Abstract

LINGFIELD SCRIBES CONTRIBUTE

The Lindisfarne Gospels book is normally housed in the British Library, but this summer it was on display at Durham University as the focus of a celebration of the creative, artistic and spiritual heritage of the North East. (More information at http://www.lindisfarnegospels.com)

In connection with this The International Research Centre for Calligraphy at the University of Sunderland launched ‘Letters after Lindisfarne’. They invited members of regional calligraphy groups to contribute to a one-off book, not a stylistic or a textual replica but as a contemporary response to the Lindisfarne Gospels.

Each contribution is on a single sheet of paper, to be folded giving two adjacent pages of size 342x248mm, the metric equivalent of a Lindisfarne Gospels page.

Participants were given, via their groups, a limited list of ‘springboard’ words from a modern translation of the New Testament and invited to work with them in whatever way they wished. Suggested starting points were:

1. Write out the biblical passage from which the word comes.

2. Choose a non-biblical piece of poetry or prose containing the word.

3. Write a factual text inspired by one aspect of a word, eg start, boat or mountain.

4. Create an abstract piece around a single word.