The Story Tellers
From a culture where there is no written language | |
The Taos Indian language, Tiwa, has never been and will never be put into writing as their tradition mandates. Thus their story tellers are of great importance in orally transmitting their history and culture.
Taos Indian artist, Juanita Martinez, has honored the Story Tellers in clay figurines that I found warm, touching, and richly meaningful.
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Aye, Carumba!
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While there was very little consistent design applied to the graphics of the Taos Indian Casino, they all utilized my font Carumba for "Taos" in their logo :-) It's always fun (and curious) to see how people use fonts you have designed. |  |
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There's a lot more of my lettering work
to be seen:
original lettering, logotypes, fonts
and more.
Take a look.
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A handwriting-like script was created for the covers of these two books by Maureen Johnson. Lettering by Jill Bell
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| Signage | On the road again
There is always a great abundance of typography, signs and other lettering around to interest the lover of letters. But our awareness is heightened when we travel into unfamiliar territory and my trip across the southwest and back was no exception. Among the places I traveled was Las Vegas and it's famous Neon Boneyard, and Route 66: kitsch at it's best. I've posted a very modest selection of photos, such as this sign for Thunderbird Restaurant "Home of the Ho-made pies" in Mt. Carmel Junction, Utah. I was as grateful for it's great signs outside and in as I was that it was open on Sunday.
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More signage
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That old rugged cross
In my cemetery visiting experience, head stones are the norm for marking a grave. So it excited me to no end to come upon these great old wooden crosses in the Taos Pueblo Cemetery and Santo Campo del Pueblo Cemetery right outside the pueblo in Taos, New Mexico.
The cognitive dissonance created by the differences in the native Indian culture and the imposition of Spanish Catholicism is apparent in many ways in the pueblo, and the cemeteries are no exception. Indians are buried most often with their Christian names (Spanish) and wooden crosses as per the Christian tradition, but the graves are largely left untended to weather and deteriorate. There were piles of crosses that had finished serving their purpose by the remains of the old church in the center of the pueblo cemetery. The names on the crosses varied from carefully carved letters to simple handwritten or stenciled lettering. In the cemetery just outside the Pueblo, the graves with Anglo names (and headstones) are separated from those with Hispanic names by a chain-link fence. The impression it made was quite profound.
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Note from Jill
| Did you miss my newsletters? ;-)
I took a long vacation from work and this newsletter (skipped two) and drove through the south western US. It was wonderful. I went to seven National Parks (four in Utah) and numerous other parks, monuments, and places. I took 4,000 photos which averages about one per mile. While most of the photos were scenic, many of them were of lettering. I have put a few of them up on my website accessible via the links above. Hope they are inspiring in some small way.
Happy trails to you!
| | | Jill Bell Brandlettering provides distinctive,
one-of-a-kind lettering solutions
tailored to your individual needs.
www.jillbell.com
913.649.4505
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