URBAN ART : Romancing the Tome

Before the printing press, literacy was rare, and scribes were just about the only people who could put pen to paper and come up with anything but a doodle. So they took pride in their work, turning a Bible passage or a royal decree into colored, gilded works of art. But now, their works survive mainly in museums and memory.

Skip to Los Angeles. It’s five centuries past Gutenberg. Everywhere, pixels seem ready to replace paper. Everywhere but Jeff Cane’s studio.

Cane, a transported Brit, is L.A.’s self-proclaimed scribe. Inspired by the illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages, Cane transforms his clients’ letters, poetry and documents into beautiful and authentically old-looking works of opulence. A single illuminated page with ribbons, raised leaf letters and a wax seal, placed by hand on parchment, goes for about $300.

His company, An Englishman in L.A., has drawn several hundred clients, including Oprah Winfrey, Aaron Spelling, Leeza Gibbons and Mickey Rourke, who sold his Cane-reproduced poetry at auction.

“What I do is something from the past that conjures up gallantry, knights on white horses, chivalry and romance,” Cane says. “I am finding Los Angeles--contrary to popular belief--to be a city of very romantic people.”