I‘m currently working on planning a calligraphy event to hold at a Japanese variety shop in Sydney. This particular shop focuses on carrying traditional Japanese goods, making it extremely popular with the locals as well. Some of the best-selling items are the lucky cats (maneki-neko), books in Japanese, and beautiful dinnerware and cups featuring cherry blossom designs. Chopsticks are another classic Japanese item that people love. The shop also carries traditional furoshiki cloths, tenugui hand towels with Japanese patterns, little daruma and kokeshi dolls, and other goods that are quite popular as souvenirs and gifts. They even have matcha-flavored snacks, stationery supplies made with Japanese paper, and other items that are quite charming to the locals.
Everything they have showcases the beauty and warmth of Japan—so just stepping in there makes me feel like I’ve been transported back home.
Talk came up about hosting an event where people could experience calligraphy in that space, so I’ve been talking with the local staff members about the kind of workshop we could put on. We’re still in the planning stage, but I still want to share some of the things I’ve experienced so far.
The target of our upcoming workshop will be the local Sydney residents. This includes people who might be interested in calligraphy or Japanese culture but haven’t had an opportunity like this before, plus anyone who is casually curious or just wants to try it out.
At first, my idea was to make the most of this rare opportunity by giving them a traditional calligraphy experience. But as I talked it out with the staff, many of them said that people were used to seeing black-and-white calligraphy—beautiful characters were nothing new to them. So they weren’t sure that just writing characters would draw much interest.
If anything, people would be more interested in artistic calligraphy that uses color—which is the type I typically do. People were requesting something a little freer. Something where they could express themselves more.
The staff came up with a lot of ideas that sparked creativity—like wanting to create something with colors, wanting to draw pictures in addition to writing characters, and wanting to try writing on materials other than Japanese paper. And since we had planned to make the event a one-day experiential workshop, they had the idea to have people make something that they could take home with them as a memory of the experience. Gradually, our image of the event moved beyond “writing calligraphy” to “creating art”.
The thing that made me happiest was being able to discuss it with the locals and finding out that my idea of having a free, creative calligraphy experience was exactly what they were hoping for.
We still don’t know how we’re going to advertise the event and what kind of response we’re going to get. And we still don’t know what kind of creations the participants will come up with. But stay tuned! I’ll report on all of this in my next post when the event is over.