National Handwriting Day

According to Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association, ”The purpose of National Handwriting Day is to alert the public to the importance of handwriting. According to WIMA, National Handwriting Day is a chance for all of us to re-explore the purity and power of handwriting.”

I’ll start with the critique before I move on to the good stuff: I hate that National Handwriting Day is created and sponsored by the writing instruments industry, not teachers and writers and schools. Like Valentine’s Day and most other random holidays, this one was created for economic reasons. Shame.

So, I don’t know if I like when industries stake claims “purity and power,” but I will tell you why I like handwriting.

1. It makes me slow down my thoughts. This isn’t always a good thing, especially when it’s important to get all my thoughts on the page and my hand can’t keep up with where my mind was going… Nonetheless, it allows for the sort of visual brainstorming that aids the creative process.
2. Patience is a dying virtue. It’s true– writing a letter to a friend demands more time than writing an email. But by writing a letter, I’m also saying that this friend is worth more of my time. I think our relationships today could use more of that attention.
3. Handwriting helps process information better than typing. I don’t really have the time to find scientific studies backing this up, but I know I’ve seen them somewhere… At least in my experience, I get far more out of my classes by taking handwritten notes. Students who use laptops don’t process information in the same way.. and much of the time, they’re fucking around on youtube anyways.
4. Writing instruments are sexy. Okay, yes, I’m a little biased here– but just take a look at the Nakaya website, or the images on Pencil Talk, and it’s pretty hard to deny that there’s something aesthetically fulfilling about pens and pencils.
5. It takes discipline– in a good way! I know that I sound like an ornery old man with a shotgun when I rant about my generation being too privileged, “not knowing the value of manual labor,” etc., but in all seriousness, I do think this is connected to our mental, emotional, and social health. I’ve been having a lot of conversations lately about prescription drug abuse* on my campus, and wondering how any of us would have survived a hundred years ago, when we had nothing but discipline to get us through school. Having good handwriting takes practice and discipline– which are always good things (in moderation of course).
6. It’s beautiful (duh).

Here’s a page from the Fountain Pen Network with handwriting links.

*…which is a whoooole ‘nother post.

What is this Nonsense?

I used a charcoal Lamy Safari with a F nib for almost a year until it disappeared (!) a few months ago. I replaced it with a shiny black Lamy Safari with an EF nib, and suddenly my handwriting is so.. bubbly.

I’ve never had bubbly handwriting!  Also, this happened right about the time that I switched to Noodler’s Habanero. Funny how these things can affect your handwriting…

Automatic Bodies

Do you find that when you doodle, you draw the same thing over and over?

My mother says that she vividly remembers my grandmother drawing dancing ladies absentmindedly when she would talk on the phone. Different versions of the same figure: dancing ladies.

Automatism: the short version is, there’s a great untapped resource within our own subconscious, and we can work to express it through automatic drawing or automatic writing by attempting to free ourselves from the conscious. The constraints of the “conscious” are the constraints of grammar, syntax, the rules of composition, or the censorship through moral or social judgment, etc.

One of the aforelinked websites informs me that “Automatic Drawing is a kind of yoga for artists.” (ah, intriguing).

So, sure, I don’t fully buy it. When it comes to an ideology of creativity, I’d rather look out into the world than into my own subconscious. Don’t get me wrong; I value self-understanding, but I don’t think I’m the source of all creation.

Which brings me to the subject of doodling! I posted yesterday with some snapshots of my class notes, on days when I feel like jazzing up the typeface of my title. But the vast majority of my doodles (images below) tend to be based on the female figure.

Wait. Let’s unpack that last statement.

I draw women’s bodies (?!)

I feel more than a little conflicted about this. When I put a pen to paper, what “feels natural” is to draw the female figure. But if Sociology, Women’s Studies, Gender Theory, Queer Studies, (and so on and so forth) have taught us anything, it’s that just because something “feels natural,” does not mean that it is natural. For example, how about the fact that male artists have been glorifying and objectifying women’s bodies for thousands of years? Or that the majority of nudes in an art museum will inevitably be of women, but you’ll be hard pressed to find equivalents for the male figure? or that when I open my textbook on “the nude,” most of the pages are of women? Needless to say, it seems likely that, as an artist, naked women have been pressed into my subconscious for years.

But I won’t deny that I find women beautiful, as humans and as bodies. And I produce better art when I focus on a subject that draws me in more easily. So how about the fact that most of the female figures that I draw tend to adhere to a normative standard of beauty? Sure, I go through phases of drawing “fat women,” or non-normative looking women– but in general, I draw slender figures, graceful figures, attractive poses. Some of this can be attributed to a self-image; I know my own [fairly slender] body best, so it’s easier to draw body types like my own. But a lot of it can be attributed to the images that penetrate my consciousness every day. Every sign, photograph, commercial, painting, TV show, (and so on and so forth) produces an aestheticized feminine body that is inevitably reflected on the page.

So, here’s what I’ve been drawing so far. And my challenge for the rest of the semester is to branch the fuck out.

Return of a Laptop and Aesthetic Notetaking

I’m back from my horrible computer-fail. Let’s review the pros and cons of my laptop-lessness:

Pros

• Gave me more excuses to get outside. Sunny Autumn days are unmistakably superior to blog-browsing.
• Forced me to be extra-responsible/ accountable. Having to plan ahead when I’m going to write/print my papers is a good exercise in self-discipline.
• Forced me use the public computer labs. Using public systems (from computer laps to transportation) is always healthier, socially and environmentally.

Cons

• The Apple repair fee. Enough said.
• Realizing that my school has no program or general support for students that don’t own their own computers– which is clearly representative of a certain mentality towards student wealth.
• Not being able to network via computer. I missed a Skype interview, and have been neglecting this blog!

So, to make up for the past week, here are some of my notes from this semester: