Most people get ink (tattooed) to identify a specific time or event in their life or a significant aspect of themselves. This can be a simple symbol, words, or a detailed design based on something with meaning. For an English speaker, tattooing using English words isn’t that interesting or creative, so people look for different ways of writing the same word in other languages in the hope of finding something interesting. This is one reason you see many people with Kanji / Hanzi Tattoos. That is … [Read more...]
What do Calligraphy, Handmade Paper and Rejection have in Common?
All artists need to become skilled in accepting the many ways of rejection, from form letters to “we had so many high quality applicants, unfortunately you were not selected etc.” Some offer encouragement which is appreciated. Whatever the reason for not being accepted into an exhibition or a gallery or when there is a likely sale that doesn’t pan out, we should expect that to be the norm but never stop trying to reach as high as possible. Handpapermaking.org is a non-profit organization … [Read more...]
The Beauty of Inefficiency: A story about Traditional Hiragana
Reading handwritten letters from my Grandmother was always a difficult problem for me. Her handwriting looked like scribbling to a teenage girl, and I used to request that my Grandmother write more properly using block-printed letters. It was only when I discovered Kana-Shodo that I understood that her handwriting was not just a scribble but that she was using old traditional Hiragana, a heritage of deep Japanese beauty from the Middle Ages. Hiragana, or ancient traditional Japanese … [Read more...]
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