Mended to Make
Mended to Make
An Interview with Makoto Fujimura by Chris Carter
“Silence” is a word full of the connotations of absence; we hear it as a space to be filled. In situations defined by this perceived absence, we often deploy an army of words to subdue and order the void. The ironic thing, though, is that silence doesn’t fight back; it yields itself to our onslaught, making itself a willing victim of our perennial need to be heard. It stretches its arms out wide to receive all that pours from our tongues. Like the ocean, it’s expansive enough to receive all we throw into it.
Artist and author Makoto Fujimura, known also as Mako, is no stranger to the perplexing questions that silence raises, both in the concept itself, but also in the titular book he bases much of his theological pondering upon.
In the novel Silence, Shūsaku Endō narrates a tale that stares into the sea of silence. The work is witness to a society in transition. In the early 1600s, Japan was saturated by a flood of Catholic missionaries. The situation changed drastically, however, in the 1620s when the shogun forbade the religion. Japanese believers were now forced to choose between an imported faith they cherished and the culture into which they were born.
Amid this persecution, Fathers Rodrigues and Garrpe sneak into Japan to bolster the believers’ flagging faith and to ascertain the whereabouts of Father Ferreira. During their mission, they meet a range of Christians, some strong and others bent and broken. As Father Rodrigues witnesses the brutal suppression of Japanese believers, his faith wavers under the reality that his Lord is silent amidst the pain. In the end, he chooses to apostatize in order to save the lives of many Japanese believers.
When I first encountered this story, I was bewildered by Rodrigues’s choice. I strove to make sense of it, but, like the consuming sea Endō uses as a central motif, my conclusions were swallowed in the wake.
“Endō is holding the fragments,” Mako said, “and asking us the question, ‘What are you going to do with it? Are you going to judge it, fragment it further, or are you going to behold it and identify with the lines, the shapes, the sharp edges of these fragments?’”
My predilection to judge and Mako’s encouragement to listen speaks to a deeper disconnect underlying how many participate in life and art today. As I quieted my need for understanding, Mako gradually unveiled the hermeneutic key to truly engaging well: learning to behold in love.
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When I reflect on my haste to judge Silence, I see a similar habit in my own art. As a photographer and writer, I can easily succumb to the twin temptations of haste and comparison. I quickly upload my photos to my computer, slap on a preset, and post the shot to Instagram, meticulously hash-tagged in the hopes of successfully slipping into the algorithm. But this rapid turnaround and push for recognition comes at a cost: it robs me of my capacity to partner with the unique subject of my shot. “Even if you capture the information,” Mako reminded me, “you may not be able to capture the mystery of light.” The image, instead of being a partner and collaborator, is reduced to a subject I can exploit for transient likes. If life is a vapor, my hurried practice is a fan blowing away the fragile wisp of the moment.
My penchant for convenience is not unique to me; it’s a malady affecting many. Artists often feel the need to rush headlong into the churn of production and distribution, blinding us to the greater reality lurking deeper than the screen and pixel. “The utilitarian pragmatism of modernism has forced artists to become less and less able to deal with the mystery and poetry of reality,” Mako notes. A side effect of this is the trend to homogeneity and commercialization. But in the act of making, Mako offers that “we’re always reckoning with something unknown.” Each artwork has the potential of participating in the untamed wildness of reality, but contemporary media would have us lock mystery in a mass-produced cage in an attempt to garner more attention. “We don’t often train our imaginations to be present to reality,” Mako states. “There’s always this surprise, this burning bush in front of us, but we simply learn to ignore it.”
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Though we are creators by nature—as the handiwork of the Maker who has set eternity in our hearts—utilitarian pragmatism would swap our birthright for a porridge of convenience and fame. How can we escape this for a more holistic theology of making?
The entry point to a theology of making, as Mako details in both his book Art+Faith: A Theology of Making and in our interview, is conversation. The artist begins simply by listening to their materials. Mako’s experience in nihonga, a traditional Japanese style of painting, highlights this surrender to the work. “I want the piece to dictate where it wants to go,” he said. “I listen to the work as I’m layering the pieces.”
As Mako described his artistic process, I noticed his study held several paintings at various levels of completion. He pointed out one piece that he would finish in a different season because the time of year would impact the result. Each element behaves uniquely depending on several factors such as location, weather, and season. Applying a layer of mineral on a rainy day, for example, would yield a different result than waiting till a sunnier springtime. “The work has a life of its own,” Mako reminded me. He doesn’t hurry materials onto a medium. Rather, when he gets a fresh batch of supplies the “first thing I do is spend some time looking at it, beholding it, understanding that this is a unique mixture.” Getting to know the behavior and temperament of each mineral correlates directly to the look of the final product.
“The way I work is very process-oriented. I take my time slowing down and thinking about these variant ways that these materials can layer,” Mako explains. It’s not an overnight process. “My work is about a layer of time being trapped or captured in each of the layers. So really you’re talking about 2-3 years of work. Even if I were to do a layer today, it’s going to take 2 years for it to settle.” This timeframe is a crucial antidote for artists enthralled by instant gratification. It’s effective because it stems from a place of conversation and love.
Modernity tries to buck this reliance on relationship, but we all have a longing toward the love and beauty built into our very being. Where the epistemology of modernity predicates itself on information, a true theology of making flows from agape’s spring. Artists recognize that the practice of their craft is both physical and intellectual. At first, artistic technique will be at the top of the conscious threshold, but as we hone our craft, the skills become muscle memory. I no longer have to think about my camera settings; I instinctively know where to put them. Similarly, Mako knows his materials and suppliers. After working with those artisans for 30 years, his artistic expertise is as much tactile as it is mental, living in his fingertips just as much as his mind, his body willingly receiving stimuli from the outside world. Mutual care is at the center.
