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Pam King: You are a beautiful masterpiece, but the practice of living artfully comes slowly, often through brokenness, weakness, or failure. Contemporary artists, Makoto, Fujimura integrates traditional Japanese styles with abstract expressionism and Christian theology to explore the beauty that can emerge from pain and suffering, both his art.
And is writing, call us to behold the gift of creation, participate in its redemption, accentuating the cracks and fractures in our lives so that grace might abound.
Makoto Fujimura: I think thriving actually is a realization that we are God’s masterpiece already. Every single person on maiden image of God is the perfect artwork of God. As broken as we are, fragmented as we are in Japan, when something breaks. It’s considered to be sacred. We work so hard to adapt industrial perfection.
To look good is just what we do. Spend a lot of time thinking about how to project ourselves as perfect into the world. And yet, if you have a community of authenticity and honesty, this is a act of imagination and creativity, but you, you are creating a place in which it’s permissible to reveal yourself.
Our lives can be so much better if we allow ourselves to open up to this imperfection and to be able to remove that mask to share in our sufferings.
Pam King: I’m Dr. Pam King, and you’re listening to, with and for a podcast that explores the depths of psychological science and spiritual wisdom. To offer practical guidance towards spiritual health, wholeness, and thriving on purpose.
Known to me and so many friends is Mako contemporary artist. Makoto Fujimura is a painter and author, a speaker, and an imaginative maker with a theological gift for integration working out of his Princeton, New Jersey studio. His work has been described by David Brooks as a small rebellion against the quickening of time.
Art critic Robert Kushner placed Mako’s art at the forefront of a contemporary movement about hope, healing, redemption, and refuge, while maintaining visual sophistication and intellectual integrity. A blend of fine art and abstract expressionism. Mako describes his work as slow art being influenced directly by the distinctively Japanese nihonga style, which is patient and methodical using slow drying pigments from ground minerals.
Makos art has been featured in galleries and museums around the world, as well as notable collections in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, the Huntington Library in California, and the Koten Museum in Israel. From 2012 to 2017, he served as Vision director of the Brum Center here at Fuller Theological Seminary, Mako is the author of several books, including Refractions, a Journey of Art, faith, and Culture Care, reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life, and Silence and Beauty, hidden Faith, born of Suffering.
His most recent is entitled Art and Faith, A Theology of Making and his next book will be available soon titled, art is a Journey Into the Light. And with his wife Hagen, he’s producing a new work on beauty and justice. Follow him on X at I am Fujimura and view his beautiful work makotofujimura.com.
In this conversation with Mako Fujimura, we discuss what art is, what creativity means, and the human capacity for making beauty.
How we can live artfully through imperfection, brokenness, trauma and suffering. How the practice of a gift economy can lead to mutual thriving. The slow art of pausing, stopping and beholding that contributes to our mental and spiritual health and the connection between knowledge and love in a life of creativity and artmaking.
Mako’s message is that whether you consider yourself an artist or not. We all have the creative capacity to add beauty to the world.
Mako, I’ve really looked forward to having you on the show. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Makoto Fujimura: Yeah, it’s so great to see you, and I look forward to this as well.
Pam King: One of the things that I most enjoy is getting to hear a bit about my guest lives and how that’s impacted their work. And I know a bit about that in you, but I’d love to have you share with our audience some potentially formative moments in your journey that led you to be becoming the artist creator.
Mm-hmm. And theologian that you’re
Makoto Fujimura: mm-hmm. Thanks. I have always been an artist. I just. Didn’t know what that meant. And, uh, my father is a renowned scientist and researcher, speech and hearing sciences, and my mother, uh, was an educator. So I grew up in a really nurturing environment for creativity and an imagination.
I didn’t think that there was no other way that meaning. When I went to middle school, I found out that not everybody grew up that way. And so my mother actually made it really possible for me to be an artist all the time. I was always painting, I was always making, and even early on I felt something flowing through me when I created, which I thought was what everybody experienced.
And again, when I share these experiences, you know, I find out that I’m unique in, in that I, and so I always knew that. I will be involved in the arts. Um, I didn’t know how practically, how that would work out, but, uh, I always knew my identity was to, to make
Pam King: that. I’d love to bring up specifically is how your Japanese heritage has shaped your sense of vocation and how you approach art.
Makoto Fujimura: Yeah, I was born in Boston, actually, and yeah, when my, my father was doing his research there and then went to Sweden, then went to early years in Japan. Spent most of my grade school years in Japan. And I was in this historic town called Kamakura, uh, beautiful coastal town, 12th and 13th century capital of Japan.
And, uh, that really looking back shaped my aesthetic. And I, I think after that I. Came to the US and my father was one of the researchers recruited by Bell Labs, which is now kind of famous for that era of golden research. So I grew up in that environment and my, I, I became an artist in, in, in this environment of scientists.
But it was, it was very formative. And my Japanese heritage has a lot to do with what I do because I ended up going back to Japan for graduate studies. Uh, I received a national scholarship to study traditional Japanese art called Hon and Is Hoing back to six 16th century Japan of pulverizing minerals and using gold and, uh, other precious materials on paper and silk.
And I was very fortunate to be one of the lineage students of that art form. And as even coming back to us, I have continued to work with those materials to merge. Traditional Japanese aesthetic with contemporary
Pam King: art, and it’s beautiful. We, we will talk a bit more about the specifics of your art in a bit, but I’d love to ask you, do you have a definition for art?
What is art?
