Amid the stress of juggling faculty, extracurriculars and relationships, a maybe stunning — however scientifically endorsed — outlet is calligraphy, an artwork that may stimulate the mind and enhance cognitive operate.
Calligraphy is the visible artwork of handwriting with both a pen, ink brush or different utensil and requires give attention to not simply what you’re writing, however how you might be writing. “It connects your thoughts together with your physique, with the precise second,” artist and calligrapher Ann Miller ’64 mentioned. “In the event you press too arduous, you undergo the paper. In the event you load the pen an excessive amount of, it flows over, except you’re taking sure steps. So there’s all these items about easy methods to deal with actuality and your individual physique on the similar time.”
College students that wrestle with nervousness can use calligraphy as a strategy to escape, and to give attention to one thing that requires dwelling within the second. “Writing characters utilizing brush and ink in a quiet house whereas smelling ink and feeling the feel of particular paper will give [students] time and house to decelerate, be away from busy life and simply give attention to their thoughts,” Japanese language professor Momoe Saito Fu mentioned. “I imagine, on this sense, calligraphy may have a self-discipline impact in addition to bettering psychological well being.”
“You form of neglect all these sorts of competitors,” Chinese language calligraphy professor Huazhi Wang mentioned. “You neglect that form of lacking out… and also you begin to focus on one thing peaceable, creative and exquisite.”
Fu has noticed the constructive affect calligraphy can maintain on college students’ lives firsthand. “I’ve seen that almost all college students attended all of the lessons, they usually talked about that they had been trying ahead to coming to this class each week,” Fu mentioned. “College students appear to easily get pleasure from calligraphy as a result of it’s not a compulsory class. They take it out of their curiosity and for true pleasure.”
This pleasure can transcend past the classroom, offering an area for calligraphers to specific their ideas and emotions on paper. “I’ve at all times favored to speak and clarify issues, and never everybody likes to have a talker round. I wish to get my ideas on the web page, and simply placing the nice ideas collectively, no matter they’re, is satisfying. It’s personally satisfying to get your written voice going and discover locations to place it,” mentioned Miller.
Wang echoed Miller — “While you follow calligraphy, it’s kind of like meditation,” she mentioned. “Everyone knows the good thing about meditation to our bodily and psychological well being, proper? So I feel the direct profit for psychological well being is that it’s a type of meditation. And in addition, in a means, it’s a diversion out of your on a regular basis very intense work and finding out duties.”