After becoming aware that "modern" fountain pens exist and weren't just for calligraphy (or Very Fancy Business People), then absorbing information about pens and inks like a sponge for several months (in large part by listening to The Pen Addict podcast), I placed my first fountain pen order. This was back in 2020, the year that didn't go how anyone expected, and I received my first pen just in time to celebrate Fountain Pen Day.
Five years ago, as hard as I fell for inky swatches, I still never could have imagined how fountain pens and inks—and the community around them—would impact my life. I've connected with more people both in my local community and the wider pen community than ever before, renewed my passion for analog tools, while also incorporating my digital world to support the analog and vice versa. In the week or so leading up to Fountain Pen Day (the first Friday in November), I've been reflecting back on various milestones and how much has happened since I got that pen, the first of many, in my hands.
My First Pen (But Mostly Ink) Order
Since I had found my way into the Pen Addict community (including Slack), I learned about a small online shop called Shigure Inks, and that's where I placed my first order. While I wouldn't exactly recommend that anyone else jump in as hard as I did (it was a big order, let's just say some funds intended for travel went unused that year)—it's interesting to realize looking back that nothing in that order is inconsistent with an order I might place today. No shame here, let's dig into what past me picked out.
Pens
- TWSBI Diamond 580ALR Prussian Blue, Fine
- Kemmy's Labo Thin Glass Pen, Viridian F
TWSBIs with the clear barrels filled with ink and colorful caps caught my attention early. I liked the ECOs but it was the shiny new Prussian Blue color of the higher-end Diamond 580 that won me over first. Since then I've realized I actually like writing with a posted (cap on the back) ECO slightly more and would almost always recommend that generally less expensive model as the place to start, but this pen is great and like all my TWSBIs stays constantly inked and in rotation.
TWSBIs are my "workhorse" pens and I keep a whole stable of different colors inked up since they never dry out on me.
I also got the glass dip pen to be able to use a lot of different inks, and this was a really nice one to start out with. I used this and other glass dip pens more for writing early on, while these days sketching is my favorite thing to do with a glass dip pen.
Inks
The inks. Yes. I know. But are we really surprised?
- Sailor Manyo Haha, Kikyou, Yomogi, Chigaya, Kakitsubata, and Shirakashi
- Kala Nostalgia Ocean Breeze, Blue Lagoon Vapor, Tourmaline, Hawaiian Eruption, Spring Rain, and Midsummer Night
- Ink Institute Songshan-Xindian Line and Jade Vine
- Vinta Inks Terracotta (Damili 1572), Sky (Tala 1980), Sea Kelp (Leyte 1944), and Emerald (Carlos 1960)
There are some excellent inks here. Sailor Manyo Shirakashi is the complex, swampy green ink that made me truly fall in love with ink, and I've since collected bottles of all the Sailor Manyo inks.
I don't use a lot of pigmented ink, but the Kala Nostalgia pigmented inks remain my favorites and I keep a Kaweco Sport eyedroppered with one of them (currently Ocean Breeze) for drawing. The Ink Institute inks are great shades and they've continued to release unique flower-inspired shades, and I kind of love that the ink inspired by the Songshan-Xindian metro line in Taipei just has the "G" symbol as the bottle label. I picked up the ink for the orange line, Zhonghe-Xinlu, this year. Fortunately my passion for inks has only grown and this wild number and range of first inks just feels apropos.
Swatch Cards
- Col-o-ring Ink Testing Book
- ARIBA Minori Coloring Cards - Parakeet and Hedgehog
- eric@kanan Ink Swatch Cards - Cat
When I saw Col-o-ring swatch cards with a rainbow of different ink colors I became enamored with both inks and the swatches themselves, so naturally I had to get my own ring of swatches started right away.
I also found the parakeet and hedgehog swatch cards delightful to color in (some more artfully than others).
About two and a half years later I established my current swatching style where my full ink collection gets documented in sets of Col-o-ring and Col-o-dex cards, but I also delight in testing out all kinds of swatch cards. They are fun for swatching a particular collection of inks, taping into journals, and sharing with friends.
Paper
- Cosmo Air Light A4 Blank
- Yamamoto Paper Tasting, Silky vol. 1
I got into "tasting" papers from Yamamoto right from the start, including the relatively new Cosmo Air Light and a Yamamoto Paper Tasting set with original Tomoe River, Marshmallow COC, and Capital wrap. I never would have imagined that almost four years later I'd attend a panel hosted by Taizo Yamamoto himself, along with Bruce Eimon, called "Cosmo Air Light: The Story of Paper Extinction" at the San Francisco pen show in 2024, which was an incredible experience.
The IRL Pen Community
My first in-person event was two years later, attending the Nashville Pelikan Hub in November 2022. It was strange, but amazing, to actually see other people carrying around pen cases and talking about fountain pens in person. I was pretty nervous to be there, but I'm so glad I went. By that time I had several pens and the start of what's become a very inky Franklin-Christoph Vagabond (A5-slim notebook cover) to share. I ended up sitting at a table with the leader of our local pen club, which is how I found out we had a local pen club, even if I didn't muster up the courage to make it to a meeting until several months later.
