Nos Actualités أخبارنا — calligraphy

“It’s important that each message speaks to the local community but also has a universal significance,” says eL Seed, who last year on a facade of the Graduate College of Social Work at the University of Houston, Texas, translated into Arabic and rendered into calligraffiti a quote from city founder Sam Houston: “Knowledge is the food of genius, and my son, let no opportunity escape you to treasure up knowledge.”  EL SEED SPOKE BY PHONE FROM HIS DUBAI STUDIO.  An interview by Johnny Hanson, originally appeared in the July/August 2017 AramcoWorld magazine.    Let’s start with “calligraffiti.” There are quite a...

Calligraphy Meets Music (Short Version) from Triptych Films on Vimeo.  Click to play video.

Learning from the Pattern-Masters from AramcoWorld on Vimeo.   Walls, windows, doors and satellite dishes tessellate at twilight into a patchwork pattern in the madinah, or walled old city, of Fez, Morocco, as a pedestrian passes into view along one of the city’s typically narrow stone streets. Nestled in a valley crowned by gentle hills, Fez is one of the Islamic world’s great historic centers of the art of geometrically based patterns executed in tile, plaster, stone, wood and metal. Like all such patterns, those that adorn the mosques, madrassahs (schools) and sabeels (fountains) of Fez have their origins in...