The Art of Writing: An Online Conversation
Dear friends of the Endangered Alphabets, and of the written word:
Now that
my current Kickstarter campaign has been successful, I plan to write a book about a fascinating and paradoxical phenomenon taking place all over the world.
Just when we in the West are abandoning the art of handwriting or delegating writing altogether to AI, a number of minority cultures around the world are doing exactly the opposite–reconnecting with their pasts and their identities by teaching calligraphy in their traditional scripts. In Nepal, in the Philippines, in Bali, in China, in Mongolia, people are relearning the art of writing by hand. Do they know something important we don’t? And what is the future of the written word?
There’s a ton to discuss here, and as usual I assume I’m surrounded by people who know more than I do. With that in mind, I’m organizing an online discussion of the subject at noon EST on Sunday, November 10th, and in fact every other Sunday, for 90 minutes. I have a series of questions in mind, and I suppose I’ll have to limit discussion of each, and then I’ll throw the conversation open for free-for-all.
In particular I’m inviting calligraphers to join in, because calligraphers think about writing as something other than a means to an end (or, as linguists like to say, just a way to represent speech). Calligraphy gives active and serious consideration to aspects of writing most of us never consider at all, in fact. The texture of writing, the shape of writing, the rhythm of writing, the depth and thickness of writing, the traditions and aesthetics of writing, and, perhaps most interesting of all, the effect of the act of writing upon the writer, body and spirit.
The relationship between letter and white space. The role of color. The relationship between shapes of letterforms and shapes in the natural world, or the geometrical world. Degree of slope. Stroke weight. Whether the beauty of a curve is more or less important than the conventional shape of a letter. And the drama of writing, the energy expressed in the stroke. Miyamoto Musashi, a 17th century samurai/philosopher/calligrapher, wrote “The brush is the sword of the mind.”
For our next meeting, I want to throw out a challenge–a fun challenge, but nonetheless…. I want you to bring, show, and talk about one of your favorite pieces of work by one of your favorite calligraphers, alive or dead, Latin script or non-Latin. I would like to develop some ideas, some perspectives, some vocabulary, some range.
Note: This zoom will be recorded, but the video will not be made public. It’s strictly so all your interesting ideas and stories don’t get lost. The video will be transcribed, and if you would like a copy of the transcription, sign up for the Endangered Alphabets mailing list on this website and I’ll email it to you.
The Zoom free registration link is HERE.
Questions?
Tim
Resources
Here are some Instagram accounts you may find interesting. Please suggest others!
Beachscriber (Andrew van der Merwe)
The Making of Ink, traditional style
Annual contest in which people submit creative designs based on letters of the Sinhala or Tamil scripts.
Animal calligrams
Calligraphy and typography expring the Kannada script of south-western India.
John Stevens
