About Master Takase

"Japanese Calligraphy brings to words a range of expression where words are the art."

— Eri Takase, Concept Magazine

Eri Takase was born and raised in Osaka, Japan. She trained in traditional Japanese calligraphy from the age of six.

"I first met with Japanese Calligraphy when I was just six years old. I can say it did not appeal to me then. Especially the part where I would have to tediously grind the sumi ink against the ink stone for what seemed an eternity."

For decades, she studied the five traditional scripts — kaisho, gyousho, sousho, reisho, and tensho — under the rigorous standards of Japan's professional calligraphic societies. Competition works measured seven and a half feet, completed without error, every brush stroke decisive and permanent.

In 1989, after winning several national competitions, she earned the rank of Shihan (師範) in both Bokuteki-kai and Bunka-shodo — Japan's most prestigious calligraphic societies. She is among the few to have won multiple best-of-category awards, and her work has been displayed in the Osaka Museum of Art.

The Shihan rank carries two privileges: the authority to open one's own school, and the license to create an original calligraphy style.

"While I loved this I also felt trapped by it. One of my favorite personal works at the time was done with blue watercolor and written using a broken wooden chopstick."

In 1995, Master Takase moved to the United States.

"When I moved to the United States I felt a liberation that I cannot describe and promptly began to work with different mediums — western-style handmade papers, collage, and mixed-media. I thought the results were beautiful and I could not get enough of it."

From this liberation, she created the Design style — her own original calligraphy style, a privilege earned by the Shihan rank. Where the five traditional styles follow centuries of formal convention, the Design style brings disciplined brushwork to contemporary expression.

"Japanese Calligraphy is too beautiful a bird to be locked in the cage of a thousand years of tradition."

"With deep respect and my roots firmly planted in the traditional, I look optimistically to the future of the art."

Her Work in the World

Master Takase's calligraphy has appeared in books, film, commercial products, and the Emmy Awards.

In 2008, her work — created in collaboration with TV Guide — was featured as the centerpiece of the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards After Party. The invitations were featured on NBC's EXTRA.

Her commercial work includes calligraphy for Arla Foods in Sweden, athletic wear for Onitsuka Tiger with Vitrorobertson agency, and fashion for designer Ralph Rucci. She was selected as one of "Ten Celebrated Artists" for Concept Magazine, illustrated ten designs for Between Two Souls — a poetic exchange between ninth-century Zen monk Ryokan and twenty-first-century Benedictine monk Mary Lou Kownacki — and created forty original designs for the Tattoo Sourcebook.

In her own practice, she won positions in juried art shows including the 57th Street Art Fair in Chicago and the Gasparilla Festival of the Arts in Tampa. Her style has been called "refined and cultured."

Philosophy

Master Takase's favorite expression is onkochishin (温故知新) — "Respect the past, create the new."

"Indeed at the heart of my work is a lifetime of studying traditional calligraphy and it is being true to this that I think makes my art what it is — regardless of the medium or materials that I happen to be using."

"Technology allows an artist to reach more people. There will always be room for the completely traditional, but as the world adapts and changes Japanese Calligraphy to its own taste, technology acts as a catalyst for the change."

Every calligraphy character on this site was personally brushed by Master Takase.

"When deeds are from compassion, then words become poetry."