Makoto Fujimura: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I just wrote a book about that. Uh, it’s, it’s called Art is, it’s coming out next fall, but Oh, fantastic. And yeah, and I spend the entire time trying not to define it. And I say elusive, paradoxical statements like art is what, art is not. Things like that. Because art is, is fundamentally what human beings create.
And it’s, it’s our capacity to make as Aristotle defined it. Um, it really is, as I talk about in my other books, you know, theology or making and how making defines us and how we don’t know anything actually until we make typically with our hands. So that. Has influenced my view on the arts, and so I have a very broad definition.
Although what I do here in the studio is very specific to painting contemporary work, but that has been heavily defined by or influenced by Japanese tradition of 16th century Japan path.
Pam King: I loved Mao’s response here. Art is notoriously hard to define, and I think that’s something to celebrate and simply participate in. But as an artist scholar, Mako has done so much more than simply make he thought deeply about the cultural meaning of art, what art means for humanity, and what art has the potential to do for humanity.
As such a basic and ancient practice making art seems to be part of our design, but Mako suggests that art is even more deeply intertwined in us than that. Our capacities for creativity as artists and as makers and crafters is one of the fundamental ways we know the world, work in the world, express our agency and impact on the world, and offer healing for the world and participate with the world.
For me, that suggests that our creative capacities are built into our purpose. Everyone, whether an artist or not, has the ability to live artfully.
I wanted to hearken back to something that you wrote a while ago. Um, you wrote a beautiful letter to a young artist, which as I read it felt more just like a letter to a young person, a young human. It, it starts, remember your first love.
Makoto Fujimura: Mm-hmm.
Pam King: How much you enjoyed creating as a child. And then you quote TS Elliot’s glorious four quartets.
Uh, the end of our exploring will be to arrive where we started and now the place for the first time. In that quote, I hear a lot of purpose and what I often refer to as tell us, and I was wondering what the quote meant to you.
Makoto Fujimura: Mm, yeah, that’s, thanks for reminding me that I. Encounter, and sometimes I get to mentor younger artists, and that includes performing artists.
But you know, and then oftentimes I ask that question, do you remember the first time you played that instrument? Or, you know, you try to play that instrument, or you, uh, got on stage. What drew you to the stage in the first place is exactly the kind of love that attentiveness can open up. If, if we access ourselves to that.
Or what happens in successful professional career is that you often lose sight of that, um, and you end up doing, uh, art, kind of art that you know, perhaps is more transactional and some, sometimes even extractive to your soul. It’s good to remember if you have lost that first love, then find ways of regaining that love and because it, it will.
Continue to haunt you, if not burn you out, to not have that source of joy. It’s a delight that you went into the, you know, your calling in the first place. And ts Elliott, of course, for Quartets being his last epitaph as he, he, he, you know, he wrote that poem and never wrote another line of poetry. He lived for I believe, another 20 years or so.
But, and he is someone that is unusual in that he found that joy was able to express foodie what that joy, um, meant in, in the form of, and could also lay it aside, which to me is a remarkable discipline. But for me, he is absolutely a north star of anybody trying to refine their craft to, to the extent that he felt very perfectly at peace, not writing another line upon.
Pam King: Remembering this first act of creativity, that feeling of joy and agency that came with the early expression of perception and generation. Making something, contributing something, however small to the world. Do you remember the first time you made a piece of art? Maybe you remember back to that preschool finger painting and the smell of the paint covering your hands or putting crayon to paper on a long car ride.
The human discovery of what Aristotle would call our capacity for POIs or making, which is actually where we get the word poem. This is a turning point for a young person becoming who they are. Both making and discovering their identity, both authoring and reading the narrative of their lives.
I, I’d love to ask you, as an artist who’s been very productive and successful by so many standards, how do you keep aligned to that love, to that first spark of when you were a child and felt that energy through you creating?
Makoto Fujimura: Yeah, it’s, it’s a great question and I think I have been able to see my art as part of gifting to the world.
You know, what Lewis High, the writer called Gift Economy, you know, and that term has been used in, in other writings as well by other people. But, you know, gift, uh, economy operates outside of the transactional realm. Hmm. And so, o oftentimes as artists, you get. Caught up in the transactional realm. You know, you have an exhibit at a gallery and there’s always one painting that the gallery wants you to paint over and over because it, you know, it’s very popular, but before you know it, you have lost statue, that first love, or you feel like, you know, you are just being a machine, you know, creating same thing over and over, and that doesn’t allow you to grow.
There’s nothing wrong with having a painting that, that is very popular, but, you know, you, you, you get stereotyped or, you know, just, just trapped and that role that you’re known to play or, so I have been able to e even though I am successful by most standards, um, as an artist, I have been able to keep my, uh, gift economy alive as it were.
That, to have that. Playfulness to take risks in what I create. Always push myself to, you know, not settle into one pattern. I’ve been fortunate to be able to carve out that freedom. You know, every success so-called success I have, I try to use that leverage to have that freedom and, and say no to things, you know?
Mm-hmm. For, that’s a real discipline. But yeah, once I learned to do that, I, I find myself being able to not only look forward to being here in the studio, but I am always painting, you know, I’m always working, working whether I’m away, traveling or whatever, and my mind and my creativity and imagination has always tapped into something bigger than myself, and I’m able to, when I do get back in the studio, I’m ready to go.
People. I find it amazing that, you know, I, I never felt like I had a artist block, but it’s only because of that capacity to see art as a gift and not as a commodity and that I’m always discovering new things. I appreciate that.
