Prodigal Art
This site has been created to facilitate discussion on a talk entitled Prodigal Art: Restoring Health to the cultural ecosystem, given by Makoto Fujimura at the Pyle Center, February 5th, 2010, from 7:30 to 9:00
New York-based artist, Makoto Fujimura reflects on his journey of mastering Nihonga technique using carefully stone-ground minerals including azurite, malachite and gold, and his deep wrestling with art, culture and faith issues.
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In the two Pyle Center talks I attended, I was struck by the theme of working through/from the darkness to get to the light. After the first Pyle Center talk I picked up a copy of his book, Refractions, and found this passage:
“. . . I thought of what my pastor had told me about another pastor who had lost his wife, his mother, and his daughter in a single automobile accident. Jerry Sittser began to see a particular nightmare over and over again. In this dream, he runs toward the sinking sun. He eventually becomes exhausted and collapses with the darkness enveloping him. When he told his sister this dream, she said told him, ‘Jerry you are running the wrong way . . . If you turn around and run through the darkness, the sun will meet you on the other side. (page 48)”
Yes, I was struck by that comment as well…working through darkness. Not only for what it means in terms of life…not running away but running through whatever is before us, believing in the reality of light…but also what that means as an artist. Its not quite true that Mako painted from the darkness. He started out with the brightness of the white paper which he then covered with a black gesso…and from that position he finds the light once again. Maybe that is more true to life. We are not created for darkness but we are born into a world shrouded and are challenged to believe in and find the light once again.
I resonated with the darkness statement as well. He said we need to descend into darkness in order to see beauty. That is even more amazing. My friend said yesterday, that in the darkness we are not distracted by seeing anything else. So in that sense, things become clearer and what is important becomes more visible. To run into pain rather than away from it is counter intuitive. Yet if we embrace the pain as real and that it is an invitation to grow, then we learn not to fear it or resent it, but to see that opportunity as a gift. Thus, we can see the beauty in it. Our culture denies the pain, turns away from suffering, wants a pill to make it better and in doing so cannot find the beauty.
Different Topics:
Mako mentioned a joint “performance” or some such with an avant-garde jazz artist at Carnegie Hall. Does anyone have any more information about that? I don’t know quite what to imagine.
I did some more reading in Refractions this week. I was struck by one of the connections Mako made between ecology/environment and his art: namely that because of less healthy natural world, Mako is finding it hard to get the good quality paper he likes to use.