A Place To Flourish: Flourish Friday - Ornamental Fraktur Calligraphy

A Place To Flourish: Flourish Friday - Ornamental Fraktur Calligraphy

The center of the world

Vũ Thi Phim, self-taught Hanoi calligrapher. 

Travel is good for you.  It broadens your world, and reminds you that you are not the hub of the universe.

In this picture, I have just met Vũ Thi Phim, a calligrapher in Hanoi who hand-draws her own special style of letters shaped like characters.  Look behind us to be reminded about how the Vietnamese prefer to see their world; the Americas are off to the right of the uninterrupted Pacific, while Asia is on the left near the center.  This is just the opposite of the usual configuration in the West. 

American and European maps split the world at the Bering Strait, group the continents around the Atlantic, place Europe at the center, and minimize the size of the Pacific.

When I was very young, world maps were even more obviously America-centric: they put our country at the center and divided Asia into two.  Even then, I couldn't make it make sense.

USA at the center of the world, cutting Asia in two. 

A visit to master calligrapher Minh Đức Triều Tâm Ảnh, at his pagoda

Based on short syllables, the Vietnamese language, like Chinese, lends itself easily to comfortable layout on vertical pillars, left below, or on horizontal lintels--the natural wood slab here is a favorite format. 

On my recent trip to Vietnam, I was fortunate to visit Minh Đức Triều Tâm Ảnh, a calligrapher who contributed his work to my book Learn World Calligraphy.  I had written to him using paper and ink, more than a year ago, and had then exchanged email arrangements with one of his students, Tran, who offered to act as translator plus take me to Minh Đức's remote pagoda on his moped.

The 40-minute trek took us over some very muddy, bumpy roads, but the effort was repaid by the absolute beauty and tranquility of the grounds and buildings.  Many hand-lettered signs in the Thu Phap style blended brush techniques with Roman letters--a unique Vietnamese specialty and the reason I'm so interested in the style.  It looks like he was one of its first practitioners, or at least one of its earliest exhibitors, in the Hue Festival 1985. 

Minh Đức spent several hours with me, and sent me off to a simple lunch [the monks' single daily meal] at 11:00.  I'm hoping to follow up on his generous invitation to come back for longer next year.