Product Description

To create is to bring healing and hope into the world, says Makoto Fujimura. Here he releases a series of essays that help us understand the connection between faith, art, and culture. Readers will find inspiration and experience a call to engage faith with our culture through art.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #44447 in Books
• Published on: 2009-02-01
• Released on: 2009-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781600063015
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"An artist with the craftsmanship and global appeal of Makoto Fujimura comes along all too rarely. Such an artist with a strong faith commitment who both inspires and leads other artists--now that's really rare. Mako is a fine writer. I learned, and was provoked and frequently moved by these reflections that through Mako's eye have become unique refractions." --Philip Yancey: author of more than twenty books, including Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference? and What's So Amazing About Grace?

Review
"Like his art, Makoto Fujimura's essays harbor a depth of luminosity that requires and rewards patient contemplation. This collection is an important contribution to the conversation between faith and art and between art and our beautiful, broken world."

Review
The movie Joyeux Noelle (2005) is the true story of the famous "Christmas Truce" of 1914. It depicts how, during the hostilities of World War I, the French, Scottish, and German troops spontaneously laid down their weapons, came up out of their trenches, and fraternized during an informal, unauthorized armistice. And at the heart of this astonishing, grassroots effort at peacemaking was art. Kaiser Wilhelm II had sent thousands of Christmas trees to the front lines in order to boost the morale of the German troops. After the trees were set up over their trenches, in sight of the enemies' lines, a German soldier who was a tenor began to sing the Christmas hymn "Stille Nacht" (Silent Night). Soon the French and Scottish troops began singing along in their own languages. Finally, soldiers climbed out of their trenches without their weapons and began to talk, then exchanged gifts, and finally even engaged in games of soccer. (The full, true story is told by Stanley Weintraub in Silent Night: The Story of the World War I Christmas Truce (Plume, 2002). The movie adds a fictional character to the true story in the form of a world-class soprano to go with the great tenor. The beauty of their singing breaks through the political dividing walls and unites the opponents in joy and tears. I've seen something of this unifying power even in my own church services. Because I minister in New York City, our congregation contains some of the (literally) best musicians in the world. The music in our services is always excellent, but occasionally we have a musical offering that is so superb and affecting that everyone listening is stunned into silence and moved to tears. And guess what? It is not members rather than visitors, or Christians rather than non-Christians, who are touched. Everyone is brought together; everyone is included. Interestingly, this only happens when the art is skillful and well-done. When the music is mediocre or bad, my members may be edified a bit if they know and love the musician personally, but visitors and strangers are bored and excluded by the experience. Mako Fujimura is absolutely right to focus on the peace-crafting power of art. He quotes Tolstoy who writes that art "should cause violence to be set aside." It is our instinct toward, freedom, justice, and beauty. This book of reflections explores Tolstoy's thesis with wisdom, humility, and grace. I have been a friend and co-minister in New York City with Mako since 1990. Mako's International Arts Movement has been a pioneering effort to integrate thoughtful faith with the creation of art that moves us toward the world "that ought to be." I'm delighted to see this book appear and honored to be able to recommend this book to all.

Customer Reviews

Finding beauty and light in brokenness
When I received Makoto Fujimura's Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art, and Culture, I was wowed by the evident care that had gone into it's design. It is the loveliest paperback book I've ever seen. I expected to find it interesting, perhaps a little challenging, and certainly full of beauty.

But life intervened, first in the form of a traffic collision, then in the form of a layoff from my job. I found myself with more time on my hands than I was accustomed to having, but the last thing I wanted to do was read a collection of meditations by a Japanese-American artist. I read some, found myself foundering, and put it aside. Then, driven by a sense of responsibility to the publisher for sending me a free copy, I tried again. And again. And again.

I found after all my trying that the book was better than I wanted to admit. It isn't that I don't like art. It is that I do like logical, well-reasoned argument. I like a straight highway and a car with plenty of horsepower. Instead, I was forced to meander on a country path through unfamiliar landscapes, never knowing quite where I was going or how I was going to get there. It struck me that this was the sort of book my artistic wife would like. I'm not sure she has ever read a book straight through. She reads the beginning, jumps into the middle, skips to the end, backtracks, quits for a week, resumes from a different spot than where she left off, and generally leaves me dumbfounded. If I tried to read like that, my brain would turn to pudding.

(Full disclosure: My wife reminded me that she read The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck straight through and enjoyed it immensely. Incontrovertible evidence that she is a better person than I.)

Refractions is a book of meditations. I find that I cannot simply read it; I have to join in the meditation. Some of Fujimura's insights are penetrating. Much of what he has to say has been shaped by his proximity to the collapse of the Twin Towers. His studio was covered with dust from the Towers. His child was evacuated from school. He sees the gap where the Towers used to form the backdrop for his working life every day, a gap that seems to him more momentous and intense than any of the presences that still fill his life. Living, as I do, in Minnesota, the fall of the Towers was distant, like the wars that have come since. In fact, the war in Afghanistan has been more present to me because my son spent a year and a half there and is slated to return this fall. But the wars are also outgrowths from the gap where the Towers stood. For Fujimura the absence of the Towers signifies all the absences in our lives that make us incomplete or broken. Every return to Ground Zero is a kind of repentance, acknowledging that brokenness and calling for redemption. He believes that art can facilitate the healing required; that is one of its purposes both for the artist who creates something beautiful and meaningful out of the brokenness and for the one who responds to that creation with understanding and empathy.

Fundamentalist Christians may find Fujimura's Christianity too inclusive. For example, he draws inspiration from Matazo Kayama, who was a Nihonga master. But like those who say, "All truth is God's truth," I think Fujimura would say, "All beauty is God's beauty." Wherever the creative process is at work, making something beautiful out of broken pieces, God is also at work because God is an artist.

unique...and important!
Makoto Fujimura is a contemporary artist whose home and studio are near Ground Zero. Out of a response to the attacks on 9/11, he began to set aside time every Saturday to write. This was a time to process and reflect on the emotions and changes in his life and city. The result of these writings is this beautifully crafted book.

In recent years, we have seen a renewed interest in the relationship between art and theology, and Fujimura offers a significant voice in that conversation. The book is a collection of essays loosely joined by the topics of faith, art, and culture, as the title suggests. While some books seem redundant after the first few chapters, the unique subject and fresh thoughts of each essay pulled me forward into every page turn.

What I appreciate most is the awareness that Fujimura displays of his soul and surroundings. He describes this awareness in the book's first essay:

"The process of creating renews my spirit, and I find myself attuned to the details of life rather than being stressed by being overwhelmed. I find myself listening rather than shouting into the void. Creating art opens my heart to see and listen to the world around me, opening a new vista of experience. This is the gift of the 'second wind.' Such a state taps into what I now call eternal timefullness."

While I was able to engage and be shaped by his thoughts throughout, it was this awareness that challenged me the most. After finishing the final chapter yesterday, I closed the book and opened my journal. With infinite access to information and social connection, all of us would do well to be a little more connected to our own selves.

A book of hope
I just received Makoto Fujimura Refractions a journey of faith, art, and culture. I have been a fan of his paintings ever since I found the IAM website. His essays are very uplifting for the human heart, whether you're an artist or not. His writing is like having a conversation with an old friend who speaks hope when you need it the most. I would recommend this book to us all, because is there ever such a thing as too much hope?