Calligraphy – Eine Geheime Stimme (A Silent Voice)

Some of these calligraphy pieces are available for sale on Etsy

–

I moved from Seattle to Chicago on my 34th birthday through an astounding Rube-Goldberg series of interlocking events, settling into a condo my parents held on to since I was a baby. Point in fact, my office is where my little baby crib used to be. We even have home movies of me taking naps on a spot on the floor (the 80’s were a different time, you see-) where I walk by every day. It is a spacious, beautiful place encircled by family history and enshrined by light.

Then my ass got flooded (for what wouldn’t be the last time!).

While the story of a 2 bed 2 bath’s exquisite hardwood floors being drowned in 3 inches of boiling hot water dozens of floors above the earth is an interesting story… I bring it up because, prior to the flood, there was a a major push to construct an artist’s studio within the condo. This was to finally be the creative workshop I always wanted but never knew I could have – and I managed to get quite the impressive setup going before it was warped and washed away.

The very first project completed in that doom-fated atelier was Eine Geheime Stimme, or A Secret Voice in German. I had dabbled in calligraphy in Seattle, and found the artform too difficult to get into… at least in Seattle. Chicago provided a much more comfortable and carefree environment to cut loose. In fact, these calligraphy pieces could be considered my first real stab at Abstract Expressionism.

This particular artform, a blending of handwritten medieval calligraphy, old english calligraphy, arabic calligraphy and my own personally realized letterforms. While practicing I noticed that if you combine and deconstruct letter-forms, the brain doesn’t seem to be able to cope with half-formed phonetics, but you can still hear them in your head. When you scan your eyes over the text, you might feel the eerie twinge of Synesthesia, hence the name… this piece should literally speak to you.