Pam King: You know, in that letter you also wrote that so much of modern contemporary thinking, perhaps narcissistically suggests that the ego is the only source of creativity.
And I love how you’ve just described that for your, in this gift economy, so much of your inspiration is coming from beyond yourself, whether you’re interacting with the world around you. For younger artists or creators of all sorts, maybe not painters, those who may not typically think of themselves as artists, but that they are probably creators.
What advice would you give people to keep connected? And not just look for creativity, be within yourself, but to also look beyond yourself.
Makoto Fujimura: Yeah. You know, the key I think is to give yourself away or the say sake of, you know, expression or whatever you’re doing you love will always do that will allow you to give yourself away kenosis, you know, of emptying yourself over and over.
And odd enough as that’s how you find yourself, you know, to. Focus on self-expression and ego, you end up losing your voice because, uh, essentially creating a pseudo character, uh, wearing a mask all the time, you cannot be vulnerable because you have to be, you know, protective of that fragileness of keeping this facade up.
And, and it’s a terrible way to not only create, but to live into, obviously artists get trapped in that. I don’t see many art schools trying to teach students to give yourself away or to work in this gift economy way. And I think that’s a real shame because, uh, you know, so much potential human potential can be tapped into when we have a culture that is generous and that is self-giving and that that accounts for itself and has its own integrity about it.
And when we have a culture that is. Fuel by culture wars and oppositions and polarization and demonizing and, you know, winning at all costs. You, you begin to shrink and before you know it, you are fighting rather than creating, you are consuming rather than making something new into the world. So, so i, I desire for younger generation that, you know, they, it, it’s important to work hard to be on stage and have that exhibit and so forth, but at the end of the day, what, and endure is what lasts is, is something that’s uniquely given to us.
There. There’s no competition when we find that, or we help each other to find that, again, in a collaborative way of pushing each other to do that, to find yourself, you know, to be the most generous artist that. Changes the entire culture from being one of extractive culture to uh, something that is more giving that I find to be the key in actually finding your own voice.
Pam King: Find yourself, give away yourself. Looking to self-expression. Can paradoxically mean you lose yourself? Artists can get trapped in this, but so can the rest of us. Mao’s use of the gift economy is so expressive of what it means not just to produce art, but for us to live artfully. And once we lose a sense of ourselves, it can quickly devolve into consumption, competitiveness, comparison, envy, and self-judgment.
But I’m wondering Marco. Would you share an experience if something comes to mind of when you might’ve been tempted to present that what people wanted, but that you were able to come back to that notion of giving yourself away? I think that is such a profound and a different direction than we’re normally given.
Makoto Fujimura: Yeah. I, that, that happens to me all the time, actually. I mean, there’s constant pressure, you know, because when you’re successful, you have a team of people that you, you are responsible for, and you’re working with a gallery or publisher or whatever, and you want to, you know, please everybody. And it’s hard to say no when you know, especially when you have modicum of success and you’re trying to continue something that you started, you know, wanting that.
Having that passion for something to be birthed. And then you know, you have a vision and people follow you and all of a sudden you’re saying, no, we’re gonna stop what we started. And you know, you’re basically disappointing people. I. Even more recently, we, my wife and I come to believe that sometimes the best thing is to have time of beholding, at least to slow down or even stop and really look at what you have, or even what you lack.
You know, you, let’s say it’s a fragment of what you had hoped to accomplish. You know, to really behold that piece and to be able to say that’s, it’s okay to have a telos that is not perfect, you know, and in fact, that may be the goal is not to project the endpoint as something as perfect. That is basically a way of, you know, finding our identity in something else other than what God has given us.
And so what oftentimes we. Create idols out of objectives. And you know, it, it’s even for someone who continue to dream about the future and continue to have expansive vision of what I, I wish my children and grandchildren can enter into. And for art to have this, um, sense of abundance that feeds into culture.
You know, at the end of the day, it’s okay to pause, stop and, and say, I’m, I’m gonna behold for a while and really pray through this moment to, you know, am I really able to give myself away in that sense and that continuous discipline of being able to do that. I was just speaking with a young student that I mentored and, and he is not an artist, uh, but he, he is in finances and he, we were just talking about this, you know, what do you do?
Let’s say you are stuck in traffic every day. There’s, you know, you start the day frustrated, right, because you get stuck in Trump. And I was like, but you know, you can use that as an opportunity to really reflect on your day. You know, be thankful that you’re rushing to work, you know, what do you do intentionally knowing that would happen, or, you know, at least having, having your, um, heart be prepared to, to be filled with peace and, you know, joy and gratitude when you walk into the office.
That sure it will make a difference in the culture of, of your office. And, you know, he is someone that foodie. Wants that and engages in that. So it was easy to talk to him. But I, I think that’s the same thing with art. You know, we we’re so filled with, we’re goal minded and we get anxious and we, art is unfortunately something that you fail all the time at.
You know, you, there’s so many rejections in any performer’s career or any writer or any artist. You get used to being very defensive and saying, no, I’m gonna keep going. But at the same time, you know that that can be an opportunity to say, you know, it’s okay because I, I, this is an opportunity for me to slow down even stop and behold what I have, the fragments of what I have.
Pam King: I think this idea of beholden is quite bold and counter-cultural. Yes. And if you can behold in the context of LA traffic and find peace and joy, that, that’s a powerful spiritual practice. One, I’m, I have a shorter commute, but I’m gonna, I’m gonna consider that for sure. Yes.
