Sho [Japanese calligraphy] is an art that incorporates time and space with something left over afterward.
-Master Calligrapher Kaneko Otei
Cherry trees are blossoming, and birdsong from the roof of Key Arena swells down the river of cars on First Avenue with the exaltation of spring thaw.
Master Calligrapher Yoshiyasu Fujii's timing is impeccable. At this heady change of seasons, Meito Shodo-Kai, the Japanese calligraphy association of which he is president, is holding an exhibition April 1 and 2 to commemorate its 10th anniversary. The theme of the exhibition at Seattle Center's Olympic Room, "Kinshin - Returning To One's True Self," explores the idea of looking back on one's history and returning to the unclouded purity of one's origins.
"Our first 10 years have been spent building a foundation for the association, expanding membership and gaining more students," Fujii says in Japanese, his words translated by his student and event co-organizer, Iyoko Okano. "Now the time has come to contemplate what we've accomplished and look toward the future with a renewed sense of self."
The Redmond-based Meito Shodo-Kai, which currently has a membership of more than 100 students enrolled in its branch schools in Redmond, Seattle, Portland, Torrance in California and Kyushu, Japan, was the brainchild of Shumpo Akashi, one of the greatest Japanese calligraphy masters of the second half of the 20th century. He came to Seattle in the early '90s and opened Akashi USA, the first accredited calligraphy school in America, with the mission of introducing the traditional Japanese artform to the American public.
After Akashi's death in 1995, the school was at a crossroads. Fujii, who had come to the Seattle area from Japan with his wife, Naoko Fujii, to study and work with the master, decided to continue the mission. He formed Meito Shodo-Kai as a nonprofit in 1996 and went on to open the association's branches, taking on both English- and Japanese-speaking students of all ages. Fujii now splits his time between guest lecturing at Whitman College in Walla Walla and teaching at Meito Shodo-Kai's schools. He also makes bimonthly trips to Japan to teach.
"In an age where everything is supposed to be getting easier with technology," says Fujii, "calligraphy remains very traditional, very disciplined, and very difficult. You have only one chance. You cannot delete or erase."
Using a fine-haired brush, called a fude, on rice paper to depict kanji (pictographic characters and poems used in both the Chinese and Japanese languages), calligraphy, or shodo (way of the brush), has been practiced for more than 2,000 years. In Japan calligraphy classes are mandatory for children through junior high school to promote good penmanship, but continued study after primary school takes the student beyond the discipline of good handwriting and into the realm of fine art and spiritual practice.
A master calligrapher does not simply write characters; he breathes life into them, giving them a vital essence that goes far beyond their literal meaning.
Iyoko Okano studied calligraphy through college but didn't have the time to continue after she started a family. After moving to the States she had the urge to renew her practice in order to feel closer to her native Japan. She was invited by a friend to visit one of Fujii's classes.
"I saw the life he gave his writing and was moved to tears," she says. "I joined the association that very day and have become more and more involved ever since. This exhibition is a real turning point for all of us."
The opening reception April 1 will feature live demonstrations by Fujii and guest Master Calligrapher Shuko Yoshizawa, a live Taiko performance by members of Stanford Taiko and guest speaker Akira Ron Takemoto from the Asian Studies Department at Whitman College. Over the two-day exhibition, more than 100 pieces by Meito Shodo-Kai members will be on display.
Fujii will also be showing a piece in the style of his mentor, Shumpo Akashi, as well as a rinsho - or reinterpretation of a classical piece - of 17th-century Chinese calligrapher Wang-To. Both pieces are representative of Fujii's origins as an artist and will be shown alongside his own current work to illustrate the exhibition's theme:
With renewal comes another possibility to look back at what was, let go, and turn toward the uncertain future an unclouded acceptance of its difficulties as well as its comforts. As we return, so we depart.
[[In-content Ad]]
