Experience God through your hands
Is it possible to experience God through your hands, fingertips and eyes? The Japanese/American painter Makoto Fujimura believes so. He discovered God through artistic activities and wrote an inspiring book about it.
„When people become creative, something sacred happens: we invite the abundance of God's world into the reality of scarcity around us.“
In “Art + Faith", with a foreword by British theologian NT Wright, Fujimura offers a "theology of design". He didn't become a Christian until later in life, but explains that even as a child, when he painted, he felt like he was "honoring the source of beauty and poetry in this world." In creating art, he discovered the creator.
Fujimura's art is characterized by vibrant, deep colors, the abundance of gold and abstraction. It leaves room for interpretation, intuition and mysticism. He uses Japanese techniques, valuable mineral pigments and handmade paper. He mixes the pigments with a special binder and water: a slow, liturgical process. “My work has a life of its own,” he explains, “and I listen to the voice of my Creator through my creation. When people become creative, something sacred happens: we invite the abundance of God’s world into the reality of scarcity around us.”
The Bible is a book in which much is created. Fujimura believes that "in the process of creating we can come to know the depth of God's nature and grace that permeates our lives and creation." One of the insights is that God does not "fix" us. This “plumber theology,” as Fujimura calls it, is far too limited. “God not only improves, repairs, and restores: God renews and raises us from the dead, He exceeds our expectations and desires beyond what we dare to ask or imagine.”
His example of this is Kintsugi. the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold connections. The Kintsugi technique doesn't just repair ceramics: it makes the object more beautiful and unique than the original. A bowl repaired by Kintsugi is no longer a commodity, but is transported into the “realm of beauty” by the Kintsugi master.
Left: kintsugi. Right: yobi tsugi. Images: ZVG
When Fujimura visited a Kintsugi master in Tokyo, he was introduced to Yobi-tsugi: a kind of Kintsugi 2.0. At Yobi-tsugi, not only are the shards put together with glue and gold, but lost or misplaced parts are repaired with new ceramic, creating a kind of collage: a completely new work of art made from old and new components. Kintsugi master Mr. Nakamura, for example, combined ceramics from two rival countries: North and South Korea, with which he created peace in miniature using Yobi-tsugi.
These shards that the Kintsugi master carefully collects to create something new are an important metaphor, explains Fujimura. “After Jesus rose from the grave with a new body, his wounds were still visible. Our own brokenness can also be visible. The broken pieces in our lives can – in the light of Christ’s visible wounds – be a necessary part of the world to come through creation. For just as the Kintsugi master carefully collects and cherishes all the broken pieces, God also collects our joy, our loss and our pain in order to ultimately create something new.”
The beauty of Fujimura's book is that it teaches us to look at God in a different way. The artist experiences God with his fingertips, his hands and his eyes. He calls Christians to be creative and to let our imagination and creativity become an essential part of our faith journey. So that “our art, what we create, will be multiplied in God’s new world.”
Left
• Makoto Fujimara's homepage
• Video in which Makoto Fujimura explains his message
Source: Makoto Fujimura, Marieta van Driel
with kind permission to publish from Joel News
