A Story and a Message from the Creator of TwoToJazz

I'm a computer engineer with experience in different areas of computer science/engineering, but one work that I'm specially proud of is a creativity app that I have recently developed that is a long awaited expression of my appreciation of and interest in visual arts, and particularly calligraphy. I fell in love with calligraphy in last years of elementary school. I was the type of student who was on auto-pilot, not needing much of time or attention from my parents over my schoolwork. But to learn calligraphy which was a favorite pastime of my father, I had to watch him and his hands closely making the strokes, using the ink, and even cutting and shaping reed pens, and that experience was just so precious to me, not to mention getting good in calligraphy made me popular among my classmates too!

I have always thought of calligraphy as a form of performing art. It requires a lot of hand and eye coordination, and even planning and choreography. When looking at most paintings, it is hard to see and feel the artist's brush strokes; how he/she must have moved the brush across the canvas, although there are exceptions like in the works of Vincent Van Gogh, Jackson Pollock, or some other modern/abstract artists. But when you look at a piece of calligraphy, you can simulate in your mind's eye the way the artist must have moved his brush/pen and his arm, hand, and wrist, to create that brush stroke. It is as if the dynamics of the creative action are captured in the static end result. It's like the foot steps of a dancer are frozen and captured in the space for eternity.

Calligraphy is an ancient form of art, and yet a very abstract and modern looking form of art. Among others, it has influenced the design of fonts and typefaces that make today's online and offline publications and websites look so beautiful.

TwoToJazz is developed for adults, and children. Many of today's creativity apps designed for kids leave the parents out of the picture, sometimes by oversimplifying things. With TwoToJazz, my vision has been seeing a parent sitting down with their child again, spending quality one-on-one and hands-on time teaching them how to create beautiful objects, and compose and manipulate them with their hands, much the way we did it as kids, whether it was writing calligraphy, making paper collages, drawing, painting, or making other types of craft.

So, happy creating with your kids,

Vida

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