I’m so glad you’re here!
This little creative newsletter has been in the making for over four decades. Sounds crazy, I know! But when I was not even a teenager yet, my mom and nana received this cute hand-illustrated culinary newsletter in the mail called Cook & Tell. It was written and illustrated by the late Karyl Bannister. Karyl shared recipes and stories from her kitchen located on Southport, a little island in Maine where my family owns a 150+ year old farmouse and small cottage built by my grandfather. I spent most of my summers there with my Nana and Grampy. Karyl lived just a few miles down the road from us in Love’s Cove (sounds like a made-up place out of a romance novel but absolutely true).
As a young artist (my 3rd paid art commission was painting cans for the local popcorn store in town at the age of 12), I was completely enamored with Karyl’s darling little drawings
and her quirky, intelligent, and often hilarious prose. I was already baking by then and would try out one of her recipes from time to time. But it was the newsletter itself I was really interested in. Karyl was a university trained artist with a degree in illustration. All these years later, I am even more in awe at what she accomplished pre-computers and pre-internet.
When I first graduated college (with a degree in Communication), got married, and started my career back in the early 90’s, I daydreamed of starting my own newsletter about scrapbooking as that was all the rage at the time. I started doing calligraphy commissions in the few hours I wasn’t working my full time job. This eventually led me to leave the corporate world of human resources to begin my own full time calligraphy business in the early 2000’s after the birth of my second child. But I never gave up on the idea of a newsletter (or magazine).
I spent the next decade or so designing greeting cards for Sunrise Gretings (now operating under Hallmark which was its parent company), Marcel Schurma (now known as Papyrus), American Greetings, and others. I also did calligraphy magazines such as Esquire, the Robb Report, InStyle Weddings, and even did a job for Mercedes Benz which was featured in all of their advertisement on TV and in magazines, newspapers, and online. Calligraphy has been a constant in my life since the age of 10.
In 2014, I launched a full scale magazine called Dasherie featuring calligraphy talent from all over the world. It was truly a labor of love which I designed, edited, photographed, and published all by myself. This proved to be an overwhelming task given my father’s diagnosis with cancer, my husband traveling five days a week, and raising three kids mostly on my own.
So I took a small break to take care of my family and myself. In this time I ran a calligraphy forum, The Flourish Forum, which hosted calligraphic conversation between thousands of members from all over the world. I also took extensive classes in watercolor, calligraphy, lettering, and just about every other creative endeavor. It was truly a privilage to have the time to create, learn, and explore mediums in ways I never have before.
Today, all three of my children are now young adults and I am pursuing yet another dream – sharing my love of creating with anyone and everyone who loves it as much as I do. I hope you’ll join me on this new adventure.
Gotta go make something beautiful…
