Tuesday, March 18, 2014

handwriting is a memory


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My elementary school teachers were very, very concerned with proper handwriting. They constantly used their red pens to point out if our letters weren't high enough, or round enough.

We used Clairefontaine notebooks, one for each class. Glossy, colored covers and smooth, thick pages... ruled with strong red lines and four faded blue ones in between so I could obsessively plan out how high each letter should go, and make sure it was all level. (Loved this, of course.)

Recently I tried to recreate this handwriting. Or more so, remember the feeling of making round, deliberate letters in those ruled notebooks.

Handwriting is a happy memory.


6 comments:

  1. how funny, I've been thinking about how chameleon-like my handwriting is... I feel like my handwriting is not a memory, in that it's changed so much over the years (and sometimes changes multiple times during the course of a single day). does this make me odd, I wonder? *

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    1. hm, that's so interesting * ... do you ever come back to any, or are you constantly evolving? wonder if you picked one that you used at certain point in life and tried to recreate it, what would you find?

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  2. Oh this is just lovely Karm... the writing looks so happy and childlike. It reminds me of my son's writing (which he too must practice meticulously!)...

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    1. oh, would love to see his handwriting sometime! you should post him in action ;-) ( his letters will be more beautiful & happy than mine, which are so rusty ! )

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  3. this is just lovely! i always dreamed of having the perfectly round cursive that they teach in french schools...i used to come back from summer holidays with hoards of french graph paper so i could practice.

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    1. thanks ffion ! mmmm... they sure know how to make good paper in france ;-) sounds like a fun summer project !

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