petals on water: studyo agackakan

The dew on the iron railing of the balcony is frozen solid. The whole balcony is coated in powdery white. Sun shines over the whole scene, reflecting and breaking, and then finally reaching in through the windows, illuminating the darkest corners of the house. Some of the frozen dew is melting, hitting the metal gutters with a cheery plink, plink, plink. Each drops catches the light for a moment, shining brighter than any diamond could. It lasts for only a single fleeting moment in the air. Then, it hits the gutter with another plink and continues its journey underground.

In Istanbul, there is an old Ottoman pavilion in the middle of the city, called Ihlamur Kasrı (Linden Pavilion). It is only half hidden from the casual stroller by tall fences and old trees. Some of the trees are pastel pink magnolia trees, arranged around a reflection pond. The flower petals get caught in the breeze, fluttering past and landing on the surface of the undisturbed lake.

That was what this pen blank reminded me of when I first saw it.

Petals on a calm lake.

Of course I fell in love with it quite quickly.

This pen was turned by the lovely people from Studyo Agackakan. I spent some time over at their table at the last year’s Dutch Pen Show. I couldn’t decide between this pen or the one in a similar shape in the Erinoid cellulose acetate Bastille. That one reminded me of burning roses, a fiery, romantic blank, rather fitting the name.

I later learned that this one was called Sea Dream (Erinoid too). Which is also fitting, we can also dream that the sea will be as calm as a lake with flower petals floating on it. It is also fitting, I dream about the sea often.

It is a beautiful blank with wisps of white and cream over a dark blue background. Some parts are almost completely transparent, letting a peek through to the depths of the blank or a sliver of converter. It’s complex, layered and a bit unexpected.

This pen is turned this lovely blank into a wonderfully comfortable, lightweight pen. Section is mid-sized with a sweeping curve that gives a little ridge to put your fingers on. The cap’s end is rounded in a cigar shape, and the pen body’s end is elongated into a torpedo shape. This asymmetry ties the looks of the pen together nicely. In their website, the pens with a similar shape is listed under WPC1, so I’m going to assume this one’s shape is that too.

“Agackakan” means woodpecker in Turkish, so there is an engraving of a woodpecker on the nib. The pen takes #6 JOWO nibs, and this one is a wide, wet fine. I don’t know if they tune the nibs before the pens leave the workshop, but this one is much wetter and smoother than other JOWO fine nibs I have. I like it, even though it doesn’t show much shading in inks, it shows sheen well. Currently it’s inked with Pilot Iroshizuku Ku-jaku.

I managed to catch the sunset over the ocean today, so my sea dreams did come true. I had a bit of a trouble with this pen at first, because the nib somehow became loose and it was behaving strangely, drying too quickly. Once that was fixed, it became quite an enjoyable pen. Perhaps I’ll get the nib ground down to something a little fun, it feels unwieldy to have a large line width on a mid-sized pen. It seems like my BB nibs are limited to tiny pens…

Thank you for reading!

Spotify link for a song.