Calligraphy class offers character, culture lessons

Not far from Microsoft and Nintendo, in a daylight basement along a quiet Redmond street, a sparrow flutters out from the tip of an ink brush. Leaves emerge swiftly on the bamboo around him.

Soon the thicket is complete. And Yoshiyasu Fujii moves on to the next long piece of rice paper. And the next. And the next.

This is how the master calligrapher of the Japanese calligraphy association Meito Shodo-Kai spends his mornings — near the warmth of a kerosene heater, a cabinet of dangling ink brushes by his desk, behind him rows of tomes filled with the work of calligraphers from centuries before.

But come afternoon, Fujii morphs from meditative master to high-energy teacher in a bright, striped shirt. A herd of young students tumbles downstairs in stocking feet and screeches to a halt to bow at the door of his studio.

"Good afternoon!" they sing out in Japanese. They pull out their writing workbooks, find their seats at long tables, and class begins.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of the group Fujii launched with his wife and fellow calligraphy instructor, Naoko, to promote the art and Japanese culture.

With more than 100 members, it appears to be the largest of its kind based in this country, with branch schools in Seattle, Portland and Torrance, Calif., and on the Japanese island of Kyushu. Fujii grew up on Kyushu and began studying calligraphy at age 5 at the recommendation of a teacher who didn't care for his handwriting.

This weekend, members will celebrate at Seattle Center with a free exhibit of their best work, traditional Japanese drumming and calligraphy demonstrations.

A thing of beauty

New students keep joining — as young as five on up to 98. They commute to Fujii's Redmond home from as far as Edmonds, Lopez Island, and even Montana to learn to concentrate, to better understand the cultural history of martial arts, to connect with the culture of their ancestors or simply to take something as basic as writing and transform it into a thing of beauty.

And Fujii, 42, says interest in such arts will endure. Humans are drawn to nature, to traditional ways of doing things, he says. It takes focus and years of practice to be able to wield a brush and yield elegant results, with great satisfaction.

"You have only one try when you create a piece. You cannot erase," Fujii said through a translator.

Shodo is the ancient art of using brush and ink to write pictographic characters called kanji that are used in the Chinese and Japanese languages. Just as English words may be written in print, cursive or italics, calligraphers can write kanji and other scripts in block, cursive, abstract and other styles.

Through the brush strokes, "you can express all different types of emotions. Sadness, joy, all the feelings you feel as a human," Fujii said.

The Fujiis came to Redmond in 1991, when Fujii's teacher came to teach in the United States. And here they've stayed, carrying on the tradition after his teacher's death. Their daughter, Akane, 14, and son, Koshiro, 9, both are avid calligraphers.

Though he makes his living mastering and teaching an ancient art, Fujii is no technophobe. He typically uses a small, spinning machine (albeit a 25-year-old one he won in a contest) to grind his ink. Last May, he painted calligraphy on models at the grand opening of a cosmetics boutique, shu uemura, in San Francisco. He even played a bearded wizard whose brush strokes transform into a stylistic fight scene in a commercial for the Xbox role-playing game Jade Empire.

Tradition and discipline

But during class, it's back to tradition and discipline. And some fun.

The older kids spend the whole session working with ink. But halfway through class, it's time for everyone else to pull out brushes and blotters, plastic containers of ink and paperweights.

"It's the part when you get your hands dirty," said 8-year-old Kana Moriyama of Redmond. Her dark eyes darted from the character she was creating with her brush to another piece of paper where Fujii had inked a sample step-by-step guide. Nearby, his wife praised students' progress.

Yuri Sakamaki, 16, has studied with the Fujiis since the third grade. Now a sophomore at Newport High School, she enjoys sending her award-winning art to relatives in Japan.

"Everyone looks up to him. He really knows how to interact with kids and motivate them," Yuri said.

Sarina Randolph, one of Fujii's adult students, treks from Snohomish to bring her 5-year-old daughter, Ritsuko. It's important for her to learn Japanese culture and writing, she said. And the class sticks with her.

"She likes to pretend to be the sensei [teacher] at home. She makes samples," Randolph said.

Karen Gaudette: 206-515-5618 or kgaudette@seattletimes.com