Vanessa Langton

We have the great honor of chatting with Vanessa Langton of Pen Gangsta on Youtube about her life as a fountain pen lover.

Read a transcript of the interview below:

Do I have a problem with feathers? I don't see a problem here, do you?

HOW DID YOU DISCOVER THE WORLD OF FOUNTAIN PENS?

It's an interesting question I've always loved drawing and using pencils and pens and it was really at a time when I was drawing using pen and ink and I was using a dip pen in India ink and I was getting really irritated with having to constantly wet my pen to re-ink the nib and so I thought to myself like, isn't there like a pen out there that has continuous flow ink? Wouldn't it make more sense to draw with something like that? And that's when I fell for it. And I ended up buying a Pilot metropolitan and that's how I fell for it and I fell in love with the whole inking process and with how smooth the nib wrote on the paper it was great it was so great.

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE BRANDS?

here are so many brands of fountain pens that I love. I love all the brands, I love Esterbrook, I love their oversized sd's. I love Aurora.

I love Aurora, I love Goia which is a relatively new brand but I love them so much, I love it, I love them all, how can you ask me to name all these brands of pens that I love?

I have so many that I love it's really hard it's like choosing one of your children and...I love them all, I really do. I have so many happy memories with my pens.

THE PERFECT EVERYDAY PEN IS…

For me, the perfect everyday pen is something that's light, that has a continuous flow of ink, that never has hard starts, I mean you can store it upright and you take that pen and you uncap it or whatever you do with it and you put that pen in position and it writes automatically and you know what brand does it, Pelikan. Always.

WHAT IS THE FEATHER OF YOUR DREAM?

My dream pen: there are two pens that I dream of having and that I would love to have. The first one is from S.T. Dupont which would be the one from paris with love and the one I'm talking about, it comes in a set like, in this beautiful dome case with a wooden bottom and the pen is there in the center and it looks like a Parisian building and then in addition to that there's a matching lighter and it also looks like a Parisian building and then it has it has a little backdrop behind it and it lights up. I can't afford it, it's like a lot of money, it's like four thousand dollars or something.

The other pen that I often dream about that I would love to have in my collection is a Taccia pen, it just came out not too long ago, the Winter Breath. I don't remember the full name, I know it's horrible being my dream pen and I don't remember its full name but I love it dearly.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT THE PEN WORLD?

What I like most about the fountain pen community is that, from what I've experienced, the people who are really into fountain pens, are very passionate about it. It seems to me that they have the same mental disorder as I do, whereas they think about pens all the time. They think about pens while they eat, while they work, while they do anything. I dream about pens, I love pens and I love to see the enthusiasm with others who are really into this fountain pen world and it's a weird leisure if you think about it, these are instruments that we used to write with and be really into this stuff. But I also find that people in the fountain pen community are generally very dedicated, kind, enthusiastic about other people's collections and look at how you write each piece with curiosity.

I love that, I've met some amazing people in this community and I feel very fortunate for the connections I've made. It is truly amazing. I just sold several fountain pens trying to decrease the size of my collection a bit.

Let's take a tour of my fountain pens! Here are the pens I keep in the box. Here are all my Pelikan, my Pineider collection, my Leonardo, more Leonardo, here are a couple of Santini pens, some Waldmann, my Montegrappa, those are all the Montegrappas I have, these are my Conklin and my Monteverde pens. In fact, I have more Conklin's back here. There's my Esterbrook collection and Benu pens, Ottohutt, and some Diplomat. This is my Goia collection, and a couple of Lamy and my Kilk pens. Here is my Visconti collection, these are the Van Gogh's I have so far, here is the Homo Sapiens and the Divina. These are my Parkers. Over here I have the Platinum collection, my custom Twsbi and Karas, and also pens from Y Studio, Recife, Narwhal.... Yes, I have Narwhal next to my Twsbi's, what's up. These are my marker pens, which come from independent creators, my one Edison pen, here's my Aurora Clash and I have a couple of Scribo and my one Montblanc. I have the Esterbrook Candy, oh yeah...it's very sweet. My one Sailor pen and also the Waterman, two Pilot, I have Diplomat which is very nice, another Kilk and another Waldmann. I just added the Stingray Griffin, it's very cool.

So...yeah, I mean, I think I have a problem I don't know, I love fountain pens. The funny thing is that Iguana Sell asked me to answer these questions which I didn't mind because I love the opportunity to talk as long as it's about fountain pens and the funny thing is I didn't even know they knew I existed and I appreciate that..