‘Limiting your Activity’ by Shunryu Suzuki

24-page manuscript book, written out in Chinese ink on 100 gsm Zerkall Hammered paper and bound in 300 gsm Somerset Textured white card with Satogami yellow endpapers and a Gampi bougainvillea jacket. Completed in March 2021

Almost everything I do these days is in the form of manuscript books. This stems partly from my professional training as a book designer, but perhaps more significantly the format allows for the exploration of massed lettering, and of the simple relationship between space and non-space on the page.

Perhaps my greatest influence in this respect has been the calligrapher, Rudolf Koch, whose extraordinary work I first held in my hands during an expedition to the Klingspor Museum in Offenbach-am-Mein that I organized for members of a local calligraphic society in the late 1980s. Especially in his work completed after he returned from serving as a soldier during the First World War, he achieves an expressive character that transcends mere performance towards a deeper search for meaning.

The piece I have chosen to illustrate, ‘Limiting your activity’, is an essay from Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki. I have returned to these essays many times over the years as the Zen practice they describe finds an echo in that deeply focused type of attention that I experience uniquely when doing calligraphy: ‘But if you limit your activity to what you can do just now, in this moment, then you can express fully your true nature’ (a sentiment peculiarly apt for the time of enforced restriction during the Covid lockdown).    

The book measures 260 x 173 mm, which is a ratio of 3:2 or equivalent in musical terms to a fifth. (Such harmonic proportions provide a sound basis for format decisions.) Having been influenced by the use of grid systems in book design, the full text area is based on an 18 mm grid, approximately 12.5 units deep and 8 units wide. The writing occupies just seven lines on the grid, positioned slightly below the optical centre of the page with space above and below to contain the paintings which are distributed asymmetrically throughout the book. The colour scheme is derived from a palette of reds, shading from orange through to purple.