Jeanne Raffer Beck

A lifelong wordsmith, I combine fragments of found letters, diaries and journals from the late 19th and early 20th centuries with invented letter forms inspired by ancient texts.
After spending well over two decades as a professional writer, these past twelve years working as a visual artist have given me new perspectives on words and text. Discovering old, handwritten letters and diaries holds a strong personal connection as well, since journaling has been a longstanding practice for me. Old diaries and journals differ greatly in vocabulary and structure from contemporary writing, even though they were written over the past 150 years. Yet it is the calligraphic form of these writers’ penmanship that fascinates me more than the content. Even the existence of such documents seems poignant, since handwritten correspondence has virtually disappeared from contemporary culture.
In addition to searching for handwritten works, ancient scripts and Asian calligraphy have also inspired my appreciation for the visual nature of written words. Language evolves and alters; each alphabet represents an entire culture and epoch. Even when these ancient scripts cannot be translated, the beauty and mystery contained in the patterns and forms still engage the imagination.