When I bought a typewriter, I never intended to write with it. I wanted to make drawings.
In truth, there’s not a big difference between writing and drawing. The alphabet began as pictograms, and over the course of 5,000 years, those pictures of ox heads, huts, and fish were simplified and abstracted into the letters we find on our keyboards today. I learned this in typography class back in art school, and it completely blew my mind. It still does. Just imagine what ancient images are lurking in this sentence.
I bought a vintage sage-green Smith-Corona typewriter off Etsy a few years ago, and it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned. Unfortunately, it’s spent most of that time sitting in its case, collecting dust. So last month, I decided I’d finally make some drawings with it.
Looking for inspiration, my first stop was Concrete Poetry: A 21st-Century Anthology. I’ve turned to this book many times over the years. It’s a diverse collection of work from artists and poets who use language in surprising and often beautiful ways.
Then, while poking around online, I discovered an absolute gold mine: Typewriter Art by Alan Riddell. The bad news? It’s out of print and costs about $200, used. The good news? The entire book is available for free on archive.org This book shows a much more expressive, almost painterly approach, to typographic art. It gave me permission to get loose with my compositions.
That led me down a rabbit hole on Archive.org—from Fun with Your Typewriter to Artyping to How To Make “Typeys”. After a couple hours, it became clear I had passed from research into procrastination.
Finally, I got to work. I spent the next three days making typewriter drawings. I like using new tools that force me to work in a different way. A typewriter is stubborn, uncooperative, and utterly ridiculous as a drawing tool. And yet, that’s what makes it fun. Every drawing feels like discovering something you didn’t know you were looking for.
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