I came to the study of calligraphy after completing an MFA in painting, and out of a desire to learn "method". I had always studied Asian art and knew that calligraphy was its foundation so I decided to investigate Western calligraphy. After struggling on my own for a time I was referred to Franz Heigemeier who taught at a local community college. Franz had studied under Anna Simmons while a student of graphic design in Germany. When I watched his calm technique, all my impatience surfaced and I thought this would never be for me. What he had, that I lacked, of course, was craftsmanship and that turned out to be a longer journey than I had anticipated. When Franz retired he asked me to take over his calligraphy class at Dutchess Community College. I taught it there for 20 years as well as other art foundation courses. I also taught the calligraphy class at Manhattanville College for 10 years. Over the years many of my international students shared calligraphy traditions from their own cultures such as Arabic, Japanese, Chinese, Korean Hebrew and Urdu; a learning experience for both class and teacher. The evolution of the alphabet from drawn symbols and the distillation of history within its forms is a fascinating study so I included that historical context in class. I have continued to practice calligraphy through the various commissioned projects shown here and it is now hard for me to imagine my artistic development without this invaluable detour.