters’. Here each word has multiple layers of associations and meanings, yet all these are accessed through just two words. It is as if, through a very narrow gateway, we enter a deeper and wider landscape which is resonant with all kinds of thoughts and feelings.

But there are other gateways and landscapes: consider the Haiku: Early autumn rice field, ocean, one green Here the words evoke something altogether more mysterious – a glimpse perhaps into the underlying order of things – a feeling that is indescribable, ineffable: a layering of experience that is beyond words, where the ordinary is linked to the sublime.

But indeed anything can act as a gateway: it could be the mark of a pen on paper.

The best word to describe this experience is Synchronicity: where two or more events occur ‘at the same time’, in what appears to be a meaningful way. Jung called it ‘an acausal connecting principle’, and valued it highly as an alternative to logical causality in describing our experience of reality. And perhaps it is through this form of synchronicity that all art ‘works’; as in order to communicate anything it has to be embodied through a language.

It is widely recognised that it is the abstract qualities in painting, poetry, music, that carry the emotional content.

(Walter Pater: All art aspires to the condition of music). The important point about this fact is that these qualities are non-specific: they are the deeper principles – untied to any particular form – that provide many of the links through the multiple layers. For instance, in Dylan Thomas’ poem we read: O my ruffled ring dove...

Coo-rooing the woods’ praise,

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ho moons her blue notes from W her nest Down to the curlew herd.

The shift of place is carried by the change of vowel sound – from the open ‘oo’ to the ‘e’s in curlew herd. Herd/heard is a pun – we are encouraged to keep listening!

Every word is in place and doing its job – though this can never be applied, only arrived at. The abstract qualities form a language and vocabulary which the artist, poet or musician struggles to master.

The poet’s language is words – the calligrapher’s gift is the mark. So calligraphy too has a language of its own, which must be learnt: styles of writing, scale, emphasis, weight, colour, and placing of text; as well as the use of capital letters, headings, footnotes, gloss – so all can become significant signposts in the territory.

Four panels attempt to explore visually some of these aspects of poetry, of which three are shown here.

Ann Hechle Aspects of Language, Narrative, 1981. Vellum Panel, watercolours. 38.5cm x 49.5cm

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Ann Hechle Aspects of Language, Sound, 1981. Vellum Panel, watercolours. 36.5cm x 49cm

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Ann Hechle Aspects of Language, Rhyme, 1981. Vellum Panel, watercolours. 36.5cm x 49cm

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Ann Hechle ‘The Image of Grace’ with borders. An exploration of Hexagram No. 22 in the I Ching, the Chinese Book of Changes – the hexagram of the imaginative arts, and the creative process, 1991 (Borders 2013). Vellum panel, watercolours, raised and burnished gold leaf. 57.5cm x 86cm

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Ann Hechle Collage – Images & Patterns found in the I Ching, Sacred Geometry and Nature, 2006.

Various media. 59cm x 83.5cm

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F I G U R E S O F S P E E C H : a Book of Discover y by Ann Hechle Written around the subject of Sacred Geometry, 1999 onwards. Handmade paper and black ink and watercolours.

This journal was originally a commission for one of three exhibitions put on by The Edward Johnston Foundation and Ditchling Museum. Though the first three sections were completed quite quickly, the subsequent work has been carried out spasmodically for over a decade.

Method of Working: For the more complicated pages a careful rough draft was made first; but for simpler pages only a skeleton pencil sketch was done – the page built up and elements added as the work progressed.

Beginning the book – tools and materials The Paper: handmade paper F.J. Head from a batch given to me by Irene Wellington. Paper of some substance was needed, with not too much show through, as the drawings and writing would be complex.

The Size & Shape: The double page spread is the proportion of the Golden Section, chosen partly because of its philosophical properties, and partly as both double

and single pages give comfortable areas to work with. The text area was found by the Jan Tschihold method, though the inner margin was widened, so that the text should not sit too tightly at the spine.

The Grid: The interval between the lines – the line unit – was then decided, and 24 lines filled the text area almost exactly. A grid is generally very helpful, as there are many permutations that can be used. It forms an underlying structure, which can be partly used or ignored, but which helps hold the page together.

The Paint: Artist’s watercolours, and all the colours were derived from only three main colours : Cadmium Red, Cobalt Blue, Lemon Yellow + White. Whole tubes of each paint were squeezed out onto a china palette, and thoroughly mixed with a palette knife, and then saved in individual containers. Some highlights in the book were found to need other colours.

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u Ann Hechle Figures of Speech, The Circle and the Square. 36.5cm x 58cm

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Ann Hechle Figures of Speech, The Golden Proportion.

36.5cm x 58cm

A B O O K O F H O U R S F O R T H E V E R NA L E Q U I N O X E w a n C l a y t o n

It has been relationships between people that give vitality to my best calligraphy. This work reflects on the unexplained disappearance of a friend in New York City after the events of the 11th September 2001.

