Years ago, when I’d been doing calligraphy for less than two years, and it was still a pretty fresh, new passion for me, I flew back East to meet a friend of mine from the online calligraphy world, Sheryl, and to spend the weekend with her.

Sheryl lived in New Jersey, and she was teaching a workshop that weekend way out on Long Island, for a calligraphy guild called Island Scribes. I’d signed up to be one of the students in the workshop, so we had a long car drive ahead of us, with several joyful hours of uninterrupted conversation.

I don’t remember much about the details our conversation, except that at some point, Sheryl said to me, “You should teach.”

“Yeah,” I said, looking at my hands, “I’d love to teach someday.”

“No,” she said, “you should be teaching now.”

The Seed Is Planted

“Now?” I asked, abashed. “I’m not ready to teach yet! What could I possibly teach?”

Without batting an eye, Sheryl said, [Read more…]