I was very challenged by Marco’s admonition to slow the pace, pause, even stop to behold, and take in the gift of life and beauty around us to literally stop and smell the roses, which Jesus teaches in the Sermon on the Mount. After all, consider the lilies of the field. It goes against the narrative we’re most used to, which is to seek comfort, success, and power.
Taking pride in our busyness and fervor, the slow way of imperfection, lifts us to a different plane. It allows us to be surprised by the life and beauty that exists effortlessly all around us at all times, and remains accessible even if we are ever so slightly in pain, experiencing chaos, anxiety, or depression.
Beauty is there,
as I was reflecting on some of your writings and speaking Mary. And her ability to behold who Jesus is, seems to create a space for her in which she can take in that beauty. And it becomes a moment of literally breaking open, you might imagine, um, in her emotionally, but her breaking open that jar of nard and lavishing Christ with that.
If it wasn’t for pausing and beholding who was before her, I don’t know that she would’ve had that instinctive response to do that. That was not rational Judas points out by any standards. That was not a good or wise or smart idea to waste this precious and expensive substance, but it was so important.
Makoto Fujimura: Yeah. And there, there is fundamental to me, the source of all art is that ability to see beyond the utility and pragmatism and, and actually. The purpose, right? The, this kind of why was Jesus there and Mary or Bethany walking into that room full of, you know, male disciples having their, you know, strategy session, strategy meeting.
So counter to, you know, everything that we think of success to be, you see, and the disciples reactions reveal how. Transgressive in that sense, it was to them and to me. A friend of mine who’s a curator, said, you know, they, they were in that aroma of Alibaba’s job being broken and nod being poured upon Jesus’s feet were box and Leonardo DaVinci and, and Mendelsohn’s and, you know, just all of the odds floating in the air, you know, so extravaga and in, in the most beautiful way Mary captured.
In, in a way what we need the most. And it’s in, you know, that act in some ways reflect an awful gospels revealing how much the disciples were bothered by this. You know, that they, they, they couldn’t forget this moment. And later on when they, what Jesus had done, they only come to appreciate what she had done because it was a prophetic act of anointing the king, anointing the bride groom, you know, and, and then and there.
There’s something so profound that is tied to the gospel, right? Jesus said, whenever the gospel is preached, what she has done will also be told. And to me, art, especially my art, is an extension of that act. And I try to remember Mary every day here in the studio.
Pam King: That’s really powerful. That is another way of beholding, I suppose.
Yes. And
our world too often disconnects our technical, rational, know-how from what we love. But to be truly formed into a mature whole human being, we need to use all of our senses, all our capacities for knowledge agency and love integrated into a beautiful masterpiece. The way Mako describes this draws on a theological vision of finding ourselves already complete in Christ, invited into the work of co-creation with God generating abundance.
And bringing it into a world of scarcity.
Living artfully beautifully with love. One of the questions I ask all my guests is, what is thriving to you?
Makoto Fujimura: Well, since, since I just wrote this book, I would say art art is thriving. You know, I, I really do. And what does that mean? Well, that it, it really means all of our lives. E every single person on made an image of God is the perfect artwork of God.
Community built around the broken body of Christ is an artwork. The masterpiece that God has created. You know, in Christ we are a new creation. And everything about that statement, you know, for by grace you have been saved. That’s not of yourself, not by works. That no one may boast for your Gods forma, right?
Workmanship. It’s translated often, but I translated as God’s masterpiece created in Christ Jesus to do work hard work. I think that is the te loss, you know, is, is that we are already complete in Christ. As broken as we are, fragmented as we are. God holds us tenderly in his love and and beholds us as we are, and there’s nothing we can do to earn any more than what we have received.
And so I think thriving actually is a realization that we are God’s masterpiece already.
Pam King: There’s an amazing poem by a late 10th century Japanese woman by the name of Izumi Shabu, translated by the poet and practitioner of Buddhism, Jane Hirschfield. The poem evokes the quiet patience. Of slow art that Mako himself practices and offers to all of us to live out. So as a meditative practice, I’d like to guide us through a few moments of pausing and beholding as I read through this brief powerful poem three times.
What do the words do in your heart? What memories does the poem evoke? What emotions or sensations are stirred? Although the wind blows terribly here, the moonlight also leaks between the roof planks of this ruined house.
Although the wind blows terribly here, the moonlight also leaks the roof planks. Of this ruined house,
although the wind blows terribly here, the moonlight also leaks between the roof planks of this ruined house.
What wind is blowing terribly through your life does your house sometimes feel ruined? The planks of the roof cracked and loose, leaving you vulnerable and exposed, and what? Loving moonlight leaks through those cracks shining on your face and perhaps those around you. As Leonard Cohen saying, there’s a crack in everything.
That’s how the light gets in.
Makoto Fujimura: We have work to do because in a foreign world, you know, fragmented realities, we, you know, having that knowledge that we are completing Christ, that we are new creation, really should compel us to ask like so in that place, when I can receive that and be in that place, what can I do today to. The hand, what you know, to help somebody else either to understand that reality or simply be through gestures of love, be invited into a hospitable space, a safe place where they can find their thriving.
And this is. Most likely, uh, somatic act. You know, it’s not like you can argue somebody into this, you know? So it’s the meal you invite people into or deliver. It’s the one word of kindness that you have when you know, everybody seems to be against this person or rejecting this person’s, you know, God-given reality.
But I think, you know, when we realize like we are already complete in Christ, we can begin that journey. And the amazing thing to me is that God invites us to co-create once we realize who we are in Christ, right? So God has given us the agency, and in some respects, God has asked us to carry on the task of.
