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“I was 15 and it was during the summer holidays before my school’s annual arts festival: I was practicing calligraphy most days in the school hall from the morning as I had to make a piece to exhibit. It as on one of those days—I remember it because it was so hot and sweat was pouring from me—I had been at it since early in the morning and the next thing I knew, the late afternoon light was there laying on my calligraphy paper! I suddenly realized that I had been so engrossed I hadn’t even noticed the whole day had gone by. I thought to myself, gosh, I must really like doing this, otherwise how could I have done it in that terrible heat!”
That is the way Jyoan Tsukine describes the moment she first became aware of herself as actually liking calligraphy. She had already been going to lessons for nine years, since the age of six. Like many people in the Japan of 50 years ago, Tsukine’s parents believed calligraphy practice gave children good posture and breathing and instilled good manners and perserverance. A skill in beautiful writing was just a bonus.
 That revelation on a hot summer’s day that there was more to calligraphy for Tsukine than just a passage to womanly accomplishment, eventually led her to major in calligraphy when she moved to Tokyo to attend the Daito Bunka University.
An important encounter was awaiting her at that university, with its brilliant faculty in literary arts: one of her practical teachers was the progressive abstract calligrapher Uno Sesso, who got her to break out of conventions at an early stage.
Apart from the impact on her own art and road to becoming an abstract artist, this encounter has also turned Tsukine into an excellent teacher herself. “Many youngsters learning calligraphy are so regimented by their teachers they find that they can’t set themselves free. It is so easy to become convinced that the one set form you were taught over and over by your first teacher is inviolable. So when I teach youngsters now, once they have reached a certain level, I give them chances early on to try things differently. For example, in place of their usual small sheets of practice paper I will give the kids a sheet twice the size and tell them to go ahead, do something from the heart. It really throws them. ‘Really? Are you sure we can?’ they say. Some of them have fun with it, but others are so constrained they need more persuasion. I do it gently with them.”
 When you look at Tsukine’s current work, the simplicity belies the unbelievable effort that has gone into reaching that stage—a stage where she finds herself wanting to take away more than she adds. A work that exemplifies this is “Silence I“ with its one vertical line far on the left side and one dot in the upper right corner. “I was beside myself with happiness when I finally placed that dot and stood back to look. It felt so right and it meant to me that I had reached the place of utter simplicity where I wanted to be.” The tension in that work is mesmerizing.
The calligraphic characters that Tsukine spent so many decades mastering are nowhere to be seen in these recent works. But the spriteliness and tightness married so well in such works as her “Hana Ikada” series could not have been achieved without that half a century of absorption in a thoroughly demanding craft.
For most of her life as a calligrapher and teacher of calligraphy Tsukine has done the usual thing and exhibited her work through the regular channels of strictly controlled national calligraphy organizations. However five years ago she finally felt ready to graduate from those organizations and become a free agent. Now, apart from a busy life teaching calligraphy at high school in her home town of Kurume, and also to a band of dedicated private students, she gives herself one major artistic challenge every year. Recently she demonstrated and exhibited in Napoli. Next year she will be collaborating with a major sculptor.
Last year she received a great honour for someone of her relative youth—the Kurume City Arts Encouragement Award, which recognizes major contributions to the arts. Her work is sought-after and sells out.
A dish of delicious-looking cut and peeled persimmons and some French pastries have been placed in front of Tsukine to enjoy with tea while she talks to me, but she doesn’t pay them the slightest attention for two hours. I realize that creation is Tsukine’s food and when she does something, she is undividedly involved. She made me think of a Zen priest in the way she talks of losing her “self” when engaged with the brush. For her, calligraphy has been a meditation rather than an artistic pursuit for so long there is no conflict with ego. Nevertheless she notes that sometimes out of 10 sheets of work she may one find only one that is "good." By that she means unsullied by egoistic self-expression. And her maturity now allows her to say in a loud voice that, yes, it is good. “There was a time when I would cringe to see my work exhibited,” she says. “Now I love what my brush creates."
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