The title of this post, and the long, inspiring quote below belong to Denis Brown, the sharpest calligrapher I know. He has smartly put into words the importance of practice, time and passion – in his case in calligraphy, but it can be applied to any practice. Enjoy, and after reading , do visit his site!
“Challenge yourself every day to achieve what you could not do yesterday. This takes commitment & time. Avoid complacency!
Only then might you understand. I have greatest respect for the maturity and life experience of my students, who are still generally older than me and have raised families etc. Their experience gives them enviable wisdom, although it also seems to deny most of the raw passion to take calligraphy farther. Hence complacency in the field, given the sad fact almost no younger people with more energy and more commitment (even if less wisdom) are coming in to complement and challenge the wisdom of mature practitioners. So, I challenge you- all of you- to find a way to communicate your passion to a teenager strongly and effectively enough for them to catch the bug… and carry a torch to change the world of calligraphy just as the world is always changing. This would seem to me a more worthwhile pursuit than t aspire to make a perfect “o”…. Take on that challenge … and give it tine- it may make all the difference…”
