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Carved letters by Gill at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Photo by Leo Reynolds.

I understand your fascination for the act of writing. But what exactly is so special about letterforms themselves — and why do you revel in painting them, or carving them in stone?

The shapes of letters do not derive their beauty from any sensual or sentimental reminiscence. No one can say that the O’s roundness appeals to us only because it is like that of an apple or of a girl’s breast or of the full moon. We like the circle because such liking is connatural to the human mind. And no one can say lettering is not a useful trade by which you can honestly serve your fellow men and earn an honest living. Of what other trade or art are these things so palpably true? Moreover it is a precise art. You don’t draw an A and then stand back and say: “there, that gives you a good idea of an A as seen through an autumn mist”, or: “that’s not a real A but gives you a good effect of one.” Letters are things, not pictures of things.