 So, one question we have is about the perception of calligraphy in your respective traditions or cultures, and also in your own family, wondering many of you, you know, you all kind of were interested in the art form at a young age, and I'm curious as to how that was seen by your family, especially in a time now where a lot of what we were occupied, preoccupied by economic concerns. My parents, there's no way I was going to be an artist. Six children, none of us were going to be artists, but three of us ended up being artists. Two lettering artists. My older brother is a sign painter. My older sister is an architect, which I probably would have been drawn to instead of lettering. Had it not been for a competitive atmosphere, and she had architecture. And within the family, when I got to the White House, my father still said, you're still going to do calligraphy? So, that's the family part, but yet they all appreciate it. So, I'll stick with the family part and get into cultural after you guys answer your family influences. Yeah, from my family, it's probably common. Art is usually just something you do in kindergarten, and when math comes in second, third grade, it's like, all right, slowly start to fade that art away. And, you know, I sucked that math, right? So, I had to give up the art, you know? But, you know, I lived in back of a railroad track area, and they had these great walls that were just begging to get vandalized. So, you know, that's where I got my, you know, graffiti, right? You know, using, you know, homemade tools of shoe polish and, you know, so that's kind of like where it was, is, you know, honestly, vandalism. I remember, you know, taking calligraphy too, you know, in high school, got a D, you know, because I couldn't sing the lines, you know, things like that. But eventually, you know, in terms of the family, it's probably just recent until I started making money, and I've got my very first piece of, oh, okay, you know, it's not a lot. I'm not going to be a millionaire, you know, hopefully. But as soon as I started to have that, you know, economic value, right? And then, you know, the cultural stuff, you know, that will come, but, you know, especially with, you know, my father, you know, is like, all right, you know, it's good to hobby, you know, good, but concentrate on, you know, your day job and all of that. But as soon as, you know, all right, you know, traveling a bit and, you know, starting to get some, and my mother, you know, started to get some press or something like that, then all right, they kind of turn around. So now they're one of my biggest supporters. Yeah, I'm very lucky that I'm coming from artist kind of family, and they all supported me. My dad is a manager or was a manager of the huge company. So he was very left-brained person, and my mom is a poet and artist. So she has a very bright brain. So I think growing up in that family, I tried to make a balance, and I'm really fortunate that I can apply both, you know, kind of management skills and artistic skills in my life. But in terms of calligraphy, I think, as I was saying in the film, calligraphy is really part of the, you know, Iranian society. You learn it at school when you're a kid. You learn it at after-school classes. There's a huge Iranian association of calligraphers that teaches calligraphy in a very classical way, and you have to go through classes and train with a master. And, you know, you can obtain certificates at each point to become a master. And I've heard that there are just two schools of calligraphy in the world that are teaching classical Islamic calligraphy in this way, and one is in Iran and one is in Turkey. So I was really, you know, fortunate to be able to get exposed to those masters and learn from them. And many of families have a couple of people who are, you know, learning calligraphy, at least, or loving calligraphy, and you will see calligraphy in many people's, as a decorating art. So I think they consider calligraphy as really art rather than, you know, a craft or something that is dealt with just technicality, but it's really, you know, a regarded art. Thank you. And then in terms of cultural perceptions, I know that, you know, in this country I think calligraphy can be associated with like, you know, wedding invitations growing up, you know, this kind of invitation type of thing. But then also, Christian, in your case, there was also sort of an excavation that you had to do culturally to sort of bring something to the forefront. So could you both talk a little bit about the perceptions that you've worked with and against in your practice? Yeah. Well, I think it's interesting to hear Arash say that calligraphy is taught in the schools in Iran still to this day. It was when I graduated from high school in 1979, calligraphy was considered a mandatory course in anybody who wanted to study commercial art in college, and those days are totally gone. Calligraphy, when I started professionally, there were three studios in Washington, D.C. It employed anywhere, four or five calligraphers, 40 hours a week filling in certificates and diplomas and resolutions. All those studios are gone. So culturally, through the digital age, we've seen a lot of this work change, a lot of it go away, but it's opened up doors for this stuff that Charles Pierce and Thomas Ingmeyer and this modern expressionist movement of calligraphy. So I think it's broadened its usage in the United States through that, but it's not taught formally at all. It