The Experience of Writing
Writing is the reason why I started making journals more than 7 years ago. I wrote down my thoughts, dreams, stories and plans for the future. I personally have about a dozen of them and I haven’t finished any of them. I wondered why that was always happening and it took me a while, but over time my individual passions began to look for each other and the answer I had always been looking for was formed.
The complete work, in the true sense of the word, is one that unites thought, paper and binding. In it, I am an author, a scribe, a bookbinder and an artist. I have said and shown everything from end to end. It is difficult for me to share the feeling of what such a way of writing is. This is not calligraphy, nor is it “simply” writing. One emphasizes too much on the visual, the other emphasizes on meaning. I’m looking for the experience that people like priest Puncho and Joseph Bradati had when they scribed, illuminated and bound their damaskins. These were Bulgarian scribes that in their free time used pieces of paper not to transcribe liturgical text but share their own ideas, in their own particular style, in the common language. Throughout the 18th century, in their simple search for free expression they gave way to reforming the Bulgarian language and the whole attitude of the people towards the concept of literature. They wrote a book in the harsh sense of the word, they gave it form, meaning and role. I this sense, what is written and how it looks is related to everything else in the book, it is in sync.
It is exciting to transport myself to a time when the book had no editions and was a treasure in itself, because it was always a reflection of its creator. Whether it is a transcript or an original, whether it is crooked or flawless. Each letter bears a mark from the scribe’s hand, and each stitch of the binding, from him as well. All in the name of creative expression, free thought and beauty.
