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Not About Calligraphy非關書法
We come to this from the calligraphy side of the table. Brush, ink and paper are what we work with every day. Yet the longer we write, the more we notice everything that surrounds the writing: why one ink holds while another runs, why one sheet drinks the brush and another lets it glide, how a crumpled practice sheet becomes something you would want to hang on a wall.
Those questions led us into mounting, dyeing, sizing and burnishing, crafts that have their own masters and their own centuries of know-how. We are newcomers to them. The works you see here are honest beginners' attempts. Some edges are not quite straight, some colours did not hold, and some sheets still show a wrinkle or two. We decided to show them anyway, because this is where we are right now, and every mistake on these walls taught us something.
Nothing here is meant as a lesson from experts. It is what a few calligraphers found while looking a little beyond the characters, gathered into 12 stations. Each one sets out the materials and tools next to the works made with them, along with a short note on what we tried. We think these old, simple techniques are worth knowing whatever you make, whether you write Sino calligraphy or Vietnamese Latin-script calligraphy, or work in painting, printmaking, bookbinding, design, or something else entirely. Take whatever is useful.
Most of all, we hope you leave paying a little more attention to the small things: the ink, the paper, the glue, the edge of a sheet. They are easy to overlook, whether or not you have noticed them before, and yet they quietly shape everything that ends up on the wall.
And if you would like to talk it over, come and find us at the tea table.
– Brushie Talkie
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126 Đường Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai, Phường Võ Thị Sáu, Quận 3, Hồ Chí Minh, Việt Nam, 126 Đường Nguyễn Thị Minh Khai, Phường Võ Thị Sáu, Quận 3, Hồ Chí Minh, Việt Nam, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
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