A Steve Jobs connection

I never met Steve Jobs, at least not that I knew of. If our paths crossed at Reed College, I never knew who he was. I've never owned an Apple computer, so I have no connection with him that way. Yet we share a deeper experience. We both had the honor and delight to study calligraphy at Reed College. (I believe Jobs actually studied with Bob Palladino, Lloyd's student and successor, who continued his tradition.)

Here's what Jobs said in his 2005 Commencement address at Stanford University:
I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But 10 years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography.

When I heard about his death, one of my thoughts was, Another person who knew Lloyd is gone. And since lots and lots of other people are talking about the impact Jobs and Apple made in their lives, I want to talk a little about Lloyd.

A calligraphy class -- any class -- with Lloyd encompassed far more than the subject material. Yes, he taught us about letter forms, their evolution and design, and how the demands of the eye and the inherent rhythms of the hand shape the letter forms. But more than that, Lloyd taught us to see and to listen beneath the obvious. Into his lectures, he wove Buddhist philosophy, William Blake, John Ruskin, contemporary progressive thought, and a deep and abiding reverence for the many expressions of the human spirit. He railed against narrow-mindedness, bigotry, hatred (and stood up to HUAC during the McCarthy years).

He loved to make writing organic, writing poems on brown paper and hanging them on trees; he called them "weathergrams."

In this video, notice how the energy of Mozart's music flows through the movement of the pen. Also, the fluidity of the strokes, which comes from a soft grasp of the pen and suppleness through the entire arm and body. The pen dances across the pages.

Here's another clip from the series on italic calligraphy he taught for Oregon Public Television. (Through YouTube, you can also find others.)

Printer's daughter

I joke that it's all my father's fault, this mania for books--reading them, writing them, holding them, admiring them, you get the picture. When he immigrated to the US in 1922, he wanted to become an architect, to create building that would inspire a society of justice and equality. He was all of 17, bursting with idealistic fervor (which I come by honestly!) The hard reality of trying to attend college and support himself set in and his health broke down. He reluctantly concluded that a trade was his best hope, and he chose printing. He called it, "the art preservative of all arts," although I don't think that phrase was original to him.

Fast forward through apprenticeship, organizer for the International Typographical Union, etc., to a steady job as a linotype operator for a newspaper, family and kids. Books filled our home, books on about every subject--art, history, political thought, novels, poetry. That's not all that outstanding. But what made my house different from that of my friends was the ever-present idea that someone wrote those words and someone turned those words into print and then into books...and that second someone was my father. He used to compose letters in his free time on the linotype, run off a proof, and bring it home. I'd look at the column of type (or the lead slug) and think, "My father wrote this..."

Years later, when I studied calligraphy with Lloyd Reynolds at Reed College, he said, "Printers have always been iconoclasts; they know how easy it is to publish a lie." Yep.

I wrote my first book somewhere around 4th grade. It probably stemmed from a long-forgotten school project, but what I do remember is that I wrote and illustrated a story, then stitched the pages together with a painted cardboard cover. The story, true to the Ross tradition, involved a horse that saved the world by making peace between all the animals (who were engaged in senseless combat). I've gotten over being embarrassed to being proud. I made a book, and it was a book that embodied my best 4th grade ideals!