Strange Attractions: a Reverence for Letters

“[A] century or two ago, people had their own peculiar reverence for the letters of the alphabet. …[T]hey could become excited about the beauty of the printed page or even one well-formed letter,” American artist Eric Sloane says in the introduction to his ABC Book of Early Americana for young people that he published in 1963.

“Artists used to get delight from drawing their versions of the alphabet: carpenters seldom failed to put their initials and the date on a particularly fine piece of work; children and adults too, made “samplers” of sewed alphabets,” says Sloane.

Such excitement and delight put these artisans in the company of contemporary graffiti writers, whose art form consists of spray-painting stylized versions of their names and filling the letters with color, shapes, shadows, Gothic figures, and more color to make the simple declaration, “I am.” (more)