Spreading God’s kingdom here in tangible ways, and God doesn’t act until we do. That’s the astonishing, you know, perhaps radical argument of theology of making is that this is not just, you know, after Easter we say hallelujah and you know, we go on with our lives. No. After Easter we have hard work to do because now in Christ we have been completely.
In, in, in Christ a new creation given that reality. But the new creation in love always is creating something beautiful, something mysterious, some something that is abundant into the world of scarcity and the visions and you know, the polarization and that. To me, it is an incredible invitation by creator God to us, a broken body of Christ to move into this act of healing, act of creation, act of co-creation, and that somehow it’s tied into what God envisions as God’s new creation is done through us.
Pam King: One thing psychology helps us understand is that when people feel loved, when they are seen, when they are known, when they, when mattering, that they matter, resonates throughout their being, that’s when their brains calm. That’s when they can become creative. That’s when that anxiety quells, the openness comes for youngers.
That’s when brains grow from an attachment perspective. That is when we feel secure and we can go out and offer ourselves to the world Easter Week or the week of the passion week. Okay. You know, often people will talk about the cross as the ultimate embrace, the ultimate act of transgressing love.
Mm-hmm. And so that it seems fitting part of that Easter celebration of receiving that embrace from God being loved by God, that we do offer our lives mm-hmm. As living sacrifices. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And yes, it’s worship and celebration and glory to God. Mm-hmm. But it is our active participation in God’s ongoing work in the world.
Makoto Fujimura: And cross and the resurrection. Easter is absolutely at the heart of all this. You know, there’s no, you know, new reality there. But post resurrection journey, you know, we have to always remember that we worship a risen Lord who decided, chose the body of a hu human body. You know, like he could have come back as anything by his God, but he chose to be human after all that he went through, the suffering that he received as a human being, he.
Chose that body. And not only we worship a glorified human being, we worship a wounded, glorified human being. So that’s the te that’s the, you know, that’s what perfection is, and it’s not immaculate. It’s maculate perfection. And which means, for me, I had to really think about what does it mean for my wounds, my trauma?
And it seems that scripture is pretty clear that those two are connected Christ wounds and my wounds in some way, some mysterious way, because God’s strength is made perfect in my weakness. So somehow through Jesus’s wounds, you know, through his wounds, we are healed. And through that light coming from.
Body, arm wounds are lifted up. You know I everything about us as broken and fragmented as we feel that is the perfection of Christ
Pam King: in the Christian tradition. The work of co-creation and co redemption with Christ means using our wounds, our pain, trauma, incompleteness, imperfections, brokenness, rejections, and hurts. This makes me think of these words from the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 61, 3, to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes.
The oil of joy instead of mourning and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. It also brought me back to one of the most moving pieces of art I’ve beheld of macOS. One used for Lenin worship at his church, all Saints Church in Princeton, New Jersey. In these he painted with Sunni ink, which is compressed pine soot, literally making beauty from ashes.
I think your offering an imperfect notion of tell loss is, is perfect. That is that our brokenness is part of our completion. You know, we were talking about beholding earlier. I think to really get to Easter and to being in that space to respond in an engaged and age agentic co-creating kind of way, we also need to make space to behold the suffering and the Protestant tradition that I’m part of is not always as long on the passion week as my Catholic friends.
And I will say Mako, one of the pieces of yours that I have found most moving was one I believe you did for Passion Week with Ash.
Makoto Fujimura: Yeah. So, so for Ash Wednesday, it started when my church needed Len. Pieces. Pieces. And so I started to paint this, uh, liturgical auto piece. And I, I wanted to, because it’s lent, I wanted to use this very traditional material of sumi ink.
It’s a calligraphy ink, but it’s literally made of pine suits compressed with animal hide glue. And it, it’s, it comes in beautiful packaging. And you know, the one that I was using was about a hundred year old ink, um, that you rub against the stone with water and you create the sink and then you paint with it.
And then of course, I was meditating on Ash Wednesday and I realized I’m literally painting with ashes, right? This compressed ashes, that, that has been used in such high honor in Japanese culture and has such rich tradition. All of a sudden kind of this, you know, reality of the refinement of Japanese culture and Ash Wednesday kind of collapsed in itself and I was just profoundly move that Japanese tradition, which is not.
Obviously known to be Christian tradition can inform how we see Ash Wednesday and then season. So ever since then, I have been really expanding that we are the idea of painting with ashes, you know, really thinking through what that means to create something beautiful out of the remnant, really something that’s discarded, you know, is something that is literally burnt up and you use the remnant of that to create something beautiful, something that has been pulverized or discarded or, uh, even lost, you know, in, in the, in, in the world can be recovered as an artist to create something new.
And so that started with, uh, Ash Wednesday.
Pam King: And I’m thinking of our listeners, some who may not understand themselves as artists or creators, so they. May not have that, uh, an activity so readily available of how do we take something old mm-hmm. Which are broken, which you have done in phenomenal ways and, and create meaning and beauty and new life from it.
I’m wondering how you would guide the person who doesn’t think of themselves Sure. As an artist or a natural creator of how they might be bringing life through what is discarded or broken in the world.
Makoto Fujimura: Yeah, that’s a great question. Oh, fir, first of all, ev everybody is created to be creative in some way.
You don’t have to be a professional artist. I mean, you can be a chef, you can be a, a homemaker, you can, you, you know, you can, you can create community. So there, there are many ways of creating into the world and something that I’ve always noticed is that when people love. To do something, you know, whether it be baseball, you know, art, um, they developed this finding attuned sense of creating a new language around it.
