Lost in Translation
Looking for meanings in words, images and sounds
Guest Photo Challenge: Calligraphy by Meg Davis
Meg
When viewing calligraphy, I have seen the wonder of a drop of dew glistening from a dangling needle, a shower of rock hailing down in a raging thunder, a flock of geese gliding in the sky, frantic beasts stampeding in terror, a phoenix dancing, a startled snake slithering away in fright.
I take on Paula’s request to be guest blogger feeling very honoured.
What theme to settle on? I mind map manically. I scrap ideas. I prioritise.
What I keep coming back to is calligraphy. I think of precision, delicacy, flow. I think of communicating beautifully, of Chinese artists combining calligraphy and paintings, of the elegance of Arabic script. I also think of the calligraphy of nature – the arrangements made by the sea on the beach, the tracks of moth larvae on scribbly gums, the fossilized ripples on a rock face, the leaf skeletons where the veins only are left, tracks in the sand of dog and beach creature, the shadow of ferns on rock. All mark-making with meaning and beauty.
Sun Guoting, in the quotation that begins this post, saw nature in calligraphy. I have seen calligraphy in nature. The challenge for you this week is to represent calligraphy in any way you like. I’m eagerly anticipating your marks on the screen.
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Lost in Translation 
A great theme and i enjoyed your images, Meg
This requires some thought for a response
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I always enjoy your images. I’m eager to see what you come up with.
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Love the way you see calligraphy in nature, Meg. I enjoyed your images. 🙂
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Thank you. The images lack drama, but at the moment I have enough of that as I prepare for a year overseas. Serenity seems a better option!
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What a thought provoking theme Meg, so many ways to translate it. This is what I’ve found. https://memoriesaremadeofthisblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/03/thursday-special-calligraphy/
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I’m not sure how to go about this! I commented on your blog – I’ll see if I can copy it to here. Success!
Calligraphy of crocodile, paintbrush and pen. I knew you’d offer variety in your interpretation. The crocodile calligraphy is calligraphy that must be read!
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Yes and taken notice of. The locals told us a large crocodile lived in the creek and would regularly wander down to the ocean.
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This one had me bamboozled but when I read your interpretation- of course, it makes perfect sense! Ignore my remark on your gorgeous shell post, Meg- it’s obvious you’ve been busy. (but don’t ignore the hugs 🙂 )
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Meg showed us the true meaning of challenge.
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Perfectly 🙂
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Cool challenge – and great pictures to accompany it.
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Thank you. Are you posting anything? Not nagging. Just asking!!!!!
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Thanks for asking. I am still not sure … we’ll see.
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Excellent! I was booked in for a calligraphy course this weekend but it has been cancelled which has upset me no end. Love your post.
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I’d love to see what your creativity made of a calligraphy class. I did a few workshops in Broken Hill and conducted a little long-distance love affair on handmade paper in calligraphy. Probably wasn’t worth it but it gave my creativity an audience!!!
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Oh that sounds good! Your comment has inspired me to find another course. But it doesn’t start til end of May ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ I’m planning to add some hand lettering to some of my photos…
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This is just delightful, Meg. And thought provoking and wonderful. I’ll be back later.
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We learned calligraphy at school, but I haven’t practiced it much.
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I just tried to calligraphy wedding wishes and found I’d forgotten how. After a few workshops twenty years ago I couldn’t pen any other way.
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great interpretation of the calligraphy Meg. lovely images support it.
http://lessywannagohome.blogspot.be/2016/03/thursdays-special-calligraphy.html
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Hello Klara, I’ve replied on your blog.
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Great interpretation for calligraphy! Love these photos!
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Are you posting? Or can you verbalise a calligraphic image? I’d love to hear your thinking.
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I love this reminder of a period in my life – the calligraphy of sound!
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I love your calligraphy in nature. Whether I will have time to find something to do this theme justice remains to be seen, but you have already got me thinking, which is what I enjoy about a photo challenge. Love the first image. So delicate.
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I’m glad you love the first one. I obviously did too, but I thought it might be a bit too quiet to be noticed. If you don’t have time now, post your own post on your own blog at your leisure. That’s what I did with negative space. I hope it’s not a breach of etiquette.
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I have put up a post, quite literal I’m afraid, but I will come back to this later I think.
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Forgot the link! https://smallbluegreenwords.wordpress.com/2016/03/05/a-literal-translation/
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I’ve always loved the minimal yet intricate beauty of calligraphy and its link to nature. And The images you’ve presented here Meg so echo that beauty here with nature now imitating art. Fabulous.
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Thank you for your appreciation. “Minimal yet intricate” is the perfect description, although some of the illuminated manuscripts like the Book of Kells move a bit beyond “minimal”! Somehow calligraphy and haiku seem to go together.
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😄 Indeed. The Book of Kells is like calligraphy on steroids (or more positively put, like Calligraphy injected with the power of the sun. Calligraphy and Haiku do go well together like leaves and the tree that binds them.
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I love your thinking – and the language you clothe it in. Thank you.
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😊 Thank you
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What a story your life is! A real parable for the fearful. Living in Warsaw for a year (I’ll be in the air this time next week) begins to look like a walk in the park!
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Well thank you again! I LOVED Warsaw when I visited there although it was about 15 years ago. I’m certain it has just continued to be awesome. Enjoy
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Here’s my stab at this, Meg. Thanks for the challenge, you and Paula both: http://wp.me/pKVAM-1Lg
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Wonderful response, Tish, but to be honest I did not expect any less from you 😀
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I love it: geology and playfulness. They’re markings such as I haven’t seen before. I’ll opt for the baby giant learning to write, I think – or maybe an early poet dissatisfied with his images, or a prehistoric blogger aiming for smooth prose and finding his aim askew?
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Oh I like the prehistoric blogger, Meg 🙂
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I forgot the link too, Meg, but you found me anyway. 🙂 Popped back to say I just spotted the dolphin in the sand! Quick on the uptake, or what? 🙂
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I like those tracks in the sand. Impressive natural abstracts.
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