Jake Weidmann, master calligrapher

1:26

Notice Jake moves his whole arm and wrist, and shifts the paper. He doesn't plant the edge of his hand on the paper and cramp the pen into his fingers then write with his fingers crunching into his palm, as one tends to do with a ballpoint pen.

Things that I learned: 1) Jake is from Colorado, just south of Denver. 2) There is an American form of cursive. 3) There are oblique pens with the nib offset from the stock.

Calligraphy is just the beginning of Jake's art. Penmanship is translated into paintings, murals and into carvings, first wood and then other media. Calligraphy is incorporated into all that. In another video we see his collections of tools are actually rather vast ranging across several art forms. He opened a broad drawer divided into boxes holding various pen nibs numbering in the hundreds. Equally large number of nib holders. He taught the Create interviewer how to lathe his own pen to fit his own hand from length of strange ebony wood of combined black and white streaks of grain. 

In this interview the two men sit uncomfortably close. Notice Jake leans away the whole time from the interviewer to make space so they're not talking into each other's face. My favorite part is the second half where Jake talks about his family, his wife giving birth and him feeling bad for her doing all the work of creating a new life, so he focused on making a bassinet. They show the cradle, the shape of a swan, the sort of thing you see as planters, except a lot more beautiful and with additional features for rocking involving magnets and laser. 

This video is posted on Jake Weidmann's website. There are a lot more short demonstration videos on YouTube.

In the video Jake mentions him noticing a message the interviewer left somewhere about Michael Sull's American Cursive Handwriting.

Amazon shows three books out of print for less than reasonable prices. None for Amazon Prime. Just under $50.00 and outrageiously expensive after that. The reviews are mixed. The low reviews are for receiving the workbook but not receiving the textbook. Three star reviews say the buyer has limited free time and wanted to jump right in with exercises and finds the organization unhelpful. Five star reviews dispute the low rated reviews and say the book is perfectly organized, charming and extremely helpful. Each edition appears to be the same or similar thing. Amazon is taking pre-orders for another version due early July for $20.00.

Amazon also sells oblique pens with and without nibs.