Just to clarify, the primary goal of Ink Academy is to create an online multi-disciplinary school that specializes in calligraphy, penmanship and hand lettering; we are not building this to simply "promote calligraphy."
If I can geek out for a second, I think it's important to look back to the full story of why there were such spectacular penmen back in the day--and to do so within historical context.
The decline of these "amazing penman of the past" lived in a very different culture/era. Calligraphers and Penmen were actually vital to both the professional and legal realms. The amount of time each of these penmen spent writing was enormous. Way more than any of us could do today in modern society. These pros actually competed among themselves to chest thump, creating challenges to show who was best.
--There was an abundance of penmanship education in primary, secondary schools. This boost was a solid foundation for fostering further study on an adult and professional level. Elegant penmanship was a reflection on the person's social status, a source of pride and was ubiquitous within the educated circles.
--Penmen used the books as constant guides, sure, but unless they were in the middle of nowhere--their education was directed by professional mentors and through "business school" education. As you surely know, they were at it all the time, creating both simple and incredible certificates, forms, receipt books, professional stationery, business cards, advertising, packaging. This learning certainly wasn't done alone in a room with a book. There were plenty of instruction in "business schools" and excellence penmanship was required and feircly studied.
--Even going back to the earlier centuries, let's think about it. There was no other vehicle even for laypersons to communicate in writing. People were USING penmanship ALL the time. Writing letters to friends and family far away, writing memoirs/journals, writing out their resumes, recipes, writing out checks, notes of debt, notes of agreement. There was no "practicing" unless you were 7 years old. That was the time to practice. After that, it was just something you did, all the time.
Sorry, one more geek-out moment here that might need clarifying: IndieGogo is a "crowdfunding" site. The purpose is to offer a "perk" in exchange for a contribution. It's not a retail store of sorts, and often the value of the item is the exclusivity or the limited edition aspect COMBINED with the desire to sponsor a project that you would like to support. Just like when you donate to NPR (our US-based listener-sponsored radio station) will carry out a fundraising campaign---they will offer something like "with your $100 donation you will receive a set of 2 cd's with our top 12 episodes." (Not that most people use CDs anymore!)
Oh, and btw, that $499 Tyrian ink is actually worth a flipping fortune!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple And we'd ONLY make it for this campaign as it's just not a product that is "mainstream"
And as for the art—the value of it is what the buyer is willing to pay. And wth paintings out there going for millions post-humously, $49,999 could be a great investment for someone! Who knows?!
And finally (!!!) and exciting part you might like! We totally believe in keeping the past integrated with the present and future. We'll be building a HUGE archive of online access for members. It will contain hundreds of works that Michael Sull has collected over the decades and has had scanned for us. They are amazing examples of penmanship, flourishing and such. And we won't stop there. We'll be acquiring as many historical volumes as we can get our hands on and also scan those for online access and for students to download at will. We're so excited about this feature!! And this is clearly one of the reasons we need funds to move enrichment projects along at a healthy pace. We will literally need a small staff just to handle this archive aspect alone. I wish there were magic wands out there, but it's just one thing at a time at human pace!
Hope this helps, Fennec. I know you knew all of this already, but it's fun just to review these geeky things together, right? It's so much fun to roll your mind back in time and pretend you're a fly on the wall, watching all of this happening. The penmen competitions, people writing late at night in a freezing cold room with a fire ablaze in the fireplace behind their desk--the oil lamp all aglow. Then I snap out of the fantasy and realize we have it pretty freaking good these days
xoxo
With respect to promoting calligraphy, the excellent publications put out in the 19th and early 20th century have no equal today, just as the great skill of the penman then has no equals today in terms of quality of execution of work.
One of the best ways of promoting calligraphy today would be to produce hi-quality reprints of some excellent books and/or materials from that time at different price points.This would allow people to benefit from close and careful study of the finest examples of calligraphy at their leisure, without the problems inherent with videos and internet communications. People in the past were able to achieve the greatest heights of skill by studying and working from books, and there is no reason why this cannot be done today. Books have been around for thousands of years before you-tube and I believe, having worked at a university, that books are better as a learning tool than videos and e-mails &c.
With regard to titles, I believe that works of calligraphy should be able to speak for themselves without needing titles attached to the people who made it. So that said, the title of "Professor of Calligraphy": Is that formally given by the university? Because looking at the website of that univeristy I see that Giovanni De Faccio's title is something that translates as "assistant", and he is not specifically listed as a professor:
https://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://www.ndu.ac.at/ueber-uns/mitarbeiterinnen/mitarbeiterinnen/employee/de-faccio.html&prev=search
With respect to Master Penman , IAMPETH was founded in 1949, but the "Master Penman Society" associated with IAMPETH was created in 2001 by one person, and closed in 2015. The title/society has always attracted controversy as well, since it was created by just one person who decided who could be part of the club, and calling oneself a "Master" is a vast and far-reaching claim to make, especially when there are people of equal or greater skill who do or did not use such a title.
With respect to prices, on the indigogo $449 for "rare handmade ink" is a remarkable price for 25ml of ink, as is $49,999 for "An Original Masterpiece 16x20" by Michael Sull or Barbara Calzolari.