Meet Aspacia and Rodolfo Kusulas | KOUS Co-founders & Calligraphy experts

We had the good fortune of connecting with Aspacia and Rodolfo Kusulas and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Aspacia and Rodolfo, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
We love to share our knowledge and to make our best effort to preserve the art of calligraphy. A skill that is getting lost slowly and we want to continue with this beautiful tradition that has been around for hundreds of years. Nowadays, with fast pace lifestyle and digital technologies we hardly write with a pen and paper, let alone practice calligraphy. However, calligraphy can give us much more than beautiful letters. Writing calligraphy is mentally stimulating; by practicing, it forms neuronal connections that we are not able to experience by typing and texting. It helps us to organize our thoughts, study, memorize information, and develop further motor skills among others.

Furthermore, we have realized this skill has had a deeper impact in many of our students. It goes further than to teach them the right foundations of calligraphy, we see our students explore their passions, start their own businesses and even see calligraphy impact their lives in such a positive way in regards to their mental health. They use calligraphy as meditation, to fight depression and anxiety, and even as a way to relaxation and meditation.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
We are very passionated of letters in any form and discipline. We always involve any kind of lettering in our art, in our practice and teaching. Our collaboration as brother and sister has been fruitful as we complement each other with various aspects of our practice; on one hand, the technical and fundamentals of the discipline and on the other, brand experience, business and applications to calligraphy.

We believe that this has led us to set us apart by wanting to offer the best quality of teaching, originality and experience. Also, this symbiosis allows us to see the world of calligraphy from a theoretical and practical point of view in a contemporary context. These qualities are not only reflected in our art, but also in the creation of our didactic materials and design products.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
There are so many art destinations we like it’s hard to pick just a few. Some of our favorite museums are MOCA, The Getty, Hammer Museum, The Broad, LACMA and The Museum of Jurassic Technology.

Our top four galleries are Hauser Wirth & Schimmel, Marciano Art Foundation, Blum & Poe, and Gagossian Gallery.

For space and architecture the Eames Foundation, the Neutra VDL House and the Frank Lloyd Wright’s houses are fantastic places. The Getty Villa and Huntington Library are also a great venue for books, art and botanical gardens.

Also, the Arts District is very inspiring, the street art and galleries,

Other venues to see and feel inspired and hang out are: Carroll Avenue, Self realization Center, Walt Disney City Hall and The last book store.

We love to eat and try new places all the time (pre COVID of course). We love dim sum in Chinatown, hand made udon in Little Tokyo, tacos by Taco zone truck and coffee and pastries from Woodcat in Echo Park

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Our mentor DeAnn Singh, our calligraphy community and students.

Website: https://www.designkous.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/designkous/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/13035904/admin/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/designkous

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/designkous

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVEILmBEjldQ_Lp3ycyvGPw

Image Credits
photos taken by Rodolfo Kusulas