was interesting to see that that's a nice part of the curriculum. And Christian, it was interesting to see. I want to make sure I get this clear. You mentioned in your presentation that young people could read your language, which is an otherwise obsolete language that had gone the way of history. How did that happen? It happened because usually when the internet age came out, a flow of information, and this goes along with the perception that you have this symbol, and I would have to say it came out of the tattoo culture. If you want to have something permanently on your body, you're going to make sure it's damn right. Because we've all seen, oh, that's supposed to say strength, but it says chicken fight rice just for a tattoo artist. So that forced people, Filipinos, to actually learn the very basics. And we kind of know the basics of language, strength, love, and all of those. And so they would recognize it. And in terms of the perception, it mirrors the Filipino American or Filipino experience where I was talking about as a kid going through this identity crisis because the Philippines is a melting pot. We have Filipinos who look white, have blonde hair, blue eyes. We have them that are black, that look Middle Eastern Indian. And so the question, we would guess, what are you? And that is also what happens with our writing system. I've had folks say, is that terrorist writing? It has happened, and that was just last year. And it's before this whole Trump thing. Because they associate things with culture, with writing. And if your culture is unknown, then your writing is unknown. So we have, myself and my peers, we have a lot of education that has to happen. But then we have to educate ourselves, educate our peers, and then try and figure out how to best perpetuate that and create systems and foundations for the next generation to do it. And that is the challenge and the opportunity there. Has the work that's happened in Diaspora influenced what's happening in the Philippines in terms of either the revival of the language or the preservation? Oh yeah, definitely. Usually, because we have a strong colonial mindset. So whatever happens in America, it starts off in America and then it makes its way back to the Philippines. But then now, since sometimes there is almost a separation, some static between who are you, you're appropriating your culture, even though you don't speak the language, you're rich, you live in San Francisco, and we live here, we are the true Filipinos. So it happens, it's happening with the tattoo traditions as well. So any cultural traditions. There's the dancing while the perception is that you're rich Americans and then you're appropriating our culture while we're living in poverty. And so that is another challenge there. But it does get a lot of interest because we have the privilege to do our cultural practice and also innovate and all these things, but it does make its way back home. And I intentionally, while we practice this writing or this culture, we have to support the others, otherwise we'd be hypocrites. There's one tribe left in the Philippines, so if we don't help them preserve it, then who are we to say that, yeah, enjoy this writing system while we're not economically taking care of the folks back home? Rosh, maybe because there's a lot more support in Iran for calligraphy, it seems that an associated challenge is maybe in innovation or modernizing or kind of taking it outside of maybe a traditional practice. Can you talk a little bit about ways that you've seen the tradition specifically coming from Iran change or develop? Yeah, very good question. So I think probably from 200 years ago when the way of modern publicizing or publishing introduced to Iran from Europe, I think calligraphers understood that their career is either going to die or they have to either compete with modern techniques and publishing techniques or they have to find new ways of continuing their art and their career. So I think from that point calligraphy in Iran or many of the probably middle eastern societies turned into art. So being a very highly respected art form rather than something that you use just for the function of writing and legal documents or official documents or those kind of things or just copying books. And then this was kept alive till probably 10, 15 years ago. So people would go through traditional and classic training and they would really respect that training and would try to keep the calligraphy script that they would learn and try to not changing it at all or adding a little bit of flavor to it. Sometimes when you compare many of the master's pieces, you might not understand much of the difference unless you are a professional artist or calligrapher or understand calligraphy. So many of them might look like the same because they're following the similar tradition and they are not supposed to change it, but they add a little bit of flavor or signature to it. But then 15, 20 years ago, again another modern movement, an internet and western art, abstract art, and then calligraphy faced another challenge which was either to continue as traditional art and you would lose your younger audiences or even western audiences or you could combine it probably with the modern art. So another type of style kind of born and it is the combination of painting and calligraphy and it is the usage of painting techniques and visual art techniques and calligraphy and many of them are becoming many where abstract that you can't even