Why I Write Seal Script

The forms are ancient, but they do not feel dead. Their structures remind me that writing was once closely connected with images, objects, nature, and the physical world.

For me, seal script creates a certain distance from ordinary reading. A familiar modern character can sometimes be understood immediately, almost before we have truly looked at it. Seal script slows that process down.

The viewer has to look.

That pause interests me.

I do not want every work to reveal itself instantly. I like the possibility that a character may first appear as an abstract form, then gradually become recognizable, and finally return to being something more than its literal meaning.

At that point, writing becomes visual as well as linguistic.

The ancient forms also give me a way to think about nature. Their lines can feel like branches, roots, stones, flowing water, or paths through a landscape. This does not mean that I deliberately turn every character into a picture. Rather, I feel that the ancient structure allows the brush to remain closer to physical movement.

There is also something philosophical in the process.

When I write an ancient character today, I am placing a very old form into a contemporary moment. The ink dries on modern paper, in a modern room, while the character carries traces of a much older world.

I find that meeting of past and present deeply meaningful.

Ultimately, however, I do not write seal script simply because it is ancient.

I write it because it gives me space to search.

The character is both language and form, meaning and movement, history and present experience.

That ambiguity is part of what keeps me writing.