Some folks may not know that I am the editor for the Nashville Calligraphers Guild newsletter which is distributed five times a year. It’s my way of giving back to the Guild since I don’t live enough to be able to volunteer for most events.

It works out very well. I compile the newsletter with submissions from the wonderful members and in turn, I send the completed pdf to Allegra in Nashville (shout out to them, they’re great with work with!) who prints the newsletter and then, at the other end of the process, my partner in crime, Joyce picks them up and gets them ready for mailing. We have the routine down and it works for the most part.

Well, okay, sometimes, it’s a struggle getting the newsletter out on time.  I have to be mindful that I’m working on several different schedules: Allegra’s for printing and Joyce’s for having the time to mail  out the issue before the next meeting so everyone will get a reminder.

I run into difficulties when I receive things at the last minute and have to rearrange articles to fit. I may have to reduce the font to squeeze it in (more pages mean more postage, it’s not about the eyesight, people!), move pictures around, resize them, add more pictures, the list goes on and on.  I don’t like to put people on the spot and I understand when they volunteer to do an article and then they don’t have time for it.  Life happens.  Except…

This time, I was the hold-up.

I began receiving articles and pictures and ideas well in advance of the due date for this issue and 90% of the work was done earlier than I’ve ever known it to be. I was feeling very proud of myself, knew I had it in hand. One last event was coming up and I knew what to expect. The members didn’t fail me, they sent what I needed as soon as they could so that I had what I needed and time to spare. Everything fit. It was ready to go….except….

I forgot about the cover art. Here it was, Monday and time to send the dang thing off and I’m staring at a blank page.

You can’t have a newsletter without something on the front. It “has”  to be calligraphy, after all, it’s a “calligraphy” group, for heaven’s sake.  Usually, I have someone who volunteers to do a piece but I missed the last meeting and so didn’t arrange it ahead of time. What to do? No need to panic, I thought. I have plenty of pieces that members have sent me, extras, kept on my computer, just in case this type of thing happened….except….

I had already used some of them and the others didn’t fit on a March newsletter. I could have used them, I suppose, but I personally didn’t want anything reminding me of snow or winter.

As I said, I hate to put people on the spot. They have things going on and schedules and stuff and it can be a real imposition to ask someone to provide something at the last minute. They might feel obligated to do something new if they don’t have something.

Fine,  I thought, I’ll just use one of mine. I’ve done it before. I used to feel like I was taking advantage as editor but I was told that I was a member like everyone else so my art could be used too. And it had been awhile since I had included mine. Fine, I would just pick something I had done. Except…

I didn’t have anything suitable for the front cover either. Sigh. It meant coming up with something fast so I pulled out my morgue (file of ideas and quotes) and I found a nice quote for March. No problem except…

I’m a perfectionist. It’s going on the cover. People besides my family are going to see this (you see why I don’t get a lot of pieces for the cover? People are sensitive about their art.).  I wrote the quote out three times before I got something livable. Any artist knows that livable means. “It’s not perfect but I can live with it.” But it was blah. Looked like a poem, very plain, very… blah. Then I got an inspiration.

I have been playing around with quilling, you know, paper strips that are rolled and curled and used all kind of ways. I got interested in it because of my paper sculpture but I wanted to do more than just flowers and stuff.  For Christmas, I received a book on Chinese quilling, totally different techniques! There’s some awesome art in there! The more I flipped through the book, the more I got enthused.  This could work, I thought…

Well, it took me two days to finish it (I said I was a perfectionist, didn’t I?) to the point where I was able to let it go. Is it my best? Probably not.  And really, paper art is hard to get a good picture because of shadows. But, in the process, I found out that I really like quilling and I will be doing more of it.

And the Guild newsletter got a cover…