read the text and it's just the abstract artwork but it has writing as a foundation in a way which is taking off in auctions around the world and some of them are being sold millions of dollars and it's, yeah, yeah. So it seems there is an interest in the kind of modernization of the traditional calligraphy but it's still the traditional calligraphy I guess has its own values. You've all talked a little bit about the effect of the digital age on your work and I'd like you maybe to say a little bit more about how you see the practice evolving further. I mean the digital world, this age we live in has seemed to broaden your audiences and brought you inspiration but it's also an age in which younger people less and less are even writing by hand and communicating by emojis, right? So where do you see things going from here? Well, we ponder this on a regular basis. I think today, you could ask me tomorrow, today I think the craft is dying. I think that's where the answer is. The art is advancing and we argue it's calligraphy and art or a craft. I don't know if you do this in your cultures for us. It seems to be a topic of conversation that has been for years and it's both, there's no doubt about that and my part, I tend to gravitate as you saw from my influences more at the craft end. There's not a lot of innovation. There's clean, solid work is what we're looking for. To be a good artist you need to have craft. You need to have knowledge of your tools and your mediums and such but legibility is much less important and I think on the high end of abstract art, craft is an important part of it but what I see on the internet and what I see unfortunately coming out of a lot of modern calligraphy is not enough instruction of unfortunately for some, for many, you have to go back to that Roman alphabet. You can look at Thomas Ingmar's most modern work and it is absolutely derived from, you know it's like rock and roll is derived from classic music. It all perpetuates and moves forward and today I note that about 40 to 50% of the work in our periodicals is illegible. You can't read it but that's the design. It's working with letters and that's just where it's gone. So how we as artists individually embrace that is an individual choice. I want to ask you a follow-up question. So on Instagram I see a lot of, say, I know in the Philippines calligraphy from a Roman alphabet perspective is quite popular in terms of, I don't know if it's, is it, I'm noticing it's almost like, I don't want to say fad but something akin to getting vinyl records where I know that we'll have a calligraphy party for so-and-so's wedding and then they'll buy some stuff at Dick Blix, the calligraphy pens and I've noticed that, I mean has, do you notice any of those groups ever like digging deeper into, you know, what you've mentioned or do they maybe tend to stay within, you know, this, you know, glitter calligraphy? There is crossover and my background comes from a strong guild tradition and I think all the guilds in the United States have, most of them are 40 years old or so or newer and most of the founding people and the influential people in these guilds I think fortunately draw from a traditional perspective and keep that growth. It is the influence of Instagram and Tumblr and all those that there's just a lot of stuff out there that people can get their hands. It's dangerous when a non-calligrapher gets a tool in their hand and makes letters and they're terrible from somebody who's studied their whole life yet their reaction to the digital age, their reaction to real tight digital type so if it's got a lot of loops on it and it's a little bumpy and a little squiggly, it's okay and I think for those who study calligraphy it's not okay but, you know, it's judgmental, right? Yeah, I wanted to add one small thing about Rick's point about craft dying and I think it's kind of, it's the question of not just craft and art but, you know, traditional art versus the modern art and I think the traditional art is kind of fading away or the craft not just because of the tools or modern age technology but it's more affected by our lifestyles and the way we are living so when you're practicing a traditional art, it's not just the art or the craft that you're making it's the whole process of becoming someone else it's the journey of your lifetime becoming kind of one with your craft and with the message you're conveying and most of the time you have to, you know, study with an apprentice go through an apprenticeship journey with someone with a master who teaches you not just the art but the art of living, the art of being a human being the ethics, you know, it's just the whole journey our modern life just took all of that away from us there's no time for any of that you have to, you know, boom, boom, boom, create artwork, you know, go to the exhibitions sell the art for the economic value so I don't know if there is any solution to that at some point maybe people will look back and see there were so many values in that and appreciate that but I don't know, maybe we are at the age of that I think within my context of digital age I would say I started out digital I mean, always writing pen and paper or sharpies but I really got out there because of the internet and so it was around 2007 so I had the first website specifically around this and so it's kind of like, alright, I can do whatever I want because whoever has the most hits and whoever shows up on the first three on Google you're the one, right? so