The Art of the Carved Letter

May 11, 2009 • 3:59 pm • POSTED BY Margherita Urbani

So this month it’s one year I am living in Philadelphia, the city of pretzels, brotherly love, huge city parks and that “old” – spelled with an “e” at the end – neighborhood filled with historic landmarks and people wearing white scruffy wigs. As you know, I come from the Old World and this is why I am spoiled when it comes to talk about history. I guess you can’t help if you grow up in a town that has being busy since the Western Roman Empire. But one thing that fascinates me of America is the appreciation and effort to preserve old – but indeed recent – traditions and cultural roots that instead other countries just don’t care that much about (hello, Italy). This said, it happened to me to recently discover Folkstreams, an amazing source of documentary films about American folklore. The selection of films is pretty good, and in the lazy sunday afternoon of yesterday I decided to watch a documentary from the 70s about letter cutting, in both monumental inscriptions and on gravestones titled “Final Marks: The Art of the Carved Letter”.  Maybe it’s because I don’t know anything about engraving monuments, or maybe it’s because I can look at letters for hours/days/months and never get bored, but I really liked this film. It’s about these extraordinary carvers  of The John Stevens Shop, founded in 1705 in Newport, Rhode Island that is one of the oldest continuously operating businesses in the country. They carved all the most important and symbolic sites like the John F. Kennedy Tomb, the World War II Memorial and the Vietnam Memorial, but also institutions like Yale and Harvard Universities. Would you be able to make an R that cool?

You’ll make me happy if tonight you’ll watch this movie, both having an espresso or sipping from a large cup of coffee to go.