Soufu Honda And Her Brush

Soufu Honda is an amazing calligraphy artist from Hokkaido, Japan! I met her for the first time today at Kinokuniya Book Store by Bryant Park in NYC. She was performing her art in partnership with Anything who exhibited their product of maekake, a traditional work apron. To my delight, the small exhibition in the middle of bookshelves was very engaging and I felt very appreciative of encountering this event. Soufu has been practicing calligraphy since she was two years of age, and she further studied the history of calligraphy in university, and she's an enthusiastic wiz who entertains and educates about original meaning or intention behind the characters of kanji.

For my husband's created word いとい (pronounced ee-toh-ee), a Japanese equivalent to BFF, Soufu selected a kanji character 絆 (pronounced ki-zu-na) representing the bond between friends. You can see my husband in the moss green shirt, and Soufu intently writing the character.

I must say, Honest Man looks real good in his maekake! Eh, my husband doesn't usually look like such a nerd. Only when he deliberately tries to look like a nerd, like he was doing for this picture.