“Study the science of art. Study the art of science. Develop your senses — especially learn how to see. Realize that everything connects to everything else.”
-Leonardo da Vinci
I operate a website called 3pistolary.com, a personal project of mine that encourages people to write letters to others—three letters, to be exact. And then, if they wish, participants can choose to anonymously share up to one page of the letter with the site. It is a project I care deeply about and that I hope succeeds in connecting individuals to one another and to the dying art of written correspondence.
Not too long ago, I began learning the art of Photography. To say I am not a professional is an understatement (in fact, almost all of my pictures up to now were taken with my cell phone) but it is something I am passionate about and want to learn. I do not plan to build a business around it, but it is merely something for me to enjoy. Until I develop a proper portfolio, you may check out my untrained eye here in the meantime, bearing in mind that many of the images were taken with my Android phone.
For the past few years (though off and on) I have been doing calligraphy. My favorite styles are Copperplate, Batarde, Italic, and Spencerian. Once I am more confident sharing my work in this art form, I will post samples.
I am passionate about language in general, but endangered languages is an issue that I believe deserves more attention. I am currently involved with the non-profit organization Our Golden Hour (OGH), which seeks to promote and preserve the language and culture of indigenous communities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. Through oral history projects, the creation of children’s books in their native language, curriculum development, and more, OGH is doing its part to keep combat the threat of linguistic extinction.
I also volunteer with the Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages.
I volunteer with other organizations in more traditional ways, but these are the orgs I contribute to in more academic ways.
The aforementioned pastimes are those I'm most actively engaged in right now, but my interests are varied and wide. I am almost always enrolled in a course (or multiple) for personal enrichment and to momentarily stave off an unquenchable love of learning. I believe in learning for learning's sake, and for fun have studied things like philosophy, physics, and fencing; metalsmithing and violin; dance and dead languages and this theory and that theory and the sublimity of Fibonacci. I could go on, but I'll just say that I find scholastic pursuits nearly recreational, and that the more I learn, the more I see how things are connected. There is geometry in music; chemistry in cooking; engineering in sculpture. Yoked, yet individual.