I had that opportunity and with the two other folks that I worked with I mean, we really had the vision of creating this organization and we did it and that was in 2007 and we would teach our goal was ultimately to get more exposure for this writing system and then, honestly, we were making a lot of money on commissions and then as we started teaching people I tell people this all the time we were going good and around 2012 down and that was because the promotion of the writing system was good so they didn't need us anymore so we were putting ourselves out of business and so that forced us to diversify so how can we be different? and then other of these younger newer writers started doing these fancier things and they have more free time because they're living at home and they started to innovate and then we would get mad no, you got to do this but there's room for it all but since there's not that many writers of this we're going to be doing the traditional ones we'll leave the innovation stuff to the kids but me personally, I like to innovate and I've done some stuff with VR where how to write something in virtual reality let's say you write the word, a poem and then now imagine stepping into that poem, into that world on the context of that so there are a lot of things, living here in the Bay Area too the techie guys, they get a bad rap, I get it but there are some things if we can work in conjunction with them to kind of whether from the economics they're here to stay, they're here and trying to figure out how we can be happy together and benefit because bringing analog into digital but the internet is something that we can't move away from it but if we can get folks to learn about traditions and making tools and I think that's how but everyone doesn't have time they don't have patience, they just want to Netflix and chill and all of that stuff but if you can tap into the value whether it's the cultural value and social value and even economic value then you'll see people really invest because just with fashion there's this movement called slow fashion maybe there's slow writing maybe we can start that I'd like to open it up to the audience if you have any questions Yeah, the calligrapher is a participating artist if maybe you have any responses to the questions we've asked I can speak to that I think I really understand what you're saying in my tradition I think people are very acceptance they have a huge range of acceptance about other people learning their tradition I have many instances that American calligrapher learned Persian calligraphy and they were invited to conferences and things in Iran and people really appreciate it yeah, yeah but the point is if you're practicing traditional calligraphy you have to be really good at traditional calligraphy so it doesn't matter if you're from somewhere else but if you are really mastering those strokes and those nuances and details you're accepted but if you're making a lot of errors or changes or you're not sticking to that classical way of practicing it or implementing it then traditional calligraphers wouldn't accept your piece as a calligraphy they would say it's not a calligraphy so, yeah, I think the line is not where you're from but how you're implementing your skills I don't know I want to ask you Arash, do you how would I put this? I was talking about Instagram and Tumblr and it mostly tends to be with a pointed pen in America where people can just pick up one of those pointed pens learn how to add pressure and stuff has no basis, no historical basis that they're even trying to move forward from does that exist in Iran? Do you have just... what would you call it? an un-purposefully bad calligraphy that's prevalent? No, I think most of them at least the ones that were presented in the film they have very huge and strong historical background that you can't easily take them away or start changing them unless you're an artist, you're claiming I'm not a calligrapher, I'm just using calligraphy as a tool of expressing my artistic expression that's acceptable because in art you can do anything but when you say I'm a calligrapher it means that you're following some kind of specific script and techniques and history I've seen new masters who have been master in one script and then they try to design a new script and invent a new one but not much luck being accepted in the traditional spectrum but they have been accepted from younger generation who appreciate a new script is coming to life and it's not a font but it's a calligraphy script Can I just throw questions out because the same question for you do you see, so you've revived this script and young people are picking up on it do you see much of people who address it without a whole lot of attention to detail and take it the wrong direction? Yeah, all the time just the tattoo example it's very cosmetic but we all start at a cosmetic level and we do see it so the argument I always tell them is that why are you getting this say if you're Filipino, yeah because I'm proud of my culture but you won't take five minutes to learn the basics and call it out, it's a call out and sometimes it can cause some issues but that's the burden that I'll take but to talk about the... two minutes, that was a great question I think I can see that happening by way within my cultural practice as well I can see because I see it with other cultural practices I'll take one for example so Philippine martial arts, it's Kali there's probably only less than five