Luke Townsend is not only a documentary photographer but also a student of Tibetan calligraphy. As an emerging artist, he has recently been developing a highly technical process to bring together both his strongest assets—photography and calligraphy—by ingeniously projecting photographic imagery onto Tibetan lettering by the means of cyano-typography.
Back in 2023, Luke shot a series of portrait photographs of Tashi while at the Wisdom Publication headquarters in Manhattan—to film part two of Tashi’s online Tibetan calligraphy course for Wisdom Academy.
A particular black and white portrait of Tashi (as below) was carefully chosen to fit harmoniously with a specially created tight block of Tibetan Calligraphy, featuring a verse composed by Lowell Cook in homage to Dharma artist Tashi Mannox.
To illuminate as much of the portrait as possible within the letters, Luke composed a conducive extra shortened form of Tsugtung Umé script that took many attempts to compose as tightly and comprehensible as possible.
Below is the end result, an intriguing contemporary Tibetan calligraphy artwork without compromising the integrity of the Tibetan writing system.
The artwork dimensions are 55.88 x 76.2 cm
Legion Revere Platinum 320 gsm Paper – 100% cotton
Cyanotype for the main image is 42 x 61 cm
Small text is hand written blue inked calligraphy. See more of Townsend’s work.
The calligraphy piece reads:
༄། Born from the tips of your fingers, mystical letter forms
Capture the hearts of beings, leading them on the path to liberation.
To preserve and uphold Minister Thönmi’s literary tradition,
You manifest beautiful Calligraphy from the creative potential of the intellect.
༄། གང་གི་སོར་རྩེ་ལས་འཁྲུངས་འཕྲུལ་གྱི་ཡི་གེ་གཟུགས། །
སྐྱེ་དགུའི་ཡིད་དབང་འཕྲོག་པས་ཐར་པའི་ལམ་དུ་འཁྲིད། །
སློབ་དཔོན་ཐོན་མིའི་དབྱངས་གསལ་འཛིན་སྐྱོང་སྤེལ་གསུམ་ཕྱིར། །
གསར་གཏོད་རྣམ་དཔྱོད་རྩལ་ལས་མཛེས་པའི་ཡིག་གཟུགས་བཞེངས། །
ཆོས་ཀྱི་སྒྱུ་རྩལ་པ་ཆེན་པོ་བཀྲ་ཤིས་མན་ནོག་སིའི་ཡིག་གཟུགས་སློབ་ཁྲིད་ཉན་ཞོར་དུ་ཡོན་ཏན་གཟེངས་སུ་བསྟོད་པའི་ཚིགས་སུ་བཅད་པ་འདི་ཨ་རིའི་བློ་བཟང་གིས་བྲིས་པ་དགེའོ།།
This verse was composed by Lowell Cook in homage to the great Dharma artist Tashi Mannox while listening to one of his calligraphy lectures. May goodness abound!