Cultural Classes: Calligraphy, Seals, and Knots
Hi all,
During the fourth week of my six-week class, we got to learn some basic calligraphy. Our professor was an older Chinese gentleman who had amazing calligraphy demonstrations in all different styles of characters; he said he’s been painting for over thirty years. We each chose a word to practice and set to work diligently rehearsing every line and stroke on the rubber practice grids using water instead of ink. In Chinese calligraphy, each stroke has a specific order and the firmness of the brush creates different widths and patterns, so even though it may look like just another character to us, a calligrapher can tell if you’ve pressed too hard or wrote it out of order.
In direct contrast to my usual frame of mind, especially when struggling in a handicraft-class, I chose the words: Serenity (left) and Contentment (right). On the left side of the papers I had to write (from top to bottom) the date and my name. The boys took to it right away, but I’ve never had very good hand-writing even in English so I had a few more practice rounds before I used valuable paper and ink. According to my mom, I was inconsolable after receiving a ‘B’ for poor handwriting on a paper in seventh grade because I had spent hours trying to write well; she even had to go to the school and discuss it with my teacher. (I don’t remember this alleged illegibility incident, however.) It’s been a long time since my Colorado College calligraphy class, but it was actually fairly enjoyable once I got into it. 
The next week we completed the calligraphy theme when the same teacher taught us how to carve our own chops (signature seals). If you look at a Chinese painting, it will almost always have a signature followed by a little red square with squiggly characters in it. These squiggly characters are the signature of the painter, but cooler, because they’re carved into stone and used as a stamp.You begin by taking a pencil and tracing the side of the stone which you’re going to carve onto a piece of paper. Then you draw out your design within that space. Before you copy it onto the stone, you have to prepare the stone:
Choose which side you want to carve.
Smooth it out using sand paper, working from the lowest numbered paper up to the highest. Make sure it’s totally level and smooth before continuing.
Paint the side you’re carving red; this will increase the visibility of future cuts and it helps remind you which side you’re actually going to carve.
Once the stone is ready, you can pencil on your design, then copy over it using a black marker so you can see what you’re doing. Then you take the blade and start cutting! Begin with the long, straight sections and try to put consistent pressure throughout. I had trouble with this part; I was just sort of scratching the surface of the design but you can’t just run the blade across it, you have to sort of chip sections of the rock out as you go along. Then if you have any dots or smaller sections, you make little circular motions with the point of the blade to carve those out. I did alright with the circles, but my teacher had to show me how to chip deeper several times.
We were each given a little kit which had two stones, some ink, and a blade in it. I started with the small one and decided since I already have my fake Chinese name on one back home, I’d try to carve out my initials and have an English seal instead. My teacher had to help me out with some of the swivel parts, but the majority of it I actually carved. (It was surprisingly cathartic to chip away at the stone; all you need is pressure and time, that and a big damn poster. Oh, wait, I’ve slipped into The Shawshank Redemption...).Then, for no apparent reason, my teacher gave me a stone with a rabbit on top and the word ‘rabbit’ cut into the side of it (he didn’t give the two guys in the class bunny chops but it was really nice of him and I thought it was cute, so I didn’t complain!). It represents the horoscope year of the rabbit, so it seemed fitting to carve the word ‘longevity’ into it (also, the word in the traditional form is perfectly symmetrical which I really enjoyed). I haven’t carved my third stone just yet.
For our final culture class, we learned how to make Chinese knots with a new teacher from a different school. She started the class by saying that most of the time, men tended to be better at this than women. I don’t know why she mentioned this, but I do know that in our class it was definitely correct. According to my mom, I dropped out of Girl Scouts because I didn’t want to build a bird house, so arts and crafts have never really been my forte (again, I don’t actually remember this; I do remember going to a neon-sign maker's studio and enjoying his explanation of the chemical process which made them glow, but I must have blocked the bird house out of my memory. Basically, my mom could just make up anything and I would believe it because my childhood is apparently a bit of a blur…).
Actual knot-makers tie them all by hand, twisting the strings on their fingers and magically not getting confused about which string goes where; we needed training wheels, however, so we were taught on little pieces of foam to which we affixed our strings using pins. You’re basically trying to weave a tiny red mat so you start with one level of ropes, then thread the string over and under the first pattern, flip it over and do it again with the second string (real knot-makers only use their fingers, we used tweezers).
Finally, tighten the mat by pulling strategically on the
side strings, loop the end of the strings into the little plaque provided by the kit, you do another type of knot to tie it, the tassels, and the beads on. And that’s it!
I didn’t take pictures of each of these steps like in other classes because I was too busy holding back the class by my inability to thread large pieces of string in between other large pieces of string. I pinned it too tight in the first step, so there was no give in the strings which meant I couldn’t see where the top and bottom strings were so I kept missing sections. After about fifteen minutes of struggling, I looked over and noticed that Tek and Paul had been done for like five minutes and were waiting for the next step. Finally I just told the
teacher to carry on without me and then tell me the next step once I got to it (there were only three of us in the class so it’s not like it was a big deal to come back to me). I did eventually make the stupid thing, but each time I missed a loop I got more and more frustrated; working with my hands is definitely not the way forward. 
Still, it makes a nice wall decoration. The big characters on the plaque mean ‘Thankfulness’ and are the same characters used in the word for the Thanksgiving holiday. What I think the little phrase translates to (and correct me if I’m wrong, because I’m not great with calligraphy characters yet) is: Let a sense of affection flow throughout the world; learn humanity to let love flow (like a long river).Well, my summer classes are over, as are my cultural classes, so I’ll find something new to talk about next time. I hope you all are doing well!
Love,
Amanda
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