As a stationery brand, we are always curious how and what people use our stationery goods for. With this blog series, focusing on the hands at "work" and beyond, we ask five questions about the usage and meaning of the stationery tools to our friends in Los Angeles.
For our ninth post, we visited a LA based artist and writer, Erik Benjamins at the beautiful Pasadena office of Three Sheep, an interior design studio co-run by his partner Nicole.
Q1. What do you do with Hightide stationeries; Emilio Braga's cardboard notebook, Hataguchi Collective's greeting card set, and Vcorn Rollerball pens?
I immediately started using the Braga as my primary notebook, carrying it with me in my bag everyday. So far, I’ve used it with the rollerball pens (so smooth!) to journal, make lists, and sketch out ideas for a new series of new drawings as well as a text work that I’ll be exhibiting in a small group show in San Francisco this month. As for the Hataguchi cards, I’m writing to penpals and sending thank you cards. I’ve been a huge huge fan of her work for years and am embarrassed to say this is only the second time I’ve used the amazing stationery!
Q2. In our technology driven world, what does it mean to write/draw by hand to you?
Writing by hand is one of my favorite activities in the world. My hand does its best to keep up with the pace of my mind, though it never quite succeeds. In that laggy process comes all kinds of fun surprises and (mis)translations from brain to page. It’s also such a physical and material process: cramped hands and smudged ink and folded pages… such a low stakes, but powerful act of making!
Pencils for messy ideas, mechanical pencils for clean ideas.
Q4. What’s in your pen case? How do you carry your pens?
Later this month he’ll be showing new work at Off Leash, a group exhibition at Dog Gallery in San Francisco.
