I actually had real calligraphy-classes in art school, from a professor who actually knew what he was talking about. Of course, he hated my guts. Said I was the worst pupil he ever had. We had to draw ancient letterforms, following ancient rules. It was all just incredibly boring in my opinion…
The second trimester, however, we got to write “freestyle”. All of a sudden, I was his hero! I wrote with discarded brushes, with sticks, syringes, pipettes, with my hands, with leaves, crumbled up aluminum foil, you name it… I wrote on hilariously expensive paper and scraps of newsprint, toilet paper, napkins, I wrote on pages from books, on plastic, wood…Oh, I was just having the time of my life, making marks.
“You did real well, this period” my professor said to me, while showing my work to my classmates as an example. “But you’re still the worst pupil I ever had, though… Your work is just… dirty.” He almost spat out the word. Everybody thought this was very funny.
To him, “dirty” was the worst thing you could be. And having fun whilst making marks was all well and good, but if you weren’t able to maintain a well-spaced Schwabacher for at least some pages, you just were no good in his book.
I now know this is not true.
But it took me way to much time to figure that one out…
This is the work of Marco Campedelli. I’m pretty sure his Schwabachers are awesome too…
Marco Campedelli from Marco Campedelli Studio on Vimeo.
For more, visit www.marcocampedelli.it
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