Adventurous of spirit. That’s how longtime islander, calligraphy artist, author, aerobatic pilot, photojournalist, Hiway Haiku innovator and a founding mother of Vashon Allied Arts Kaj Wyn Berry describes herself.

Elaborate on those labels, and the words paint a portrait of a woman who has met opportunities and challenges head on. Without necessarily testing the waters, she often dives right in, which has led to an abundant and varied life.

Yet throughout Berry’s full and wide-ranging adult life, she’s always maintained a single through line — the art of calligraphy. Over the years, her work has been in group shows on the island, but beginning Friday, Jan. 4, the artist will have her own solo show at The Hardware Store Restaurant, exhibiting paintings, photography, some Hiway Haiku, and of course, calligraphy.

“You never know what will stick,” she said with a laugh, her blue eyes twinkling. “Even through decades of photojournalism, I always did calligraphy.”

Born and raised on Martha’s Vineyard, Berry comes by her adventurous spirit honestly. Her family home dates back to 1624, and her heritage includes sea captains, revolutionaries and the John Quincy Adams family. At the age of 11, she learned how to fly, and by her late teens and early 20s, Berry was an aerobatic pilot.

Fast forward to the mid-1950s when Berry, her husband and three children moved across the country to Portland, where she studied calligraphy with her mentor Lloyd Reynolds at Reed College. After teaching with him at the Portland Museum Art School, Berry picked up her camera and became a photojournalist for Time/Life magazine, working as a stringer on the West Coast and winning first prize for commercial photography in Life’s International Competition.

Her arrival on Vashon in 1972 involved a friend’s boat and a temporary stay with with them in Dockton. At the end of the visit, Berry started to put down her roots.

“We were enchanted by the island,” she said, “so we bought a boat and lived on it.”

Needing a place to do her art, Berry and her dear friend and artist Hita Von Mende rented the Mukai barrelling plant and turned it into a studio, where Berry did her calligraphy. Years later, the two came up with the idea of Hiway Haiku in the vein of the old Burma Shave signs and in an attempt to slow down the cars racing down the hill to the ferry.

“We’ve been doing Hiway Haiku for 18 years, one every three weeks,” she said. “The hardest part is finding which haiku, as haiku can be very personal or from a different culture. Hita and I use classic haiku and also pull from our island haiku group.”

If choosing which haiku is the hard part, then the joy for Berry is in the calligraphy — for the Hiway signs and her own work that combines images with the words.

“Beauty is truth, and truth is beauty,” she said. “When I calligraph, then things are true and beautiful.”

She said she holds the words’ meanings in her head, so the written word becomes the graphic form of its meaning. “Joy” will look different than the word “breathe,” for instance.

“Calligraphy can transcend the alphabet and words but still be the dance of the brush in color and movement on paper or canvas,” she said. “In my experience, calligraphy has many other dimensions — it’s a concentrated meditation. If you get distracted, you spell a word wrong or leave it out altogether. One must coordinate the golden triangle of heart (emotion, passion, spirit), head (meaning, understanding and memory) and hand (the rhythms and form of the tactile writing) — all of which imprints on a person as they calligraph.”

After years of writing “golden words, sayings and poems,” Berry said she has a brain emblazoned with quotes and poetry.

“When I am at ‘sixes and sevens’ or worried by the world’s disharmony, I go to my studio, unroll a piece of beautiful paper, choose what I want to write, pick up a pen — and find peace,” she said.