LETTERING

So far this was my AUTUMN booklet, spiral bound, that I handed out at Christmas 2023 to friends and members of my family.
Now I will bring up a wider understanding of why I wanted to do this. Here is ONE clue:
My art colleague in the German school in the 90s wrote to me after receiving this booklet:
Lieber Wilf,
Dank Dir für Dein zauberhaftes, recht nachdenkliches Herbst Büchlein.
Dear Wilf,
Thank you for your magical and pensive autumn booklet.
Ich stelle fest, dass du am Aufräumen, Sortieren und Zuordnen bist.
I get the impression that you are in the process of a clean up, sorting and assigning. Für mich schlägst Du mit dem Büchlein einen Zeitenbogen:

For me, with this booklet you create an arc of time:
Die perfekten Schriftbilder, gedanklich voll typisch jugendlich herbstlicher Ungewissheit und das Suchen und Sehnen nach dem Sinn der Vergänglichkeit, das sind Dokumente deiner damaligen Zeit (Jugend).
The perfect typefaces, the state of mind very typical for a young person, autumn-like uncertainty, that searching and longing for the sense of transience, that is a document of you at that time (Youth). Die zauberhaften Fotos sind aus Deiner Jetztzeit und dokumentieren hand- und fuß fest Deine Realität in einer neuen Landschaft, die Dich fest im Griff hat.
The magical photos are from your now time and a document of your solidly grounded life in a new landscape that holds you tight. You are very lucky, (thank you for letting me see the book) All the best for you and yours in 2024.
My own feeling is somewhat different. The identification with Don Quixote might just be seen as a humorous comment on my statuesque appearance and my own fights against “windmills”, as that is the story told by Cervantes who describes this backwards looking Spanish knight sitting on his horse Rocinante with gentlemen’s dreams next to Sancho Pancho on his donkey to fight windmills.
The poem dismantles all those allusions and I sympathize with that. On a serious note, politically speaking I feel floored and brought down to earth like the characters in this story at my autumn age, now. I am overwhelmed and drowned by contradictions and hopelessness that confronts me. Certainly that emotion was not my feeling when I came to England in the 70s. Then I was keen to do something towards injustices and for a changing society.

My colleague and friend brings me back to my art teaching in The German School London, the DSL 1987 to 2005.
During that time I collected many files and folders with visuals that inspired me and could also inspire others. Another Don Quixote illusion this collection is, now out in a garden shed. ONLY In parts these pictures could still be useful here and there.
I taught calligraphy, mostly for 13 year olds, SCHRIFT, as we call it in Germany, or what the English more accurately call ‘LETTERING”’.
As teaching in any school context does it simplifies everything, any real exploration doesn’t happen. I am glad no longer to be in that straightjacket.

Teaching – so we were told – should raise students’ consciousness. Therefore I asked myself, the students and others about the importance of any letter writing. What is the value of writing something down and what is it for ?

For myself I make the distinction between an instant urge to write something down as a confirmation of my thinking and a way to connect to others. On the other hand I value historical perspectives and expectations from past societies in comparison to ours. Does new technology make it ‘easier’ to communicate through writing ? Is visual care and “fun” now taken up by Advertising, designs of Brands and Computer technology?

I saw a falcon this morning gliding very majestically over our ground and I compared it to an airplane which in comparison lacks that sort of elegance and perfection. In essence the dream to fly like a falcon is still in us.
I am always interested in people who sense what they could be capable of, but who are not sure how to bring it out. This is the state you are often in as a teenager. This is where I sympathize with them.
I like to be with people who are NOT sure of themselves – as I never was
– but who at least partially manage to live with dreams that they discovered in themselves. Going through my own collections I discover myself in this way. The Autumn booklet is proof of that.
I liked the skill to set letters in a very controlled way and to take the right distances between them into account. I liked to apply patience until a whole page could be seen as a finished piece. That is what I did during my studies in 1965. I felt like a monk, ein Mönch, in a Cistercian monastery. I liked the feeling of going back in time and felt like executing a commission or a contract.
But then I tried to bypass that constraint as well and illustrated poetry. That way I escaped hard work of all those people in so many cultures who were asked and forced to put important words onto paper or stones. How arrogant. I suddenly feel that I followed an urge for independence and avoided THAT kind of service for my living.
But how naive I was to think that with that approach I could become a fully contented art teacher.

It is a privilege to follow the flying falcon in us but I know the need to accept our ground. That is what the Don Quixote poem is all about.

There is a side in me that likes to break rules and to express my freedom without admitting it loudly. But there is also a side that wants to resist this dreaming and doesn’t want to go on the street with felt pens and flags to fight injustices. I have held back.
My life, it is a riddle to me. That’s why I like to reflect on this story and this poem about Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and the end of their dreams. Now my age is my time in autumn.