Whiteboards across campus have curly lines and feather-like strokes, culminating into elegantly shaped letters nestled neatly into their corners. However, these delicate strokes were not created by a student, but by campus control assistant and wrestling coach George Mares.
Mares’s lettering is done in the traditional approach of cursive rather than the modern approach, leaving his scripts in the style of historical documents with a focus on elegance over experimentation. He began learning calligraphy in third grade, finding inspiration from the graffiti on walls around his neighborhood.
“A lot of the stuff was on the walls,” Mares said. “I saw those kinds of writing, and so I started copying that and just kept up with it. It wasn’t great at first. It was all self-taught.”
Mares often uses his skills to help his family and friends, from wedding invitations to ornaments and birthday cards. Mares said, his calligraphy allows him to express the creative side of himself that many can overlook at first glance.
“At first, people didn’t believe me because when you see a big guy like me, they don’t expect me to write like — they say like a girl,’” Mares said. “I always got that it was either I wrote like a girl or I was in jail. But I wasn’t in jail, I just write very nice.”
For students, Mares’ lettering beautifies classrooms across campus, providing a way to connect with him and start conversation, according to junior Anaika Nagireddy.
“I feel like the way he writes is very elegant and graceful and it kind of shows a different side to his personality,” Nagireddy said. “He kind of comes off as really serious sometimes, but it just shows that he has a soft side too.”
Mares often enters classrooms to interact with students and teachers by writing out their names in calligraphy. Students are frequently surprised by his talent, according to campus control assistant Jessica Torres.
“He goes and he walks in, then he gets the marker and all the students are like, ‘What is he doing?’ When he’s done, all the students are really shocked about how beautiful the writing is,” Torres said. “He’s like, ‘Yeah, I did that.’ He’s very excited. He’s very proud of his work.”
Calligraphy serves as an outlet for Mares’s stress, a way for him to decompress and unwind with the stylus on his iPad or his oblique pen on paper. In the future, Mares said he hopes to turn his lettering hobby into a business and help with graduations or birthdays.
“You guys can always ask me questions about it, and I don’t mind showing you guys either,” Mares said. “Now I can say that I perfected this, but I always judge myself on how it looks, like I know I could do better. I’m always learning there’s always something to learn about it.”