The work is structured according to the hours of the medieval book of hours.

Something happens when one throws one’s life into the tip of one’s pen. It is as if this act of writing clinches a moment and this has the power to then allow it to develop afresh. Many synchronious events happened during the writing of this work. On the day when I finally realized the completed shape of the project my disappeared friend got in touch (then disappeared again). Then I found I could not write the final four sheets. Though I did not know it at the time he was dying from the accumulated results of the heart transplant he had had thirteen years earlier. Once I was

able to start again he had died – though I did not discover that for a further two years.

Happier coincidences also appeared: when I picked up a colour given to me by Donald Jackson, his voice appeared on the radio (see page 40).

When I had completed a sheet with letters on it I had developed from the experience of going dancing with a Columbian friend Javier Suarez, the phone rang, it was Javier back in town again, the first time for ten years (see page 43).

It is strange to think that at the very moment computers are presenting us with a new writing technology that we are rediscovering the power of the pen. My understanding of this is closest to the Chinese who think of the calligrapher as handling symbols of nascent realities. But this vitality does not lie there waiting to be grappled with and manipulated – it has to be found within and swum along with.

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Ewan Clayton A Book of Hours for the Vernal Equinox, sheet 5; The Hour of Lauds. Morning, attraction into life. The Fields.

Lines from Dante’s Vita Nouva II. He describes meeting his muse Beatrice for the first time. 36.8cm x 59.3cm

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Ewan Clayton A Book of Hours for the Vernal Equinox, sheet 7; The Hour of Lauds. Morning, attraction into life. The Fields. A new scribe ascendant: Cuthbert and Dave. 36.8cm x 59.3cm

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Ewan Clayton A Book of Hours for the Vernal Equinox, sheet 10; The Hour of Nones. Mid-day. The hour of reckoning. The Forest. Illness and the discovery of embodiment. 36.8cm x 58cm

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Ewan Clayton A Book of Hours for the Vernal Equinox, sheet 19; The Hour of Compline, Nightfall, a time of letting go, the edge of the City. Hakuin and the scroll at Matsuyama ‘brush strokes that liberate beings’. 36.8cm x 59.3cm

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Ewan Clayton A Book of Hours for the Vernal Equinox, sheet 11; The Hour of Nones. Mid-day, the hour of reckoning.

The Forest. Lines from Jellalludin Rumi ‘Spring’s fire birds are in the trees’. 36.8cm x 59.3cm

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Ewan Clayton A Book of Hours for the Vernal Equinox, sheet 15; The Hour of Vespers. Late afternoon, the hour of contentment. In a garden. ‘So here I am on Fire Island’. The brushed word ‘content’ was written so slowly that my heartbeat appears in the strokes. 36.8cm x 59.3cm

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Ewan Clayton A Book of Hours for the Vernal Equinox, sheet 20; The Hour of Compline, Nightfall, a time of letting go, the edge of the City.

The story of Philemon and Baucis (with a honeycomb at its heart) from Ovid’s The Metamorphoses, Book VIII, entertaining the Gods unawares. 59.3cm x 36.8cm

AC K N OW L E D G E M E N T S Cover: Ann Hechle, Figures of Speech: Planets page from A Book of Discovery written around the

Published by the Crafts Study Centre Crafts Study Centre, University for the Creative Arts, Falkner Road, Farnham, Surrey GU9 7DS

subject of Sacred Geometry, 1999

Book design by Studio Hyde Photography by David Westwood

onwards. Handmade paper and

Book production by Imagewise Reprographics Ltd

watercolours. 36.5cm x 58cm

Typeset throughout in Perpetua and Gill Sans, both designed by Eric Gill (1882–1940). Gill

With grateful thanks to John

studied calligraphy under Edward Johnston at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, and

Mar tineau for his permission to

Johnston subsequently followed Gill to live and work (often together) in Ditchling, East Sussex.

use his research on the geometry

Gill was instrumental in establishing the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic in 1921 as an arts

of the planets.

and crafts community. Johnston was an early contributor to the development of the Guild’s founding principles, although he never became a member. Ewan Clayton grew up close to the village of Ditchling and his family worked as weavers in the Guild. He was the last member to join the Guild in 1983, before its subsequent closure in 1989.

Published May 2013 on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Head, Hand, Heart: Reflections on a Practice’ held at the Crafts Study Centre.

The Crafts Study Centre is grateful to Lydd Town Council, The Edward Johnston Foundation and the Irene Wellington Educational Trust for the loan of exhibits.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher. The rights of Ewan Clayton, Ann Hechle and Jean Vacher to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.

The Crafts Study Centre is grateful to the International Research Centre for Calligraphy at the University of Sunderland for their generous support and sponsorship of this book.

ISBN 978-0-9570212-3-5

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See page 28 See page 30

See page 29