Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Lost Arts

The longer I go without blogging, the more pressure I feel to post something AMAZING, but alas, I have nothing amazing to post. But I want to post SOMETHING.

I hear a lot lately about the importance of passing on "lost arts." I learned the "art" of canning yesterday with my mother. OK, really I participated in it. It'll take a few rounds before I feel like I really have it down. Relish preservation really is a tedious thing!

Anyway, this "lost arts" of course falls in line with letterpress, learning a craft rendered obsolete by modern printing techniques. I'm excited to carry that torch, because I know modern techniques just cannot replicate the gorgeous tactile product produced by kissing ink to paper with metal plates driven by hundreds of pounds of cast iron. It's history and it is messy, tedious, cumbersome, and slow, and I love it.

This guy is keeping the art of calligraphy alive, which is awesome, because every good stationer needs a good calligrapher. Did you know they aren't even teaching cursive in school anymore? I was indignant when I found this out. INDIGNANT!

Seriously, go check out this video. Maybe it will inspire you to keep calligraphy, or some other lost art from falling to the wayside.