There are numerous painting and drawing techniques, each combining a multitude of tools, methodologies, and unique materials. Artists use every medium from paints and pencils to sponges, brushes, their fingers, and more. They dry brush, glaze, stipple, pour, dab, and splatter. There’s also art in the digital frontier building layers and adding creative effects. But what about typing?
James Cook is an artist based in London who uses his 100 different typewriters to make art. Originals can sell for anywhere from $2500 to almost $20,000. He found the technique after coming across Paul Smith, an amateur artist who was born with cerebral palsy. Paul’s parents had given him a typewriter to learn to read and write, but he instead made drawings. After reading about Paul’s story, Cook was inspired to get his hands on his own typewriter.
With a key push to a typebar strike on an inked ribbon pressed to paper, Cook gracefully moves the carriage around the page creating masterful works of art.
In the above video, Cook talks about liking to create on location and not just working at his studio. He says, “I’m still learning because every project is a challenge. Every drawing, whether it’s a portrait of somebody’s face or it’s an architectural scene or a landscape, they all have their own sets of challenges.”
The 40 to 45 keys available on a standard typewriter, the letters, numbers, and symbols are the conditions and rules under which he has to create. “There’s no way of undoing those mistakes, because you’re stamping ink onto the page.” He said in one interview for CGTN Europe.
As for how long it takes to create one of his original works of art? Cook noted that “it’s a really slow process… A small drawing will be a week. Whereas one of the large pictures I’ve got on display, that took two months to type.”
The first typewriter was patented in 1714 by engineer Henry Mill. His aim was to create a mechanized writing device to be less susceptible to forgery. The creation became a bedrock that revolutionized communication and played a crucial role in advancing literacy. The typewriter also brought opportunities for women in the workforce.
An “office clerk” was an occupation traditionally held by men. The job entailed crafting handwritten records and issuing correspondence to their employers. With the standards of the time dictating what was appropriate for each sex (you may judge the era as you like), typing roles were regarded as suitable work for women. As women took advantage of their opportunities and started their own businesses (run just as successfully as those piloted by men), arguments against a woman’s right to vote were weakened. It’s an interesting and oft overlooked factoid of America’s history: women’s suffrage was aided by the typewriter.
With the invention of computers and word processors, typewriters may seem close to obsolete, but this is not the case. Actor and celebrity Tom Hanks has a vast typewriter collection of over 300 various models and artist, singer, and songwriter Lady Gaga likes to pen her lyrics on a typewriter. The famous author Cormack McCarthy, author of classics The Road and No Country for Old Men auctioned his Olivetti Lettera 32 in 2009 for $254,500. He estimates he typed over five million words on the machine. Finally, there’s also a thriving genre of typewriter poets praised for their talent and the aesthetic of type-written poems.
Though intended for one specific use, it’s amazing how, in the hands of a creative person thinking a little outside of the standard box, the typewriter can be used to transform inked letters into physical images that become truly striking artwork.
