Guestbook

Wonderful site. I am learning a lot with the lessons and videos. Thanks for your great work. Saludos desde la isla de Puerto Rico.

I suppose I should have done this some time ago, as I have been using the information here for quite some time, but being late is better than never soundly at all.

I have been interested in penmanship since I can remember. When I started 3rd grade, I thought it was going to be the greatest time of my life because I was finally going to be taught cursive. Unfortunately, the next year, and from then on, all of the teachers I had virtually required all of us in class to use generic print, and I virtually forgot it due to them.

However, when I started college 3 years ago, I started to relearn it due to my new interest in fountain pens (even without cursive my handwriting was always neat and I was very picky about it). I spent so many hours a week just scribbling. Like many things, after a while, I became very proficient with it and wanted to be able to write like the declaration of independence (one of the reasons I was so intrigued by cursive, which I thought was the same thing at that age), or rather, in a not mature outlook, I wanted to be able to produce the graceful beautiful art that I saw in many of the historical documents I was studying for my major in history.

The way I eventually reached this site and real calligraphy was very roundabout. Through many searches and time I finally found it, and, wanting the thin-thick contrast, I sought the thing I knew (fountain pens) that could produce them, thus flexible nibs. The search for nice, working pens of this age was a very expensive and time consuming job, and once I found one that worked, it was destroyed by a coworker. Once I found another, I was far enough along to realize that it could not truly produce what I wanted to do. In a way, I wish that my arrival to true script hadn't been so roundabout, etc., but at the same time, it gave me some foundational skills that helped once I finally reached the wonderful oblique holder and pointed nib. I have been with it for a few months, and practicing script in general even longer.

The point is, this site was here for me every inch of every step of the way. If it were not for this site, I wouldn't be able to produce the script I can now, or have had the interest to do so, as well as to continue.

Now I have a love for calligraphy that is very profound. I spend hours a day studying and practicing it if I am able to, because I have a burning passion for it. My dream is not to become rich, not to find a great career (although I look forward to that after college), not to become a professional athlete, etc, etc. My greatest dream now is to become a master penman. It is something I am striving towards, and will continue to for as long as possible.

Calligraphy isn't just a hobby to me, it is a huge part of my life, a great pleasure, one of my most proud achievements, and even part of my dreams for the future.

All of this could never have been possible without this organization and its resources.

Along with the "penmanship" forum on Fountain Pen Network, they are indispensable resources with a wealth of knowledge and information that help me as best as can be possible in the modern world that no longer has an avenue for an apprenticeship under a great. I wish that were possible, or at least lessons widely available, but since it is not, IAMPETH is sort of the teacher of us all in the modern age.

Thank you.

My late wife was into calligraphy and since I have the materials sitting around I thought I would give it a try

I found your website while googling penmanship. I was looking for some assistance on inproving my penmanship for a genealogy project I am working on and found your site to be helpful. I was taught many years ago that how one writes is as important as what one has to say and I believe that is just as important today in the internet age as it was 50 years ago. Thank you so much for a wonderful and useful site.

When I first stumbled onto this site I was floored by the grace and beauty of the art of penmanship. I always thought writing was writing, but wow was I wrong. I immediately picked up a pen and starting practicing. In the past 10yrs. my writing improved 150%.

Thank You IAMPETH for everything.

Extremely interesting. Once, in my younger years, i held a facination for Caligraphy, and learned just enough to get very bored. Now, that i have matured some, i wish that i had continued this art form more intensely. How typical i must be. For those, like myself, with a yearning for art. This is something that we can use and retain for all the years of our lives. My only advice is to stick with it !

Happy to find the site. Thanks Doc~

KJ

Hello from Zuerich,

i just want to say that i like your website very much.

I will come back soon.

Yours Ivy

I am a humble Scientist of Tropical Agriculture and Brain-Bio-Chemistry, and I have had a sincere desire to lear you pritty Art of the Calligraphy. I found your excellent page and I am very much delighted to see such a disntinguished and eminant group performing more than well. I hope to learn and to grow up besides the "wisdom center" that IAMPETH represents for me. God bless all of you.

Dr. Guillermo E. Martinez

Costa Rica