Art, thus, is an interplay between mind and body, self and reality. This reciprocal giving and receiving acknowledges that love is the core of reality. It is what we are made to know and be known by. It’s a way of recovering the holistic bodily experience eschewed by modernity. “Somatic knowledge always will lead us to create something new in the world,” Mako offers. The person who embraces this connected reality becomes not only an integrated artist but also a lover.
To attain this station, however, the artist must learn how to listen, beholding without judgment to enable what is seen to participate in a perfect future. The theology of making that Mako offers embraces this mode of listening, evidenced by his reflections on kintsugi.
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From the late 1500s to the early 1600s, Japan experienced a tumultuous epoch as warlords fought to consolidate their fiefs and the country staged two unsuccessful invasions of Korea. In the following decades, the island nation severed its ties with Portugal, closed its borders, and began persecuting Christians.
It was in this environment of alienation and homogenization that tea master Sen no Rikyu codified sado, or the Japanese way of tea drinking. Mako reflects that it was “nonviolent resistance to dictatorial realities…it was a way to deposit peace into a conflict-ridden land.” Through a ceremony in which tea is prepared and presented, Rikyu created a space where people can gather in harmony and fellowship. It is a table whose setting mirrors another Table where broken, alienated people are reunited with God.
The practice of kintsugi emerged in this space of hospitality. Mako explains that “kin means ‘gold’ and tsugi means ‘to mend,’ but it can also mean ‘passing it on to the next generation.’ It’s a deeply gospel-centered message.” Kintsugi masters take shattered vessels and repair them with golden Japan lacquer. The restored pieces are so coveted that they often sell at a price higher than before. But for a mended vessel to attain this value, the kintsugi master spends extended periods getting to know the cup’s fragments. Only after he was intimately familiar with the jagged edges would he apply adhesive. Though the process was long, it results in a vessel whose cracks weren’t hidden but accentuated in gold. “Kintsugi,” Mako reflects, “is taking broken ceramics and saying, ‘That’s not the end; it’s only the beginning.’” The shattered vessel, in the hands of a skilled kintsugi master, becomes a new creation rendered more beautiful because of its brokenness.
In the same way that the kintsugi master beholds the fragments, a theology of making asks us to overcome our disposal mentality and remain present with the brokenness around us. “Art is being present in the imperfections of the moment,” Mako says. The unfortunate tendency of western society, however, “is to discard that part and move on. But according to the tradition of kintsugi, that’s the worst thing you can do.” When something breaks, we sweep up the pieces and deposit them in the trash can, showing how little we value our pain. “Instead, we should behold the brokenness. We should look at the fissures as if they were something intended to be made beautiful by a Japan lacquer master. Perhaps the design of new creation depends on being able to stay with the brokenness until the fragments become beautiful.” When we can patiently sit with our pain and the pain of others, we’ve learned how to listen.
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Jesus himself demonstrates his patience for our pain when Lazarus becomes terminally ill. Upon hearing of the disease, Christ doesn’t rush off to Bethany to heal his friend; instead, he lingers two days. When he finally does make the trip to Lazarus’ home, he’s met with the news that the man has been in the grave for four days. Mary and Martha, the sisters, greet Jesus with bemused exasperation. They knew the stories of blind eyes opened, paralytics brought to their feet, and the dead lifted from their biers. With a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, Jesus could have banished Lazarus’ illness. Yet the Word of God was silent. Instead of healing, Jesus wept (John 11:35).
Commenting on this passage, Mako observes, “Jesus didn’t need to weep. He was there to fix a problem. He had the power to resurrect Lazarus. But he doesn’t do that.” Christ isn’t the prisoner of timetables or expectations. His purposes are his own, and if chooses to weep instead of mend, the work isn’t in vain. “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven,” the prophet Isaiah reminds us, “and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish… so is my Word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty” (Isaiah 55:10-11).
But sitting in grieved silence is never the story’s end. Out of that dark tomb reeking of death, Lazarus emerges whole and alive. Mako is accurately aware of Christ’s call to participate as a co-maker after our spiritual resurrection: “God intends for us to enter into this new relationship and new creation that depends on us making something new. I don’t know how this works. I just know that instinctively when I paint that’s what’s happening.”
“Jesus was resurrected in a glorified human body,” Mako reflects, “but he was also resurrected in a wounded human body. He chose to do that. He could have come back as anything, but that is his message to us, that through ‘my wounds you will be healed’.” Even after Christ conquered death, he still chose to bear the scars of his torture. It’s through these familiar puncture marks that St. Thomas recognizes the Savior. Jesus “tells Thomas, ‘Look at my wounds,’ as a marker of his identity and our redemption and our healing.” The wounds of Christ amplify his resurrected beauty, and he asks us to bring our fragments, too. “Kintsugi is a theology of new creation. It is something that we can harness as a path toward new creation and new community, which is the church.”
Instead of perceiving our pain as the end, kintsugi theology enables us to reframe it as a beginning. Jesus calls us to imitate his love and identify the hurting around us, to be present with those in pain. It’s his imperative to make their tears our own. Mako says, “We do carry our crosses, but those tend to lead us into making.” Because of God’s patient work of making all things new, we won’t hide our wounds; rather, we’ll display them as proudly as masterpieces in a museum exhibition. As the world passes by, they’ll see what used to be a mass of fragments made whole and more beautiful than before. We ourselves will be the artifacts of a new creation soon to come.
Chris Carter
Writer & Photographer
Chris is a writer and photographer living in Los Angeles. He is the author of Prodigal Disciples and has had work published in Bible Advocate and The Secret Place. You can find him on Instagram (@chriscarter_photography).