Sachiyo Kaneko
SHO
Sachiyo Kaneko was born in Tokyo, Japan in1966. She started to learn SHO, so called Japanese/Chinese calligraphy, at 7 years old. Kaneko started to learn from the copy of ‘Lantingji Xu’ (by Wang Xizhi, Chinese classic master) when she was only 12 years old. It was gifted education.
She is one of few SHOKAs, so called calligraphers, who acquire the skills of whole techniques throughout SHO history from oracle bone script to Japanese Kana and seal curving.
She joined study tours to China 6 times. She visited important places related to Chinese classic masterpieces. Yumen pass in Gobi desert, Dunhuan, Xian, Hanzhong, Qingdao, Qufu etc. in addition to Beijin, Shanhai. She even climbed Taishan and Yunfengshan. She met curved characters on Rocks in the mountains, important stone monuments, ancient letters on wooden/bamboo sticks, oracle bone scripts and so on. This experience helped her to understand this traditional art deeply.
What is making her keep creating? The answer is ‘to encounter herself’.
She says creation is like meditation. When she completes a work innocently, there she finds her unconsciousness which she did not known. We cannot control unconsciousness. But there is a feeling that the more we study, the more the unknown world increases. In the same way, the space of unconsciousness spreads wider more and more. When she meets this space, her mind is released and starts to play spontaneously. And then she starts the next work to face the new Sachiyo Kaneko.