(Caroline Foty's first fountain pen was a 1970s Sheaffer No Nonsense that still writes perfectly. Since she discovered pens by independent makers, she wants "one of each, please" and wants to meet all the makers. Maybe you do, too. She lives in Baltimore with pens, cats, and all kinds of fiber arts supplies.)
Pens came to Kristen Brooks as part of a much larger and more significant series of life changes. “When I turned eighteen, I contacted my birth mom, and I met her and Jonathon.” (Jonathon being Jonathon Brooks of Carolina Pen Company.) “Ultimately we started an official adult adoption. I poured my first material on my first visit to the farm and he made me a rollerball out of it. That set the hook.”
Brooks was not raised around pens and inks; their background and education are in music. “By the time I got my degree, it was in a dying field. To pursue opera I would have had to move to Europe.” Despite claiming not to be artistic (“I was always artsy but I’m terrible at drawing”), they find the making of blanks to be their primary means of expression. “It’s fun to take everything that goes into a painting, or a piece of art, and turn it into something I can actually do. I can’t paint, so I can turn a painting into other art forms.”
Film has provided a large source of inspiration for the colors that go into Fountain Telling blanks. “I used to costume for the college theater, so I’m drawn to movie themes. The first blank I poured was based on the movie Brave. But there’s also pop culture, and art works, like the Birth of Venus.” A pretty color of dye on the workshop shelf resulted in the recent blank Three Olive Martini – “I liked that olive color and I wanted to play with it. At first it reminded me of the color of my horse’s saddle pad, and then I thought of an artsy bar, with tan walls and copper accents, and someone drinking a martini.”
At pen shows, the Fountain Telling table stands out, with skulls and crystals and a look all its own. “I’m a little bit of a crow, I’m a lover of shiny things.” Fountain Telling came from the idea of fortune telling, and Brooks worked with Jon Tello (graphic designer as well as pen maker) to design the logo of a crystal ball with nibs for feet. “Taking your thoughts to paper is a little magical. And the look brings in a slightly younger audience.”
Brooks hopes to begin to play more with pen shapes. “There need to be more different and unique pens on the market, to get people out of their comfort zone.” While they intend to begin by tinkering with the shapes of the pens already made by Carolina, this spring has seen the debut of a new pen with shape unlike any of those.
The “Willow” pen is designed to represent Brooks’ dog, Willow, an Australian shepherd. “She’s my entire world wrapped into a dog. She’s my service dog, she’s a competition dog – she does dock diving, barn hunting, and agility – she’s with me wherever I go. I like to say she picked my husband for me.” The pen represents the silhouette of Willow’s body: “She has a narrow nose, a wider face, a narrow neck but broad shoulders, a fluffy butt, and a little nub tail. The nub on the cap is her tail. I looked at her and thought, This is an interesting shape, how would it be as a pen?” It turned out to be not only a striking pen, but also a comfortable one. “It’s beginner friendly. My husband is new to pens and we find that it helps to seat the grip.” Reactions to the pen have been a source of amusement. “It’s designed after a dog, I can’t help where your mind goes!”
Brooks’ current favorite pen was a bit of a score, a Leonardo model in the Jonathon Brooks blank Galaxy Prime – “I got one, and he didn’t!” It has a custom flex nib in it. “I love flex nibs – my handwriting is not the best, and it makes it fun and creative. I saw a nib in a video on Instagram, I sent it to Dad and said Look at this nib. And he said, Do you want mine? It’s in the drawer.”
While they admire the blanks of other makers, and did some swapping at the Atlanta show so they could go home with one of Em Merrill’s Little Hollow in-house pours, their own blank making will always take the lead. “I find beauty in odd things.” (Rotting watermelon comes to mind.) “Someday I’m going to put all the colors I hate in a blank. People will love it.”
Observing what people love is perhaps their favorite aspect of being a pen maker. “I love going to shows and seeing the people. I make the pens to see people buy them. It’s fascinating to watch people find what they like, to see their eyes light up when something catches their eye. It’s very rewarding to see someone take home something you made, to treasure it.”
Kristen Brooks’ work can be seen on Instagram @fountaintelling and at shows in Baltimore, Atlanta, Chicago, DC, San Francisco, and New York City. A website and a Facebook page are in the works.
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