Calligraphy

Make your choice adventurous stranger Strike the bell and bide the danger Or wonder till it drives you mad What would have followed if you had —C.S. Lewis, from The Magician’s Nephew …the perspective on the tile floor and the intricate Arabic geometry of the ceiling arch are the most technically difficult tasks I’ve ever…

Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine Et nos amours Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne La joie venait toujours après la peine Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure Les jours s’en vont je demeure —Guillaume Apollinaire, 1913 Learn more about the bridge on Wikipedia

Another ambigram, this one for my cousin’s wedding: Jennifer & Rene August 22, 1992

I first saw this poem, oddly enough, in a London tube train. I was immediately struck by its mix of hope and despair, possibility and denial. Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher Swept off his tall hat to the Squire’s own daughter, So let the imprisoned larks escape and fly Singing about her…

Anne Christine Pouliot and Elliot  Thomas Grant invite you to a SHIVAREE & clambake to celebrate their marriage (I love that word shivaree! It conjures up a candlelit night of infinite possibility from long ago…)

Selections from Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata, done for Anne’s mother. Go placidly amid the noise & haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain or bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Neither be cynical about love; for in…

Well, I had to do an ambigram for myself, didn’t I? This is a slightly retouched rough doodle of “Elliot Thomas Grant” that reads the same when rotated 180°.

I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said—”Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand, Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless…