Learning to Fail: A Mathematician’s Calligraphy Journey

Math to calligraphy. It doesn’t seem like a natural transition, does it? For me though, it was a no-brainer to venture off on my own calligraphy journey.

My Calligraphy Journey: The Beginning

It all started in 2013 when one of my close friends took up calligraphy, which inspired my sister to try as well. I started dabbling in it (thank you, sister for lending me your supplies!) while I was finishing up undergrad and planning a wedding with my then-fiance! With us being students about to move to Germany for graduate school, our wedding budget was tiiiight…like, skinny jeans tight. We outsourced a lot to our super talented family and friends, but there was still a lot my mom, a DIY queen, and I took on.

A project I did for the wedding was making name tags for the wedding party. It seemed like such a small task that I could knock out within an hour or two (I thought this after having only picked up a calligraphy pen once or twice before in my life.). Hahahaha, oh Evelyn, you were so naive.  If it wasn’t obvious already, this took me waaay longer than a few hours.

When I think about it now, calligraphy and hand lettering were already providing me with some sort of stress relief during those busy months leading up to the wedding and our big trans-Atlantic move. I spent hours playing with brush pen markers and doodling on scrap paper when my brain was tired of dealing with nuptial-related logistics.

My Calligraphy Journey: The Middle

Jump forward a few months and thousands of kilometres away to when Jonathan and I were settling into our apartment in Bonn, Germany: I was having a difficult time adjusting to the culture and transitioning to the school system. Except for some small hiccups in my first year of university, academics had always come easily to me so I didn’t understand why classes were so difficult for me in Germany.

I will be honest, it was often emotionally crushing to be in the same program as my husband (who was doing better than I was). It was like my failures were following me around and saying “Look at how much smarter your husband is than you” or the always constant “You’re so stupid, Evelyn”. Since Jonathan was my only community in Germany, the only way I could escape from my self-deprecating criticism was by putting pen to paper.

This began months of learning calligraphy and discovering my own style through the Modern Calligraphy Summit, a two week online workshop, and free online resources. Even with all that I learned, I wasn’t sure if I was ready put my work out there into the world — it took me nine months to take that leap of faith.

Throughout those nine months, I constantly struggled with whether or not to finish my masters before pursuing calligraphy. It was never a question of “Should I pursue calligraphy?”, it was always a question of “When should I pursue calligraphy?”. I prayed a lot and asked God to give me a clear sign to point me in the right direction, but He never did. So I began to evaluate why I was even in grad school in the first place.

Why did I apply to grad school? Because I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life — another degree would at least buy me some more time before a few more things had to be figured out, right?? Now that I was in grad school, it was mostly lies rooted in fear that were keeping me tied to it: fear that people would think I was “less” than them because I didn’t finish my degree, fear that people would think I wasn’t smart, fear that people would think I was a failure…I clearly cared (and, unfortunately, still do care) a lot about how people perceive me.

My Calligraphy Journey: The Now

Finally, in October 2016, I officially withdrew from school and dove into entrepreneurship. Nothing significant happened to help me make my decision, but my fears were definitely a mental hurdle that I had to jump over. Remembering (and trusting) that God would walk with me regardless of which path that I chose was the main reason I was able to take the leap.

There are always days where I’m down on myself or worry about what people think, but Jonathan and I started declaring truths over our lives every night. I wrote this one down over two years ago, and while the meaning has changed, it has always been relevant, especially after starting on this calligraphy journey: “Thank you Jesus for the unique gifts and talents I have been blessed with. Thank you that you are opening doors and leading me into situations to use them and glorify you.”

I firmly believe in the power of affirmations/declarations/mantras, whatever you want to call them. Whether it’s a word describing the focus of your week, or a phrase that encourages you or even a sentence that you know is true, but your head has trouble believing, speaking them out loud helps! That’s why I’m sharing some of my go to affirmations with you. Save it as your phone/desktop wallpaper, print them out, or just create a folder that you can quickly click to when you need it.

So many days are just go go go, don’t you agree? This one is currently my phone screensaver and it’s such a good reminder to stop, take a breath and slow down!

If you have a word or phrase that has been encouraging you lately, share it with me in the comments and it may be one of the next ones I write up!

Please note that these designs are for personal use only and are not meant for commercial use. All copyright of these images is retained by Bon Paper House.