In today’s tech savvy world, everything can be created-re-created on the Mac machine. Nothing is impossible. I was intrigued when my artist friend gushed over Pro-create App. She updated me on this magic creative tool – every effect of painting medium can be brought alive with digital pen and screen. Imagine painting with watercolours without water, colours, paper and brushes. The tech wonder of the world seemed exciting, empowering, efficient but I felt it was robbing me of something.
It made me think from the perspective of the primary function of a computer – typing, lettering, writing. I ask myself – is the handwriting, the ink-pen a passe ?
I m a very pen and paper person. I used to miss writing with my ink-pen with computers taking over. That was till I found calligraphy.
My oblique cut nib qalam dips in ink-pot, pauses and then dances on paper . It unites my head, heart and hand ih in the flow of the pen. The experience of writing is so different from the incessant typing on the keyboard. The computer sucks me in its vortex, draining me; while the touch and feel of pen- paper calms me. I rejoice in the beauty of the ink-infused stroke on paper.
There is something intangible and authentic in hand-work, may it be any medium. Tech is an enabler making the process efficient and replicable. It cannot be a substitute to the organic flow of hand-work or vice a versa. Rather the two got to compliment each other.
My calligraphy pen and Mac work in tandem, complementing each other, in the mechanics and beauty of the written matter. And that makes me happy.
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