Black ink across white paper
It’s the sensation that was familiar, the muscle memory of holding the brush just so between my fingers, of dipping the brush in ink, and the careful touch of black ink to white paper.
But I was nervous, almost doubtful. I could not remember any Japanese words. What was I to write? The brush wanted to write, but I could only make fragments of forgotten words, incomplete expressions, edgy swirls and erratic waves, all of a different script and competing sounds.
Black ink across white paper, knowing I wouldn’t remember the proper way or form, knowing I didn’t want to remember either. Black ink across white paper, I wanted to remember what was familiar to me, and it was the feeling, not the words. I had to remember my own way again, like I did when I first started practicing shodo decades ago.
Start again. Slower. Tangled and chaotic lines came, releasing my wound-up energy.
Start again. Slower still. Circles and spirals came, guiding me in simple movements.
Another day passed. Then another. I was feeling anxious. Resistant even. Can I do what I did decades ago? What if I forgot everything – like perceiving the nuanced movements of the brush as it lowers and rises, glides and lifts; or knowing the flow of black ink across white paper from thick pools to dry swashes. Will I find my way again?
I found a larger piece of black felt to place as cushioning underneath the white paper when writing. I unrolled more of the washi paper, so I wasn’t constrained. I chose another brush, a smaller one I remembered using from long ago.
I took a deep breath, exhaled, and started writing lines.
That was because earlier in the day while reviewing a brochure for a community arts exhibit, I came across this: “Lines, Lines, Lines.”
It was artwork that Sush never intended to be framed as artwork for an exhibit at all, but instead was a practice she developed with others to help them calm and center before doing art. Or just calm and center even if they didn’t do any art. She wrote: “We inhaled and exhaled while making one line. Then we inhaled and exhaled while making the next. And so on.”
And so that’s why I went back to just making lines. I had to return to the beginning, and to calm and center. Lines do that.
First horizontal, then vertical, first one row, then more, then columns.
The more I calmed and centered, the more I loosened up. The more I loosened up, the more I could remember. It wasn’t remembering how as much as it was the memory of how. The memory of how it feels, the sensations and perceptions of knowing without thinking.
Then to feel a progression towards a more expressive writing emerge with new rhythms and visual languages. It was freeing, and so very familiar.
I didn’t have to worry about words. That’s the joy of expressive, experimental writing.
It was only in the past few years did I come across the term ascemic writing, or wordless / meaningless writing. It seems like that’s what I’ve being doing all these years, but I didn’t know I was doing it. I’ve just always called what I do written drawings.
Black ink across white paper, a memory of how it feels, a knowing without thinking. Black ink across white paper, I remembered my own way again, like I did decades ago.
✻
Remembering...
LouLou
“Black ink across white paper” was originally published as an exclusive post to my Ko-fi supporters in April 2023. Now it is public to you, too!
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