or so grand masters that are probably in their 80s, 70s, 80s there's only a few what happens, they're students there are seminars, some guy from England per se we'll take a couple of seminars from a master and then all of a sudden John's Kali Institute chain all over Europe and then they'll get it they're making the money but then they'll take out the cultural context so I think that from an artistic standpoint anyone can do whatever they want I think that some folks I mean like myself and you have to be I don't want to say sensitive and being PC and all that but there is a sting so you have to kind of be aware of that of the backlash but for in our practice I think it would be great and I would think that I've always said if there was... success would be if we see our writing system on a t-shirt on target if it's a target we'll see it because we see it with different writing system like you go to a unique glow you'll see Japanese on there but most people can't read it so that means that it's fully not fully accepted but it's accepted at a commercial standpoint and that's our goal it may put us out of business or whatever but for example I work with the south of market Pilipinas cultural district it's the newest cultural district in California and one of our problems is that in a cultural district the first thing is a writing system go to Japan town go to Chinatown you see their writing system but within the south of market there's no more Filipinos there there's only a handful because of gentrification and moving out how do we do that how do we be visible the first is a writing system it's kind of a chicken and egg problem and eventually we have to work with these realtors and building owners and all of that and how do we bring in that cultural context or maybe some folks will just there's a brand called Super Dry they're in the mall you'll see them they have Japanese characters but it's wrong it's wrong and they're not from Japan they just want to take the aesthetic of cool Japanese fashion and put it on their British label and because the Japanese fashion and culture is in they say let's just take that and put it on our fashion label and so I see those things that can happen within the art world and different writing systems because writing systems are associated with the culture so it's a great area I think but in terms of art I think if you're up front and transparent about your influences and intention I think that is the best way to go thanks that's a very good question comic book art I don't know it's not huge in Iran most of the comic books that we were reading when we were growing up were translated from other places and most of them were using just fonts not huge in calligraphy being represented in them or being designed culturally in our society and graffiti is very new in Iran at least as far as I know I've been reading a book about graffiti in the world and it seems very few of graffiti artists who are well known are coming in general from Middle East and few of them are from Iran so it's very new I think avenue or medium for calligraphers to discover and I haven't tracked actually a huge influence from graffiti to calligraphy there's reverse so there's for sure influence from calligraphy to graffiti and the graffiti artists are liberating themselves from just the rules and techniques but using calligraphy as a starting point and adding their own personal flavors to it but maybe in few years we can see the reverse influence as well but it might be more in English calligraphy I don't know neither one influenced me in my own art but I have strong feelings about graffiti is as much good as bad and a lot of it I think is absolutely wonderful and innovative and I'm just blown away by it sorry I hate the vandalism part just totally you know I wish there were more venues for people or I wish people who did that art would maybe seek more venues would it be accepted and not having to paint on things it's not their property where I certainly am drawn to some graffiti that I think is just fantastic graphic art and I stare at it and wonder how they got there but personally no influence whatsoever and I read a lot of comic books as a kid didn't even enter my mind yeah so graffiti is a big influence I don't vandalize anymore but the yeah I mean one of the what's interesting when I was a kid I used to go to school in the East Bay and I would go to Oakland A's games and you know when you go on BART you see that whole row of the warehouses of graffiti and I would see one it's a dream and I would see it all over the place and then I remember trying to copy his calligraphy style and when I went to the you know I went to Philippines did my thing there and when I came back I had a little bio at an event and I mentioned that yeah when I first saw Dream you know that's kind of what inspired me to do graffiti and things like that and then this guy walked up to me he says oh I saw you wrote Dream on there you know that's my brother he's Filipino I said I never knew that you know so it made this you know connection but in terms of calligraphy and graffiti there's a movement to use search for the hashtag calligraphy you get it yeah you'll see a lot Neil Schumann I think he's from Amsterdam he's good so you'll see a lot of that you know popping up in terms of comic books yeah I mean in terms of the you know the old school Batman Bam and you know those kind of fascinated me but I was over at the at the San Francisco comic convention over Labor Day weekend at