Current Issue of Stylus Magazine at StylusMag.com! http://www.stylusmag.com/current_issue.cfm 222 - 2010-09-22 00:00:00 http://www.stylusmag.com/current_issue_detail.cfm/ArticleID/222/ 223 - 2010-09-22 00:00:00 Visconti and Coles of London http://www.stylusmag.com/current_issue_detail.cfm/ArticleID/223/ 225 - 2010-09-22 00:00:00 Three vanishing-point fountain pens http://www.stylusmag.com/current_issue_detail.cfm/ArticleID/225/ 224 - 2010-09-22 00:00:00 http://www.stylusmag.com/current_issue_detail.cfm/ArticleID/224/ 227 - 2010-09-22 00:00:00  “Oh, too bad, it’s got an IPG nib.” How many times have you heard that? Or perhaps you’ve said it yourself, after which you’ve put the pen back in the display case and moved along to the next shelf or table. As with so many other situations in which one acts on a preconception, you might just have made a major mistake. But you might equally well have saved yourself some major annoyance. Let’s see why.What is “IPG”? It’s merely a colloquial abbreviation for “Iridium Point Germany,” an imprint used on steel nibs. This imprint supposedly identifies a nib that is tipped with a hard tipping alloy, usually osmiridium or plathenium, and it implies that the nib—or at least the tipping material—was made in Germany. This is nominally a good thing, because Germany is generally considered to be home to a number of the world’s best nib makers. Indeed, the IPG nib shown on the opposite page was made in Germany by JoWo, a lesser-known company that is making well-deserved inroads into the fine pen marketplace. It’s mounted in a Bexley Elegancia, and it’s well made and properly tipped and finished—one of the best steel nibs you’ll find anywhere.But imprints can be deceiving, and there’s the rub. You can find the “Iridium Point Germany” imprint on Chinese-made steel nibs ranging in quality from very good to very poor. (Some of the cheap Chinese nibs found in kit pens appear to have little or no tipping material of any kind.) Its use, although clearly deceptive, is not technically unlawful because it does not state, Made in Germany. Similarly, some Italian pens bear nibs imprinted “Italy,” but their nibs are made in Germany by Bock, Europe’s foremost nib maker. As for the presence or absence of iridium, that’s a moot point because most modern tipping materials don’t contain the stuff anyway. (It’s an element, like gold or iron, and it’s incredibly rare. Most of the Earth’s iridium came from the meteorite that finished off the dinosaurs.) We use the word “iridium” today to mean any tipping material; ruthenium, osmium, and platinum are the principal components of these alloys.Many of the cheaper Chinese nibs have an obviously Chinese motif, such as a five-petaled flower, as part of the imprint. This is an unmistakable signpost telling you that the nib is Chinese, but is it an equally valid indicator of a poor-quality nib? Fortunately, or sadly, depending on your point of view, it seems to be a good sign that the nib is thin; soft in a bendy way, not nicely springy; and tipped poorly if at all. A growing number of pen makers who start from kits are coming to realize this fact and are looking around to find nibs of better quality that they can swap into their pens to replace the junky ones. Many of these conscientious craftspeople are turning to JoWo (now represented in the United States by Brian Gray of Edison Pens).So how can you, the prudent consumer, avoid the chaff and get to the good stuff? This is a good opportunity for you to sharpen your observational skills. If you do not already own a good 10X hand loupe, buy one. In my experience, the best brand that won’t cost more than a good pen is the BelOMO Triplet, made in Belarus and often found in the hand of a geologist or a rock hound. Another good choice, rather more expensive but also very good, is the Hastings Triplet from Bausch & Lomb. Avoid the under-$15 loupes you can find at antique malls and on many online suppliers’ Web pages; these cheapies have poor optics that distort the image.With a loupe in your hand, examine the tips of nibs you like. Look at the smooth ones and see how they are shaped and finished: nicely rounded, brightly polished and devoid of sharp corners. Then compare the IPG nib you might be considering. Look for uneven shaping, stingy size of the tipping pellet, sharp corners (sometimes knife-like), poor alignment and other signs of a lack of quality.  http://www.stylusmag.com/current_issue_detail.cfm/ArticleID/227/ 226 - 2010-09-22 00:00:00 It is estimated that by 2011, there will be 3.2 billion e-mail users. This is an astounding bit of information when one considers that the first e-mail was sent less than forty years ago. And while technology has no doubt increased our efficiency and productivity in many ways, there are looming effects. The Tyranny of E-Mail, The Four-Thousand-Year Journey to Your Inbox, introduced last October, methodically analyzes correspondence through the ages and cites the consequences of our overly wired lifestyles. Award-winning writer John Freeman offers alternatives to the BlackBerry bandwagon, helping us reclaim our humanity as we turn on, tune in and don’t send. Nancy Olson: Your book presents so much solid research, yet it is very poetically written. Was this a deliberate way to juxtapose technology and thoughtful expression?John Freeman: I wanted to write something in a style that was an antidote to the shouting and ranting of e-mail. And I was trying to lure people into a more thoughtful register by writing in a way that was more appropriate and lyrical. We have aspects of ourselves that are accessible only through deep thought and solitude. And the kinds of states of mind that produce good writing are transcendent and access something inside that is beyond us. I wanted to sort of slow things down.  