Right? So, so if you’re picturing baseball, you know, you, you think, you, you’re throwing the ball at a, you know, at a catcher. And really when you talk to them, you find out, well, there, there’s a slider. Think called a slider or a curve, or, you know, a splitter or, and, and it is thousands of words, right? Be because a person is an expert at that craft.
This is literally something you create, you create words to describe a particular dimension of what you love and that that can happen in every sphere. Right? You know, in a part of psychology, I think, is to start to name things that are both, you know, uh, that we struggle against, but also they must be in thriving sense to name something that.
Creates a new portal for thriving, right? That particularized way that thriving can happen in that person. It could be individualized and unique for that person. And that act of naming in itself is a creative act. That’s how poetry, you know, flows out of that way of naming the world. And its particularities paying attention to the details and creating a portal for that experience.
And to me, what’s important is, again, this idea of a perfection. You know, that we are so used to looking at industrial perfection, so a perfect iPhone, you know? But then when you drop it and you, something breaks you, you know, you immediately think, well, how do we fix this? Or get a new one right to replace it.
We’re missing something that I think, at least in some eastern traditions, uh, in Japan, when something breaks, it’s considered to be sacred. That idea right, is, is to me, fascinating and something to consider because we work so hard to adapt industrial perfection, right? To, to, to look good, to, you know, it’s just what we do, spend a lot of time thinking about how to project ourselves as perfect into the world.
And yet, if you have a community of authenticity and honesty, again, this is a act of imagination and creativity, but you, you are creating a place in which it’s permissible to reveal yourself. You know, kind of like an AA meeting, you know, where you are there to affirm that you are there, and that’s a trial.
Like, anything you say is a plus, you know? And the more you are vulnerable, the more health that is pulled into everyone. Not just yourself, but to everyone. And that kind of reverse path toward understanding that our lives can be so much better if we allow ourselves to open up to this imperfection path.
And to be able to remove that mask, to be, you know, to share in our sufferings in, in, in, in some way. And to begin to name that as, as uniquely yours, uniquely your communities and that tangible experience. Again, this is somatic. You know, your presence in that room, whether you’re silent or you’re sharing, it becomes part of a.
Who you are and your, hopefully your expression into the world. And, you know, we have plenty of examples of this already. Um, uh, we, we don’t think of that as a creative act. I think of it as a creative act. I, I, I, I value that kind of community authenticity. And I, you know, hope that in the future we have many communities, churches, and communities that will embrace that side of human experience.
Pam King: The quest for perfection on display in American consumer culture has been pounded into our heads for decades. The impossible standards of the perfectly marketed perfection industrial complex is relentless in modern life. Technology in the use of AI is only the latest escalation. Perfectionism runs rampant in our success driven definitions of beauty, morality, and certainty.
But again, Japanese art complimented by a Christian theology of grace and redemption offers a counter narrative of finding beauty in our brokenness.
I think your comment on, you know, this industrial standard that we hold ourselves to in terms of purpose, I tell us, or perfection is so interesting and it’s so mechanized, where then you’re offering this. Literally co-created layered nuance sense of community that weaves lives of vulnerability and care and strength and violation because we’re not perfect and hopefully rebuilding and reminding reminds me of your art.
You talk about doing slow art that creates space for beholding the multi-layers involved. The time involved must invite you into. Contemplative action. Mm-hmm. Uh, where you are able to reflect on the layers of you, I’d love to hear you reflect on how your slow art, that process gets at what you’re talking about.
Makoto Fujimura: You know, the way I think about my art is, is my art is an excuse for me to slow down, excuse for any viewer to slow down. You know, when we did an exhibit of Pepperdine, the, uh, curator put up a, a statement as you are going in. You know, she, she basically said, you will not see these paintings unless you’re willing to spend 10 minutes in front of one painting.
And to their credit, many students and many visitors, I saw them doing this. And many times, first of all, my art is designed to open up. When you do that, when our minds are resting, our eyes open up and we are able to see what. You know what? You walk in and you see this red painting or blue painting and you think, oh, there’s nothing there.
And you, you can walk right past it. If you sit in front of it for just 10 minutes, it will open up what one person called a galaxy, you know, patterns that I could not believe. My eyes, eyes, uh, eyes. But actually that’s true of the world. We are so in rush that myself included, we do not stop and pay attention to the mysteries and wonders of the world around us, how that brings healing to our souls.
And yet we are so anxious, right? About what, you know, what the next thing we have to do. We forget that the very essence of why we’re doing that thing that is so important to us does not really get accomplished without us being able to step back. Appreciate that. Whatever it is that we’re doing that allows us this perspective of gratitude and also yeah, reality of having imaginative freedom that you were just talking about.
In, in, in a setting of safety and love, we are able to see beyond our current crisis, current problems and, and issues that we are facing. So that’s. I think what Jesus meant by consider li of the field. Right? You know, the people are coming to him with all sorts of troubles and you know, they’re literally in a survivor’s game where there’s no health insurance, there’s no guarantee, there’s no.
Military powers protecting them, right? But to those people, the most vulnerable people, Jesus said, stop and look at the flowers. You know, not even Solomon was dressed as bright and beautiful as the these, and so to us, you know, that, that sounds really strange. Like you’re supposed to not be fully engaged in your task.
