As you may know, some of my Tibetan carvings are based on the calligraphy of Tashi Mannox, and whenever one of them is bought I contribute 20% of the profits to Rokpa International, an NGO that cares for sick, homeless and orphaned children in the Himalayas. Here’s the latest bulletin from Rokpa on the earthquake […]
My amazing students at Champlain College are once more breaking new ground in support of education for indigenous children in Bangladesh. In addition to publishing school materials in the endangered alphabets of Marma, Mro, and Chakma, they are working to compile the first-ever anthology of stories from the Marma people–stories collected by the children themselves […]
As I was saying in Part I of this extremely short series of posts about Our Golden Hour, on Sunday morning I met with Maung Nyeu (the founder of this wonderful non-profit) at Algiers Cafe on Brattle Street in Cambridge. I handed over the materials created by some of my students in the Champlain College […]
Quite quietly, in the upper room of Algiers Cafe on Brattle Street in Cambridge, an extraordinary seasonal gift exchange took place yesterday morning. I was meeting with my friend, colleague, and collaborator Maung Nyeu, founder of the amazing non-profit organization Our Golden Hour, which aims to provide mother-tongue education for indigenous children in the Chittagong […]
September is always the busiest month for the Alphabets, and the rush began this past weekend with the first of three major public appearances: in the Sterling Hardwoods wood shop on Pine Street as part of the South End Art Hop in Burlington, Vermont. (For the other two events, see the end of this article.) […]
I learn all kinds of things by carving the Alphabets—about various cultures, about writing itself, about spirituality, about physics, about the history of technology. Nothing prepared me, though, for cumaru. A couple of weeks ago I got a commission to carve the chant “Om Mani Padme Hum” in Tibetan, as articulated by the calligrapher Tashi […]
Ever since starting work on the Endangered Alphabets five years ago, I’ve been fascinated by the complicated and often mysterious relationship between a language (written or spoken) and the culture that developed it. But I’ve never had such a potent, vivid and moving illustration of that relationship as I had by watching the Philadelphia Orchestra […]
Phew! Thanks to generous support from several of you and a week of carving, painting, and finishing, eight pieces of maple, 6″x6″, are on their way to my friend Maung in Cambridge, and then with him to the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh. Each is to be mounted on the door of a classroom in […]
Article just out in JMAG, the teen magazine of the Dhaka Tribune. Find it by clicking HERE.
Just out for International Mother Language Day, a fine article on our friend, collaborator and team partner Maung Nyeu. Maung and I will be presenting on our work for the indigenous children of the Chittagong Hill Tracts this coming Friday, February 28th, at Harvard. If you’re in the area, contact me or just come by! […]
