Our story - The Lettering Arts Trust was founded in 1988 by Harriet Frazer MBE as ‘Memorials by Artists’
This was in ...
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?
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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.