But really what I think, art, music, theater, all these expressions will do, is to help you be fully human so that when you do the task that you are asked to do, whether you’re a doctor or plumber or whatever, that act, act becomes more sacred and, and more present, right? As, as an act of meaningful way of serving and loving the world.
That to me is how when we, when I say we are creative, we creative, we’re not just creating something for the sake of ourselves. We are to create and love. So. That, you know, love being passed on to us. The grace that is given to us is also being shared in the world.
Pam King: Mako, do you have a practice that you either practice or that you might recommend for?
Again, those who don’t identify necessarily as a creative, and I hear you saying we’re all creatives, right? That enables people to get in touch with that love so that they may live it out purposely in their own creative way. Is there something that’s a question grounds you or that Yeah. You experience grounds people in that love?
Makoto Fujimura: Yeah, that’s a great question and it is. It is a perpetual way for me to focus on, because my job here is to slow down, right? So I start the day listening to. A Psalm. I choose one Psalm per month, and I paint that Psalm in 48 by 48. So it’s very large scale. Of course, there’s 150 songs, so it will take me 14 years to complete this task of finishing this series of paintings.
But I listened to the psalm over and over, read by one of my fellows who I worked with, who’s a spoken word artist, and the psalm I actually was translated uniquely to be sang by Dr. Ellen Davis at Duke. So I listened to that version of it over and over because I wanna hear the sound of, you know, this crying out to God or this prayer of praise or adoration.
So I spend about an hour doing that every morning, and that has. Help me to slow down. But most importantly, I think listening take is a discipline that we have lost. What I mean by listening is not just hearing sound, but listening with the heart, listening, knowing that God may be speaking through that side.
And so through that person, and you know, we’re very quick. To judge, we’re very quick to pronounce a solution, you know, so we don’t behold, right? So I think part of us, whatever that mechanism of discipline may be, whether it be learning to breathe deeply when you feel anxious or, you know, when there are now fortunately many apps to help us to slow down.
But, you know, I, I think there, there are certain ways that we can build into our daily lives and our communal lives. You know, we can remind each other to, to slow down to. Enjoy the world, uh, that God has made to go to museums, to listen to music together, or to make music together, be better yet, you know, invite people for feast, you know, strangers to, to come and join you and making the, a world a more photo and rich and o mysterious and beautiful place.
I, I think those are things that I think of when I, or at least I try to do that in my journey to slow down.
Pam King: That’s so helpful. I love how you’ve mentioned that we can just get. Connected or grounded through our senses, whether it’s smell, breathing, that kinesthetic moving, visual, auditory listening. And I have had the experience of being in front of one of your ginormous shades of blue paintings, which yes, I didn’t see many shades at first of turquoises.
Yeah. I’m wearing turquoise. Yeah. And standing there and the colors unfolding before me. And I think your work is a great. Opportunity for like a, a Vizio Dina mm-hmm. Of just being still and beholding and allowing God the pain to speak to you mm-hmm. Of what you might see over time. But it does slow us down because if you walk right by it, you miss so much of the beauty and mystery of it.
Makoto Fujimura: Yeah. Thank you
Pam King: Mako, thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you for slowing down, creating a space here and sharing so richly
Makoto Fujimura: My pleasure. It, it was good to be with you.
Pam King: Mako Fujimura integrates his art making theology and culture care advocacy into a beautiful expression of thriving in spiritual health through his breathtaking expressionist style distinctively Japanese methods. And his rooted Christian convictions. He’s bringing beauty into being and inviting us to do the same.
The key takeaways that I will carry with me from this conversation are the following. Whether you think of yourself as an artist or all creative, Mao’s message is intentionally not just for artists, because creativity comes in so many different ways. From leadership, to scientific research, to parenting, cooking, we all have the daily creative capacity to add beauty to the world.
The question is. Will we intentionally use it? And to that end, remember your first love, the playfulness and creativity of giving beauty to the world. A gift economy of beauty offers a radical resistance to consumerism, competition and comparison. Our art in the making of beauty is part of thriving. And the invitation to live artfully starts with a daily practice of slowing down.
Pause, stop, and behold. Smell the roses. Consider the lilies. There’s a path to beauty through brokenness. Grace comes to us through failure and strength is made perfect in weakness. And finally, though the wind may be blowing through our lives, may we all learn to behold the moonlight leaking between the roof planks.
WIth and for is a production of the Thrive Center at Fuller Theological Seminary. For more information, visit our website, the thrive center.org, or you’ll find all sorts of resources to support your pursuit of wholeness and a life of thriving on purpose.
I am so grateful to the staff and fellows of the Thrive Center and our with and for podcast team. Jill Westbrook is our senior director and producer. Lauren Kim is our operations manager. Wren Jeurgensen is our social media graphic designer. Evan Rosa is our consulting producer. And special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology in Marriage and Family Therapy.
I’m your host, Dr. Pam King. Thank you for listening.
Makoto Fujimura
Makoto Fujimura is a leading contemporary artist whose work has been featured in galleries and museums around the world, including The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, The Huntington Library, the Tikotin Museum, Belvedere Museum, C3M North Bund Art Museum, and Pola Museum. His process-driven, refractive “slow art” has been described by David Brooks of The New York Times as “a small rebellion against the quickening of time.” Fujimura is the author of five books: Art Is: A Journey Into the Light (Yale University Press, forthcoming October 2025), Art+Faith: A Theology of Making, Silence and Beauty, Refractions, and Culture Care. He is also the recipient of numerous awards, including the 2023 Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Life and the American Academy of Religion’s 2014 Religion and the Arts award. From 2003 to 2009, he served as a Presidential appointee to the National Council on the Arts. He is a celebrated speaker and advocate for the arts. Fujimura is an Equity in Action Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania for the 2024-25 academic year.
