Calligraphed poetry commissions, 1979-1987

Irish sample, calligraphy

 

Chaucer quote, calligraphy

 

Conceptual art piece, Ken Larsen's Thesis, Art and the Bourgeoisie

Conceptual art piece, Ken Larsen's Thesis, Art and the Bourgeoisie, a hand-calligraphed dissertation presented on ribbons attached to a sunhat, and read aloud to his thesis advisor, Bruce Hackett in J St. Park, Sacramento, CA, May, 1984. I got tired of Ken's procrastination, so I interviewed him, and then distilled the dissertation down into a dozen threads. Bruce read the entire dissertation aloud. It took us several walks around the park to complete the process. Ken got his MA. Wish I had a copy of it.

Poetry events at Sonoma State I produced 1980-82, calligraphy posters

Pen & ink drawings of poets, Marin Poetry Center, 1982, James Broughton, Nanos Valadritis, Charles Entrekin, Luke Breit?,, Mike Tuggle, unknown, Karla Anderstatter?

Russian River Writers' Guild flyers (I was cheaper than a typesetter...)

Chapbook cover, silkscreen stencil

Poetry, festival poster, 1980, calligraphy

L O L I was scrolling by on Facebook, and recognized my own calligraphy—not realizing it was mine. Thank you Luis Kong. A blast from the past. For what it’s worth, I was the MC, documentary photographer, calligrapher, PR person, general dogsbody, room set up, and hospitality assistant, poet retrieval driver for this festival, called Ear to the Ground, ostensibly curated by David Bromige. I made this 40-page chapbook as a memento for all the poets in record time.

“Festival of Poetry, 1980. Sonoma State University. For those of you who knew me as John. Thanks Maureen! Those were wonderful times. You were the main organizer/instigator. The other memorable event: "Child in Changing Times" Conference at SSU.”

Miscellaneous random calligraphy from the 1980s

Hand calligraphed poems in red ink

During the late 1970s, I hand-calligraphed all my poems for poetry class with David Bromige because I didn’t own a typewriter. My own handwriting was still atrocious (it eventually improved with time) as the calligraphy hadn’t yet become second nature. They’re posted under 1978 in my Literrata writing blog. The images are fuzzy, not worth moving over to this blog, but they do give an idea of my early working calligraphic hand.