Moscone and they had these covers of like Spider-Man and X-Men that are blank covers and I bought a few he said okay now I can do some calligraphy on these covers so that's my influence there thanks and the last question before we wrap up the panel is what's inspiring you right now and what are you working on at the moment what's inspiring you I'm thinking yeah yeah I can start okay yeah so I've been I've been collaborating with a ceramic artist for Les Middleton in Petaluma and I've been trying to implement calligraphy into ceramics and it has been beautiful two or three years of collaboration and a very good opportunity for me to discover this new medium and it's very different from writing on a paper or on a canvas which is more fragile and you don't anticipate it to last long but ceramic is just you know could be internal and it's very different when you write on a ceramic piece or transfer your calligraphy into ceramic piece so we're honored to have an opening reception in late October and I CCNC in Oakland and I invite all of you to be there and the beautiful thing about it is we are creating ceramic wares and people are going to eat off of them not just viewing them so it would be functional pieces like the ones we've been showing in the film that bringing the content and meaning into everyday life that when you're eating you're revealing the poetry that is under your food or you're revealing a message that is at least for your physical body and your mind and spirit so I'm so excited about it yeah yeah so over the next yeah this next month I'm going to be traveling doing talks in Houston LA San Diego but in the interim I think in I want to say the end of this month or October 1 or 2 you know American Book Festival here at the library for I think Friday to Sunday so I'll be taking part of that talking about the writing and doing some custom work but from a bigger picture the project I've been working on opening up an online school for the writing because there's no schools we don't have a cultural immersion school like other folks have so the best way I see it and to see where that expands but from an art perspective I've been working at the this SOMA cultural district we put in an event every 3rd Friday of the month at the Old Mint on 5th and Mission so this past Friday I've been doing big pieces big scroll paper about 30 feet long wall to floor and just explaining and talking to it that I'm in collaboration with others and just experimenting having that child's mind and seeing where I can screw up and trying to recover and repeat that cycle excuse me my work today is inspired by as I said nature and a lot of that is driven by what I did leave Washington, D.C. I figured I had written what other people want me to write that I believe for so many years and when I came here to California that I would try to advocate for nature and to write things that I more believed in and that has taken me as I said these words I've probably opened myself up to be directed by these words I'm not restricted by what I know so much as being moved by this text that I write for instance there's a short quote by that I'm trying to work on right now that celebrates water as it cascades down a waterfall and works through the mountains to the ocean and the only vision I came up with was this Chinese landscape painting Sumi painting so I found myself having to learn a whole different discipline and that whole journey has been so exciting and taking me into wood and stone and sand and places that I didn't think I would go but always letters being the uniting force Thank you Thank you guys Well this wraps up this portion of the event but it's an event that keeps on giving so there's more of it from three to five but a couple of announcements before we move the program up November 5th there is a calligraphy day that is happening here in the library the same lower level I think just across the hall there so we have two local calligraphy masters Ronald Nakasoni and Meredith Jane Klein and one international master Akimi Lucas from the UK they're all really amazing so I encourage you all to come here and see their demonstrations and lastly I want to just acknowledge that this exhibition was made possible with the support from various organizations including friends of the public library Zia Art Centre friends of calligraphy Multiverse Art Gallery Semenna Circle Persian Arts Revival Oakland Asian Cultural Centre the Islamic Cultural Centre of Northern California the California School of Traditional Arts and Silkworm Media thank you to our technicians Rich and our photographer today and thank you to the artists who are here you'll get a chance to hear from them directly and from these three on the panel more when we go upstairs so what's happening will be a few minutes to kind of make your way up there there it's on the sixth floor sixth floor but to get there you can either take the stairs up one floor to take the elevators up or take the elevators up one floor go through the gates and then take another elevator up so it's a two-step process to get upstairs there will be some light refreshments and then the curators and artists are going to lead you through so you'll have a chance to ask personal questions and kind of go through the exhibition with the artists that are here so it's a great opportunity so please stick around refreshments as well and refreshments so there's really no reason to leave really not at all so see you guys all upstairs thank you so much for being here