Who are we?
Scholar and Kat is the brainchild of husband-and-wife duo Daniel (whose Chinese name means "scholar") and Katherine ("Kat"). Our first collaboration was a small presentation given to Katherine's college course on medieval book culture. The presentation, entitled "Making Your Own Quill Pen," taught the other students an art that Daniel had been experimenting with for a while: that of creating high-quality art and writing quills from turkey feathers. As Katherine comes from a Montana family that relies on wild game for much of their annual meat supply, we were able to obtain wild turkey feathers that we then tempered using Katherine's small apartment oven and a tomato-can filled with sand from the campus volleyball court. Needless to say, our roommates were a little concerned. However, they were soon eager to try their own hand at writing with quills, and we enjoyed creating nibs that suited each person's individual tastes and occupations.

What do we do?
We see this shop as a way to give others a chance at the same enjoyment we've had in creating and using quill pens not as items from the dress-up box, but as art and writing utensils that breathe new life into drawings, letters, and even notes. We hope to craft each customer a pen that, as for us, is what he or she would most prefer to write with. In addition to quill pens, Scholar and Kat will be offering a line of custom bookplates and lettering services hand-drawn by Katherine. As our styles tend towards the academic, both bookplates and lettering will be inspired by art found in late-19th and early-20th century volumes of classic works and poetry as well as children's books from the "golden age" of British book illustration. The bookplates and lettering are, of course, a natural product of Katherine's love for antique bookplates and lettering of that period, and the lettering in particular can be suited to a variety of occasions, from weddings to stationary to informal notecards. And as with our quills, we aim first to create a product that reflects the customer's needs and ideals, while at once being both lovely and functional.

Why the name?
Other than combining both our names and a general sense of what we offer (reading and writing sundries), the name Scholar and Kat refers to a 9th-century Old Irish poem scrawled by a monk in the margin of the book he was copying. "Pangur Bán," or "white cat," paints a small but contented scene of a monk working alongside his trusty cat. In 1953, Samuel Barber set an English translation of the poem (by W.H. Auden) in his "Hermit Songs" for voice and piano. The song is both lovely to hear and sing, and charmingly tells of a life "alone together, scholar and cat." In our name, the line gives a nod both to our daytime occupations (music) and one of our favorite films ("The Secret of Kells"), in which the white pangur is featured.