That night I shared my pens and tried other people's pens. There was a raffle of several items, and my number came up for a pen made by Nic Pasquale—my very first maker pen that I love and still use regularly.
Branding a Hobby
The username “Olive Octopus” didn't come about until I was already a couple years into all this. At the time, one of my main usernames was based on a particular book series so when I started being more engaged I wanted to have a name that was more my own and not tied to any particular IP. The Instagram account I started posting pen, ink, and artsy content under was originally just a six character hex code for an olive drab green shade that even I couldn't remember—so as I was preparing to attend the my first pen show and invest more time and energy in the community, I worked on choosing a new username.
"Olive Octopus" was the result of brainstorming influenced by my favorite color (green, particularly olive drab), a cool and uniquely relevant creature, alliteration, and Legends of the Hidden Temple. As a web developer, securing an appropriate domain was crucial to making a final decision, and “oliveoctopus.ink” was perfect (and also available on Instagram). An inky octopus was born. I've been hit and miss with "internet handles" over the years, but I like this one.
Pen Show Travel
My first pen show was a few months after the Pelikan Hub, the Atlanta Pen Show in March 2023. I went on my own and stayed the whole weekend. It was so valuable to get to see and hold and try so many pens, inks, cases, etc. in person, but also meeting people and having conversations that really impacted me during a difficult chapter in my personal life. As I got in my car to drive home, I realized I was happier and more hopeful than I'd been in a long while.
In 2024 I returned to the Atlanta Pen Show and also went to the San Francisco Pen Show. This year I attended four shows: California Pen Show, Atlanta Pen Show, Arkansas Pen Show, and Washington DC Supershow.
OliveOctopus.Ink
As a full-time web developer, building my own web site was probably inevitable. The catalyst for actually doing so was my desire to participate in the "21 Pen Questions" challenge combined with a rapidly changing (collapsing?) social media landscape, which is where I originally posted my responses. Currently the site is simple hand-coded html, but I intend to move into a version of the same CMS (Content Management System) that I use at work, eventually. I try to make about one post a month, and this might be the closest thing to consistent "journaling" that I do. This kind of writing continues to be challenging for me, but I think it's a challenge I need.
Twitch
Another thing that's still hard for me to believe is that I've been streaming on Twitch several hours a week for over two years now. I originally started streaming to support Relay's annual fundraising campaign for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and then never stopped.
On stream I mostly do stuff I would be doing anyway, but inviting "the internet" to join me helps ensure I consistently make time for playing with ink and getting artsy, and spending time with other people—also talking with people really helps me continue to learn and grow, and I hope, enrich the community in return. The community around my stream and the other stationery-related streams that I watch on Twitch is wonderful.
I love Twitch, but sometimes I wish I could reach through the internet to put a pen (or water brush) in someone's hand for them to try. I really want to be more involved with in-person seminars or workshops, and I think the experience gained from streaming is helping me be more prepared to do that.
Fountain Pen Day 2025
Jumping to the present, over this past Fountain Pen Day weekend I visited local stationery shops, Butler Stationery and The Gentleman Stationer, and spent the better part of two days talking with people about pens, ink, and paper. In some ways FPD has become the "Black Friday" for fountain pens, and I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with that—I want all my favorite small businesses and makers to be financially sustainable and successful, and I participated. My goal this year was to make sure my weekend was also about sharing the love of fountain pens and supporting opportunities for anyone curious or just getting into pens to be welcomed in to learn more and ask questions.
This ended up taking the form of producing a Fountain Pens 101 brochure for TGS (I'm proud of how that turned out), and being available to talk about pens and help people find things (mostly pick out inks) at the shop Friday and Saturday. I'm known for carrying around ink swatches for people to look through, but I also brought a variety of pens to share as well.
I really value the opportunity to talk with people and answer questions, to support the growing local pen community but also to broaden my perspective and I benefit from the experience. The opportunity to consider different use cases expands my understanding and I love the discussions and learning together.
Looking Forward
I don't think I can anticipate what the next five months might bring, much less the next five years, but I'm grateful that my relatively new love for fountain pens and inks has helped me reconnect with a life-long love of paper, pencils, and colorful ways to make marks on paper. Even though I never stopped writing notes and lists by hand and often bought my own paper, notebooks, and pens for work—I realize now how much of that connection I'd lost over the years. I hope that nurturing the passion and joy I find in these analog tools and the community of people around them will continue to benefit my daily life and lead me to fulfilling connections and opportunities.
As a result of this period of reflection I don't have specific goals for the next five years, but I've made a list of actions worth prioritizing to guide my decisions about what comes next.
- Chase joy
- Ask more questions
- Don't fear vulnerability
- Observe and listen
- Build community
- Be generous, be kind
