Mundane practice…
An essay…
A month ago I saw a post from a calligraphy artist I follow that inspired me. His name is Nikheel Aphale, from Bangalore, India. His work is a beautiful interplay of letterforms. His main subject is the Devengari script as art. If you visit his site, you can see the beauty of his work. It is really captivating. One would assume that my inspiration came from one of the most fabulous calligraphic pieces. While it is true that his work is completely breathtaking, it was a simple exercise he did in college that got my attention. I could not find it on Instagram to link it here. The exercise consisted on filling a page with one letter in one type of script. The facing page would be a composition with that same letter and script. I was sold.
While I was living in Indiana, I took calligraphy classes with Clint Voris. We would meet, and practice, and practice, and practice some more. His method was to assign large sheets of practice. No bang or beautiful compositions. Just practice. In fact, he used to say that the practice of calligraphy was the most boring and tedious thing to do. At the time I did not totally understand the value of something that seemed mundane to me. I was eager to do big things and jump into bigger challenges. I was not ready and I did not see that then.
Eventually I came across the work of Caroline Kelso, now cofounder of Wandering Aimfully. Back in 2014 she had created a simple course to teach basic and simple lettering. It sold for $20.00 and it consisted of five short lessons. It was then that I realized I knew much less than I thought about calligraphy and lettering. Then, my daily practice began. I learned the seven or six basic strokes that made the letters in cursive, the concept of pressure and release, and the value of repetitive practice. Sometimes I would fill pages with one stroke and the weird thing? I loved it. The mundane became sublime.
When I saw Nikheel’s post I became captivated by it. Got myself a mixed media sketchbook and started. Though I have done this exercise regularly, I have had to pause some days in order to do fulfill other projects. Tomorrow I will do the letter T either in lower or uppercase. Not every practice has been meticulous. Sometimes I rush too much or I am not as attentive to the exactitude the letters need to have. Though I remain committed to finish the alphabet. Below are photos of the work so far.
I love repetitive practice. It is meditative and helps with concentration. But what is more significant is that the secret to any great work is found in the mundane and simple consistent practice of that which we want to master. Be it a throw, a step, a letter, a style, and any desired goal. The road to mastery is routine, the day to day where there is no glamour. And now I embrace it. The other day while on a meeting I found myself making lines from edge to edge of the page as straight as I could. Once I caught on what I was doing, I found it glorious.
The current project I am working on for (Symbiosis V) The Art of Letters has both excited me and humbled me. There are things that have been easy to do and others that have been very hard. Thus, I do not think I am a master of the art of calligraphy at all. There are so many calligraphers who are truly masterful. But one night in my design class, I was demonstrating organic lines to a student in a small group. They gasped. My ego was inflated. Then, they asked what pen I was using. And one of my students said: “No man, that is not the pen. There is no pen that can do that. That is hours and hours or practice to make it look that way.” Yeah, my ego was stroked nicely and I was very grateful to that student for recognizing that. It made me feel valued.
Next day? Back to my daily and mundane practice. Because resting on those moments does not offer mastery. Practice however, does.
Love,
Alma
You are the reason for my love of typography, your classes fascinated me.
I need to pick up a pen and paper again. 🖤🙌🏻