On Being a Western Contemporary Ink Painter in Japan   I am a British ink* painter based in Japan and have been working in ink for many years. I studied calligraphy (Shodo), both ancient Chinese scripts and Abstract Calligraphy (Bokusho), for about 9 years, but I realized that however much I loved the Chinese characters themselves, calligraphy was always going to remain ‘other.’ I was not able to use it to express myself fully as it was not my language. My second stint with i