Lettering and Calligraphy

Cicale DesignsLettering and Calligraphy

The study of lettering and calligraphy by Annie Cicale:

A love of lettering and calligraphy, from studies of historical scripts to experimentation with contemporary styles, has been the focus of much of my work. I've taken numerous trips to Europe and Asia, where I spent a good deal of time in museums and libraries. I bring as much of this as I can into my own work, which you can see here, and to the concepts I bring to my workshops.

A Covid Project

Diana Armatage Johnston wrote the “An Old Woman's Survival Guide to cheer herself up during the Covid-19 lock down. A retired lawyer with a busy life in her community, this poem has been an inspiration to many people who share the frustration and loneliness of these times. She asked Annie Cicale to letter and print the it so they could send gift copies to their friends.

Unexpectedly, their friends loved it, so Annie and Diana decided to share the Guide more widely, with at least 40% of sales proceeds going to MemoryCare in Asheville, North Carolina.

The Guide is reproduced via commercial lithography and there are two sizes available: the 11x14" size will fit in a standard frame, as will the 5x7" postcards. They are printed on a felt finished paper and, because of the careful exposure of the image, they closely resemble the original artwork done on handmade paper. The large size is sold individually for $40.00; the postcards are sold in multiples of five for $20.00.  My Shop!

We cannot hug each other in these dangerous times, but you can give this beautiful Guide to your family and friends—particularly the older ones—to let them know you are thinking of them and holding them in your heart.

Old Woman Survival Guide
... Click on image to see larger view

Journal Pages:

I am fascinated with the study of historical manuscripts, and study exemplars to understand how medieval scribes wrote both elegantly and rapidly, day after day. After all, they were producing books as efficiently as they could, with the high tech of their times. These studies have resulted in journal pages like these, where I set up a good piece of paper with guidelines and margins, and write out the text in a similar way to how was written 1000 or so years ago. At the same time, I look for ways to modernize these styles for contemporary usage.

Lettering Versals Study
Lettering and calligraphy Versals study
Lettering Uncial Journal
Study of Insular Uncial from the Vespasian Psalter
Transitional Black Letter Study
Transitional Black Letter Study
Black Letter Study
Black Letter Study
Texture Using Gothicized Italic
Experiment with Texture, using Gothicized Italic
Lettering Calligraphy Journals
To learn lettering, I make journals like these, with study pages of various styles I'm working on. It allows me to meditate on the meaning of the words as well, some funny, some not, always interesting.

But there is more to lettering and calligraphy than just learning styles.

Designing the letters to suit the text, as well as adding illustrations to augment the text, is just the starting part, but here is where the the words become image: The Imagined Word.

Fairies, Study in Contrast
A study in contrasts, with large letters in Italic, Romans and most of the text in smaller Italic.
Lettering Brush Cat
A looser Italic, written as though my cat
was batting around the back end of my pen.
Lettering Humanism
A text on Humanism, written in a very humanistic style.
Lettering Justice Peace Humanity
Commission done during the campaign
for same sex marriage laws in North Carolina,
given to two of the demonstrators who spent a night in jail.
Lettering Morning Child
Poem written for a son

Lettering The Last Great Roundup

Lettering The Six Principals of Partnership

Lettering Poets Rose
With a text this long, the delicate abstract florals contrast nicely.

Social Justice

In 2020, my local calligraphy group, Mountain Scribes, collaborated with members of the First Congregational United Christian Church to present an exhibit of work in reaction to the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. We made weathergrams for the victims of the police shootings in recent years, with from a list of over 100 names, with the theme of Say the Names. These were hung in the church's gallery in its atrium during the month of July. Members of the church also participated. Then in August, calligraphers responded in their own way to the events of this summer, with calligraphic renderings of text that exemplify the present conditions. I contributed a few pieces to this exhibit, two of them are shown here.

Lettering Stange Fruit
Billie Holliday sang this song, Strange Fruit, as the closing piece for many of her performances.

 

 

Lettering Monument
These words, by Caroline Randall Williams, were the first few lines of an op-ed in the New York Times, June 25, 2020.