Welcome
The Lettering Arts Trust is a charity dedicated to the fostering of an age-old art.
For centuries, human beings have felt the need to mark-make. This urge continues today and we are thrilled to play a part in its future. Mark-making is all around us - in new public works commemorating great lives or momentous events, through to statements spray-painted as graffiti.
We would love to welcome you to enjoy the many forms of the art and perhaps participate in a workshop. Lettering is alive and we celebrate its many forms. We hope you too will enjoy it, either by visiting one of our exhibitions, taking home a work from our gallery shop, or even working with one of our artists on a special piece. As a charity we rely on outside support and value your interest and involvement in whatever form it takes.
Our story
The Lettering Arts Trust was founded in 1988 by Harriet Frazer MBE as ‘Memorials by Artists’
This was in response to Harriet’s need to find someone to make a unique memorial for her step-daughter Sophie, who died suddenly at the age of 26. It was hard at that time to find a letter carving artist, but harder still discovering that church regulations prevented her from inscribing her daughter’s poetry onto a memorial.
When Harriet finally did find artist Simon Verity, she determined that other people wanting to mark the life of a loved one should not have to go through what she had to before finding Simon. So she formed Memorials by Artists – to help others, and help foster the art and craft of creating unique well-designed memorials.
Today’s world is increasingly pixelated… digital… ephemeral. What better way to make a lasting mark than by having a name, a phrase, a date, hand carved forever in stone by a letter-carving artist?
Our vision
We believe in the importance of creating beautiful hand-carved letters, and passing on the skills to create them. Hand-carved letters are a permanent mark in stone that show the love a person has for another; keep alive the memory of a special event; or mark a beloved place for years to come.
The highly honed skill of letter carving that had been passed down from the Romans, nearly faded in the mechanised society of the early 20th century. This was when a new generation of lettering artists such as Eric Gill made it their mission to revive it. This is our mission, too.
Today, we are the UK’s leading voice for promoting the lettering arts. We are a nonprofit organisation that fund apprenticeships, hold workshops, host talks, sell fine works, and curate exhibitions. Our aim is to inspire people about lettering, while equipping letter-carving artists with the skills they need for now and the future.
Our Mission
We also want to make creating a memorial by an artist as rewarding, inspiring and as meaningful as possible. For over 30 years, this has been one of our most important goals. Thanks to our register containing 75 of the UK’s finest letter-carving artists, with whom we have strong relationships, we are confident people who come to us gain a memorial by artists that at once inspires, consoles and delights.
Since 1988, Memorials by Artists has evolved. Today, it is the Lettering Arts Trust which not only helps people commission memorials, but also holds exhibitions and runs apprenticeship schemes for lettering artists. Its constant has been to keep the art of letter carving alive, to make it accessible to people, and to give advice and information through the process of commissioning a piece, be it a memorial or a garden sundial.
We want the centuries’ old art of letter carving to thrive in today’s digital world.
Get involved
If you’d like to volunteer your time or skills to help the Lettering Arts Trust, we’d love to hear from you.
Meet the trustees
There are many talented people involved in the Lettering Arts Trust.
We highlight here the people who are instrumental in its continuing success on a day-to-day basis.
Ron Clarke
Treasurer
Ron has been Finance and Operations Director at London’s artsdepot since 2008, and was Finance Director of the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation between 2000 and 2008. He has over 20 years’ experience of financial management in both private and not for profit sectors.
Lisi Ashbridge
Trustee
Lisi has an international background with a strong multi-disciplinary interests. Having grown up on the continent she came to study at UCL, followed by a PhD in Neuropsychology at St Andrews, a postdoc research fellowship at Oxford and lectureship in London. Her field of interest was how the brain recognises shapes.
Having taken time out to raise her two daughters she returned to her love of art and making. She was mentored by the international renowned Letter Carver Caroline Webb and over the years has also had short bursts of training with Tom Perkins, Andrew Whittle and John Neilson. In 2015 she set up her own studio and workshop in the beautiful Pewsey Vale, Wiltshire. She received a QEST scholarship and is an elected member of the Master Carvers Association and LAT.
Claire Bodanis
Trustee
Claire has nearly twenty years’ experience as a specialist in corporate reporting and sustainability communications. She set up Falcon Windsor in 2004 to help her clients communicate well through words. These include plcs such as ArcelorMittal, Diageo, Rio Tinto and Tate & Lyle, as well as public sector bodies like DCMS.
Claire is an Associate Partner of Dark Angels, a global network of trainers and writers whose philosophy is that business writing should be more human. She is the co-author of two books with the Dark Angels Collective. Their next book, Dark Angels On Writing, to which Claire has contributed a chapter on corporate reporting, was published in June 2019.
Catherine Samy
Chair
Catherine joined Brunswick in 1988 to establish Merchant, the group’s design and advertising arm. On graduating in Law from Bristol University, Catherine joined City brokers Laurence Prust and Co, on the Framlington fund management team. In 1984, she joined Valin Pollen International prior to starting Merchant in 1988.
Eric Marland
Trustee
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Eric travelled in Europe before studying Art Restoration and Calligraphy at the City and Guilds of London Art School. Following college, he had a six-month apprenticeship with the Belgian letter-sculptor, Pieter Boudens in Bruges. After several years of freelance lettering in London, he moved to Cambridge in 1990 and worked at David Kindersley’s Workshop for five years before joining the Carving Workshop in Cambridge. Eric set up his own workshop in 1998 in Cambridge. Here he also teaches courses in letter carving for the Lettering Arts Trust. He undertakes commissions for a wide variety of clients, including the University of Cambridge and many of its colleges.
Nick Heath
Trustee
Nick’s main career has been in commercial property as a chartered surveyor, with a sideline as a wine merchant. Despite a degree from Oxford, he lives in a listed ‘modern movement’ house in Cambridge. He is involved with a number of local organisations: as trustee of Cambridge Union Society (the oldest debating society in the world), he played a key role in their recent major building and refurbishment project. He is a council member at Academy of Ancient Music and trustee of Cambridge Summer Music. He was previously chairman of Friends of All Saints, the special and once - neglected Victorian church in Jesus Lane. A keen tennis player, he is on the committee that runs Cambridge University Real Tennis Club. He was taught italic handwriting at school and enjoys lettercut stones in his garden. He is married to a paper conservator, with one grown-up son.
Mark Noad
TRUSTEE
Mark Noad is a graduate of Norwich School of Art. Mark has over 30 years’ experience working for leading design consultancies in the UK and New Zealand as well as running his own business.
He has contributed to several exhibitions at the Lettering Arts Centre as well as curating the ‘Rock Paper Pixel’ exhibition in 2019. He is a former Chairman of Letter Exchange (www.letterexchange.org) is probably best known for his alternative design for the London Underground map (www.london-tubemap.com).