NO: What role does handwriting play in the continuum of face-to-face interaction and digital interaction? JF: Some things are better done more slowly. You don’t go for a walk at such a pace that you’re huffing and puffing—you slow down and take it in. The same holds true for written communication. The whole point of correspondence is the connection with someone else, and people are more overwhelmed than ever by digital forms of human communication. A handwritten letter is not competing with 200 other handwritten letters—it’s written with care and deliberation and allows for the spots to happen where it can be most thoughtfully considered. NO: Early in the book, you cite the evolution of mail as “a tale of how, with the invention of postal systems and the democratization of their use, words began to knit more than just nations together. Words written by hand, then carried by the saddlebags of travelers, kept friendships alive and gave shape and texture to the daily experiences—and the thoughts—of people who wanted to communicate but were not within speaking distance of one another.” Would you elaborate?JF: For the longest time, people couldn’t communicate over long distances. Most people, except for royalty and churches, had to communicate face to face. The introduction of postal delivery and the democratization of words did an amazing thing for our interior lives. When you put a pen to paper, it is the speed of human thought that allows you to dial into something that’s private and intimate. The introduction of that communication channel meant you could never lose anyone if you knew where he or she lived. http://www.stylusmag.com/current_issue_detail.cfm/ArticleID/226/ 228 - 2010-09-22 00:00:00 A class of fourth graders sits in expectant silence, fountain pens poised over fresh sheets of crisp paper, waiting for the weekly radio broadcast to begin. The first strains of a classical piece gently ease away the silence, and the children touch nibs to paper and begin to draw their interpretations of what they hear. “I think that’s when I first linked music to art, which is one of the things that makes my life rich,” says Diana Martens. “Even today, I can’t look at Monet’s Water Lilies without hearing ‘Moonlight Sonata.’”With a father who was a sculptor and architect, and a mother who was a musician and composer, there’s little wonder why Martens followed an artistic path. She recalls peering over the edge of her father’s drafting table as a child, captivated by his collection of pencils, slide rules and all of the other instruments of an architect. Her first artistic tools were her father’s pencils and shirt cardboards, and she soon graduated to pursuing a degree in art, where she had the opportunity to work with a variety of tools in a variety of mediums. Her favorite was pen and ink, and she especially loved drawing with a fountain pen because of the control it gave her over the line. “When I vary the width of a line I draw, it begins to look animated. Its rhythm changes,” says Martens. “And when I combine an animated line with a thick, straight line, it’s like weaving fabric.” There is music in her art; it’s as if her parents’ talents combined to flow through her hands. Martens developed a unique pen-and-ink style that is organic and freeform, yet structured in a way that echoes the shapes found in nature. This style was influenced by her early years spent in the mountains of West Virginia, where she witnessed the subtle shifts brought on by changing seasons and passing years. “The abstract lines in nature interest me,” says Martens. “Part of my work is capturing them.”One day, Martens was working on a piece in front of a friend who asked her if she could translate her style into the letters of the alphabet. Intrigued by the idea, Martens began concurrently drawing and researching the alphabet and became fascinated with the idea that throughout written language’s history, despite the many changes people have gone through, those of us who use the Roman alphabet can communicate virtually everything by using different combinations of the same 26 symbols. “During my creative process, I was able to think about what I wanted this project to be, and decided it would be a tribute to the alphabet,” says Martens.            Martens used a fountain pen to give her letters intricate designs and different textures and depths of field that are reminiscent of illuminated lettering, yet they lack the same bright color. And although Martens tried to add some color to her alphabet, she preferred them in their black and white “power form.” So she was hesitant when her friend Jessey Ina-Lee asked for permission to add color to the designs. “I had tried color in the past and didn’t like anything I tried, so I had some trepidation about how I’d react to Jessey’s contributions,” says Martens. But when she saw the colored letters for the first time, she was moved to tears. “I don’t think in color and couldn’t see my letters in color, but Jessey could. And I think it’s wonderful that Jessey could show me something that I couldn’t see. That’s what art is all about.”  http://www.stylusmag.com/current_issue_detail.cfm/ArticleID/228/