These doodles are done using instruments and techniques developed over the past 6 years by Andrew van der Merwe. As a calligrapher Andrew has a particular interest in African colonial and pre-colonial writing systems, so when he doodles on the beach it’s often along these lines. The more angular letter styles take their inspiration from Tifinagh, the script of the Tuareg people of North Africa. It is interesting how that, even to this day, the Tifinagh resembles ancient Greek and Phoenician.
The more complex-looking characters in some pieces are usually taken from the Adinkra symbols of the Akan people of Ghana and the Ivory Coast. The last piece was inspired by the structure the characters on Bamana mud cloth. According to Andrew, “They’re mostly meaningless doodles – a play with form – and thanks to Matthew Battles, I now know the word for that: asemic. Look it up – cool stuff. I guess if I had to get serious, I’d use the actual forms and write some interesting text.”
