Pentimento Mori: Brenda's Lamy CP-1 Fountain Pen

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A reveal, if we please. 

I do enjoy writing in fountain pen, and as I've testified before, I adore handwriting. I have a Kaweco Perkeo, as also noted before, in old chambray colors that we got me a couple of years back at Little Otsu down on SE Division in the toney section of town, still, it's a lovely store and if you're as finicky about your writing tools as I am, believe me, it's right up your street too. 

But this wasn't Little Otsu that that is complicit here but Oblation Papers & Press over off NW 12th and Glisan, as I also detailed in a posting even more recently. 

Babble babble, let's get back on course. We visited Oblation because we were certain we'd find the exact brand of ink cartridge we'd need for a very very special fountain pen. Here, then, is that pen.

This is the Lamy CP-1. Its aspect was created by the German industrial designer Gerd Müller in the mid 1970s, and this is a pen from that era. Its simplicity and practical design make it timeless and it does have a comfortable feel and heft. The small box of cartridges is the Lamy T-10, $5 for a box of 5; that metal cylinder is the pen's converter, a thing I can load ink in and use instead of a cartridge. This particular one is a bit of an oddity: instead of a piston you'd use to load it up, there is a bit of spring metal there that you use to compress the clear plastic bladder, then releasing it allows the bladder to re-expand, pulling ink in. They called this an 'aerometric' converter, and it, according to the reviews I've seen, didn't work so well maybe.

It was given to a rather artistic friend of mine named Brenda who has bequeathed it unto me since she has my number in so many ways. It additionally was sent on to me since Brenda is, and I think she would think amiss if I pussy-footed around the thing, dying. 

I value this object. Because it's a pen, a fountain pen, a fountain pen from an artist who sees it as an object of art as well as an artistic tool, a fountain pen with a history beginning in New York City and ending, for now, with me, and it was given to me to create whatever art I can with it and was given to me as an aspiring artist who has art for it in mind, and will continue to use it even after the original artist has drawn beyond us - has died. 

All of a sudden, the idea of someone surviving beyond death as something changed doesn't seem like such an abstraction. 

At this point the pen is in the stage of being pressed back into service after being stored for a while. Anyone who's done same will probably relate. It requires a bit of water, as the ink is water-soluble, and it's in a stubborn period where it will write for a while and then stop for a while too. It's making me earn its respect. I've been there before, and I have a promise to keep, so I'll keep working at it. 

I do rather wish Brenda could have been with us to Oblation. I think she would have loved that place. I know I do. And Brenda is still with us for a little while longer and I want her to know that yes, it's going to be used and pressed into service and be valued. A love letter to the future from the past, even.

So it goes.