Episode Summary
“Beholding is a countercultural act—it requires us to stop, to receive, and to fully see.” — Makoto Fujimura
“Slow art is an invitation to linger, to notice, and to let the world unfold before us.” — Makoto Fujimura
You are a beautiful masterpiece. But the practice of living artfully comes slowly, often through brokenness, weakness, or failure. Contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura integrates traditional Japanese styles with abstract expressionism and Christian theology, to explore the beauty that can emerge from the ashes pain and suffering. Both his art and his writing call us to behold the gift of creation, participate in its redemption, accentuating the cracks and fractures in our lives, so that grace might abound.
Makoto Fujimura—renowned artist, writer, and theologian—joins Dr. Pam King to explore the deep connections between art, faith, and flourishing. Fujimura shares how his Japanese heritage and study of traditional Nihonga painting have shaped his understanding of creativity as a sacred act. Through themes of brokenness, beauty, and slow art, he challenges us to rethink success, embrace imperfection, and create from a place of love and abundance. Whether you’re an artist, a person of faith, or someone seeking meaning in a hurried world, this conversation will invite you to slow down, behold, and embrace the mystery and beauty of life.
Mako Fujimura integrates his artmaking, theology, and culture care advocacy into a beautiful expression of thriving and spiritual health. Through his breathtaking expressionist style, distinctively Japanese methods, and his rooted Christian convictions, he’s bringing beauty into being, and inviting us to do the same.
In this conversation with Mako Fujimura, we discuss:
– What art is, what creativity means, and the human capacity for making beauty
– How we can live artfully through imperfection, brokenness, trauma, and suffering
– How the practice of a gift economy can lead to mutual thriving
– The slow art of pausing, stopping, and beholding that contributes to our mental and spiritual health
– And the connection between knowledge and love in a life of creativity and artmaking.
Show Notes
Helpful Links and Resources
- Follow Makoto Fujimura on X @iamfujimura
- View Mako’s art at makotofujimura.com
- Makoto Fujimura’s Writings
- Makoto Fujimura’s Books
- Nihonga Art and its Traditions
- Refractions: A Journey of Art, Faith, & Culture
- Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life
- Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering
- Art and Faith: A Theology of Making
Episode Highlights
"Art is fundamentally what human beings create—it is our capacity to make, and in making, we come to know." "Beholding is a countercultural act—it requires us to stop, to receive, and to fully see.” "We worship a wounded, glorified human being—our brokenness is not something to escape but something to offer." "Creativity is not about self-expression alone—it is about giving yourself away in love." "Slow art is an invitation to linger, to notice, and to let the world unfold before us."- Makoto Fujimura discusses the intersection of art, faith, and flourishing
- The importance of beholding in a fast-paced world
- How brokenness and imperfection reveal deeper beauty
- Nihonga painting and the wisdom of traditional Japanese art
- Creativity as an act of love and gift-giving
The Art of Beholding
- Why slowing down is essential for creativity and spiritual growth
- The practice of beholding as a way of seeing the world more deeply
- How art invites us to be present and pay attention
- The connection between contemplation, creativity, and flourishing
- "Beholding is a countercultural act—it requires us to stop, to receive, and to fully see."
Creativity, Faith, and Human Flourishing
- How art and faith are intertwined in human thriving
- The spiritual discipline of making and creating
- Why true knowledge is connected to love and experience
- "Art is fundamentally what human beings create—it is our capacity to make, and in making, we come to know."
- How community fosters creativity and growth
Brokenness, Beauty, and the Theology of Making
- The Japanese tradition of Kintsugi and embracing imperfection
- How Jesus’ wounds and resurrection shape our view of brokenness
- The gift economy vs. the transactional economy in art
- "We worship a wounded, glorified human being—our brokenness is not something to escape but something to offer."
- Learning to see beauty in what is discarded or overlooked
The Practice of Slow Art
- Why slowing down is essential for deep engagement with art
- How layers in Nihonga painting reveal new depths over time
- "Slow art is an invitation to linger, to notice, and to let the world unfold before us."
- How slowing down fosters healing and deeper connection
- The role of patience and attentiveness in both art and life
Living a Creative and Generous Life
- How to cultivate creativity in daily life, even outside traditional arts
- The role of community in sustaining creative work
- Why generosity and self-giving are essential to true creativity
- "Creativity is not about self-expression alone—it is about giving yourself away in love."
- Practical steps for integrating creativity into everyday living
Pam King’s Key Takeaways
- Whether you think of yourself as artist, we’re all creative. Mako’s message is intentionally not just for artists, but is an invitation for all of us to live artfully—no matter what we do for a living.
- Because creativity comes in so many different ways, from leadership, to scientific research, to parenting, to cooking, we all have the daily creative capacity to add beauty to the world.
- And to that end, remember your first love, the playfulness and creativity of giving beauty to the world
- A gift economy of beauty offers a radical resistance to consumerism, competition, and comparison.
- Art and the making of beauty is a part of thriving. And the invitation to live artfully starts with a daily practice of slowing down: pause, stop, and behold. Smell the roses. Consider the lilies.
- And finally, there’s a path to beauty through brokenness. Grace comes to us through failure. And strength is made perfect in weakness.
- And finally, though the wind may be blowing through our lives, may we all learn to behold the moonlight leaking between the roof planks.
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