About

For over fifty years I have loved lettering. From playing with Letraset as a child, through my earliest calligraphic attempts at school to a chance encounter at college which set me on my professional path, letterforms have intrigued and fascinated me. The rigour of studying and interpreting letters is vital underpinning to my work designing and making letters, be they written with a quill, painted with a brush or drawn and carved. 

 TRAINING

I studied Calligraphy and Bookbinding at Roehampton University from 1977-1980 as a significant part of my BEd degree returning to the full-time Diploma courses from 1983-1986. In 1986, I was awarded a Crafts Council Advanced Training Grant to study letter drawing and carving with Tom Perkins.

 CAREER

In 1987 I was elected a Fellow of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators and I am an elected Full Member of Letter Exchange. My work has consisted of a wide variety of commissions for private individuals, corporate clients, charities and churches. My work is included in collections at the V&A Museum in London, The Crafts Study Centre at Farnham and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

From 2000-2006 I was one of a small team of scribes working on the Saint John's Bible project for Saint John's Minnesota. 

You can see my contribution to a series of videos made towards the end of the Scribes’ work on the project:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdMqP999ftI&t=19s

TEACHING

I am a Short Course Tutor at West Dean College and have taught workshops and summer schools in the UK, Belgium, Finland, Canada, USA, Australia and Japan.

For many years I taught on the Society of Scribes and Illuminators' Advanced Training Scheme and am one of the writers and tutors of the SSI"s Calligraphy Correspondence Course.

I was visiting tutor on the BA programme as Satakunnan University in Finland, Course Convenor and Bookbinding and Calligraphy tutor of the Roehampton Calligraphy Programme, and Calligraphy Tutor of Sunderland University's Foundation Degree in Calligraphy with Design at Kensington Palace. 

 WRITING

I regularly write about calligraphy and bookbinding in UK and overseas journals and for many years I was editor of The Scribe, the journal of the Society of Scribes and Illuminators. My own book Step-by-Step Calligraphy was published by Weidenfeld and Nicholson in 1997. The instructional material has recently been included in ‘Calligraphy & Lettering - A Maker’s Guide’ Thames & Hudson/V&A 2019.