Elegant, yet Playful Kilian and Minuskilian with Josie Brown
By Celeste Rossmiller
During the long, dark month of January, 2024, a lucky group of us took part in three classes from British calligrapher Josie Brown, sponsored via Zoom by the Colorado Calligraphers’ Guild on three Saturdays from the beginning to the end of the month. Ms. Brown has been teaching for decades, and currently is Chair of the Calligraphy and Lettering Arts Society’s Academic Standards Board and their Chief Assessor. Josie was trained in the classic calligraphic arts, and she makes the alphabet-work a real study in process and development. She also made working with this recent hand a lot of fun, full of creativity and encouragement.
Josie structured the three classes in an unfolding process for us. The first day, we concentrated on Hermann Kilian’s idiosyncratic letter forms: tall, elegant, yet with playful elements, written with the pointed pen. (Kilian—1929-2004—was a German calligrapher, typographer and book designer.) Once familiar with his somewhat unusual hand, we played at “knitting” the letters together in his style of overlapping and combining forms.
The second week, Josie introduced us to her own creation of “Minuskilians”, her invention to challenge her current long-term students with invitation to move away from their familiar wide nibs. Minuskilian, Josie points out, is not a “modular alphabet,” like Johnson’s bookhand, where everything is built on the “O.” Her lower-case invention plays with the angles and shapes of the original Kilian, while coaxing related, if new, forms. She carefully instructed us in practicing these new letters, before leading us in a great many possible variations, such as light-or-heavy, compressed-or-stretched, formal serifs and extended strokes. What an amazing experience to have a class with the artist-creator of the hand!
Week three stretched us further with more variations of Minuskilians. First we used broad-edged tools with manipulation, which reminds somewhat of Neuland. Then she showed us the construction of “Minuskilian Fractured Outline” letters, which invites more creativity with adding color and design.
Josie, of course, is a master teacher, humorous, helpful, careful, and descriptive. She acknowledged the difficult challenge presented by some of the strokes, while encouraging us to stretch ourselves into unfamiliar territory. She is interactive, responsive, and inspiring. Josie was present to each part of the task and to each class member and their questions, no matter how amateur or advanced we were. We were encouraged to post our work on an online platform called “Padlet,” where she offered extensive and helpful feedback to anyone who cared to upload their attempts and questions. I, for one, felt how wobbly and primitive these unfamiliar letterforms appeared as they came from my pen. I wanted them to “look like something,” look well. By the end of the class, and working with them afterwards, I can see how one develops the muscle-memory and greater skill just through familiarizing and practicing. Josie encouraged this for me and my fellow classmates.
Artwork below by Celeste Rossmiller
I have long been delighted in the opportunities offered by Guilds to grow in our craft and art, and to share learning experiences with master teachers, along with students at all levels of practice. Opening this new year with studying with Josie Brown was particularly invigorating. Many thanks to Colorado Calligraphers’ Guild Workshop Chair Tess Vonfelt-Gross for all the long-distance arrangements with Josie and for hosting our classes; and to Guild President Ann Hiemstra for doing the online management and editing the web versions of the three classes. And of course to Josie for an excellent and fun learning experience.
Artwork below by Tess Vonfeldt-Gross
