Reimagining the Good Life with Amy Julia Becker

Culture Care, not Culture War with Makoto Fujimura

• Amy Julia Becker, Makoto Fujimura • Season 9 • Episode 9

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S9 E9 — Our culture feels like a battlefield, but perspectives and actions change when we see it as a garden we’ve forgotten how to tend. Artist and author Makoto Fujimura shares with Amy Julia Becker how art, wonder, and imagination can restore our capacity to love, hope, and tend culture with care. Together they explore his book Art Is: A Journey into the Light, slow art, spiritual imagination, and a gentler way to live faithfully in a fractured world.

00:00 Introduction to Makoto Fujimura and the Process of Art
07:08 Stewardship Responsibility for Imagination and Creativity
13:34 The Importance of Slow Art and Observation
19:19 Engaging with Darkness in Art
22:15 The Role of Artists within the Darkness of Society
29:07 Giving Away Beauty: The Heart of Art
34:07 Imagination, Faith, and Love
42:58 Culture Care: Changing the Metaphor
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ABOUT OUR GUEST:

Makoto Fujimura is a leading contemporary artist whose process driven, refractive “slow art” has been described by David Brooks of New York Times as “a small rebellion against the quickening of time”. In addition to his work as an artist, Mako is an author whose latest work is entitled Art Is: A Journey into the Light. 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 and has received five Honorary Doctor of Arts degrees.

https://makotofujimura.com/

https://www.instagram.com/iamfujimura/

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Note: This transcript is autogenerated and does contain errors. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print.

Amy Julia Becker (00:05)
I'm Amy Julia Becker, this is Reimagining the Good Life, a podcast about challenging the assumptions about what makes life good, proclaiming the inherent belovedness of every human being, and envisioning a world of belonging where everyone matters. Today, I get to talk with Makoto Fujimura. Mako is a contemporary artist whose work has been featured in galleries and museums around the world. And if you ever get a chance to see his art, I highly recommend it.

He has a process-driven, ⁓ materials-driven, contemplative, contemplation-driven, ⁓ slow art. And that artwork that he creates has been described by David Brooks as a small rebellion against the quickening of time. Don't we all need that right now? A small rebellion against the quickening of time. In addition to the work he does as an artist, Mako is an author, and his latest work is called Art Is, A Journey into the Light.

So today we're talking about his writing and his art. We're also talking about how to slow down, how to take care with ourselves and our world and how to live with hope.

Well, Makoto Fujimura, thank you so much for being here today.

Makoto Fujimura (01:21)
It's great to be here with you again and be back.

Amy Julia Becker (01:26)
Well, you have written another beautiful book, although in this case, this book is beautiful in two ways. It is both ⁓ beautiful in its language and concepts. We're going to talk about that. It's also perhaps the most like literally beautiful book that I know of that you've written because it's been designed in such a way that there are these photographs of paintings and spaces within it. And so I just wanted to start as a way to introduce people to this book. Art is.

talking about it as like a cultural product, Like you are someone who is a visual artist, I think primarily, and yet you also are compelled to write about art and about being a creator. So could you just explain what compels you to do that writing and to kind of combine this visual and, I don't know, intellectual, these aren't quite the right terms, because of course the visual is also intellectual and, you know.

But can you speak to that a little bit as we get started here?

Makoto Fujimura (02:25)
Well, thank you. ⁓ Yeah, this book doesn't fit into any category. And it's something I've always noticed about myself is that I don't necessarily fit into my category. My art doesn't. ⁓ My writing, when I started writing, ⁓ it just felt like a natural extension of what I do in the studio. And it continues to be that. ⁓ I've been very intentional to bring in the process of how a

creative person thinks, or meanders in the world. ⁓ But this time, the process of how this book came about was my editor of my last book, ⁓ Art and Faith, Theology of Making, out of Yale Press, as we were trying to get back to our lives.

from the pandemic and ongoing reality of that said, you know, that's, I really want to make a beautiful book. well, what that means, really, for publisher is to do something to push the envelope on something that they don't normally consider, which is how can you have it 72 images and a hardcover book?

and design it in such a way that it can be sold under 30 bucks. That's almost an impossibility. And we have to figure out how to do that. But fortunately, Yale is very good at this. They have done a lot of art books. And so they had this process in which made me comfortable at least that this is at least something doable.

whereas a lot of publishers wouldn't even try to do this. ⁓ So they were waiting to take a risk ⁓ on this project. And of course, me as an artist, I'm excited about the possibilities. I keep pushing them, pushing the limits of what can be done. But in this case, the designer kind of jumped in and his name is Dustin Kyogoro and really kind of pushed me ⁓ to

try things that I wouldn't consider doing myself. ⁓ For instance, the cover, the calligraphy design on the cover, ⁓ all these patterns are all done by me in the studio. And they're a little bit funky. If you are a marketing team looking at this kind of design, they'll say, this would be like... ⁓

the letters will disappear even though it's embossed in gold and you're not gonna be able to see it, see the title. And so they'll immediately scratch the idea, go to more traditional type set. But Dustin said, no, we're gonna do this. And we're gonna do it in this craft paper and make it look more like...

accessible and yet a little bit esoteric, know, and it's, it's just, it's just amazing thing to work with someone who wanted to take that risk and to make a statement as you noted, this is not a book, it's an object, you know, this is, this is something that you open and even I feel like the ink that they use when you open the wrap,

It just has such a fresh smell and feeling about them. There's a presence to this book that you kind of look at and admire. when my editor brought the book to me, the first copy, I was just almost, I couldn't believe it because every risk that we took in design, because I don't even know how they will manifest itself.

and embossing on the cover to ⁓ each page. know, how we don't know how thick the page is really, you know, we don't have control over that. And it's all about packaging. So when I held it in my hands, I told her that, you know, this is much, much better than I expected. And that you rarely say that about publishing. So I was really amazed by it.

Amy Julia Becker (07:10)
Well, it is really beautiful. as you said, I like that. Like it's an object, but it is also a book. And I'm going to give a quotation from the book that will help, I think, listeners understand that we're not just talking about, although this could serve as like a beautiful coffee table book. Like, right. You could just put it and look through it and not read any of the words and still get something from it. But here's here's something you write early on page five. OK, so we're like deep diving very quickly here. Art that is trapped in hedonism or narcissism will not endure.

and worse yet can become an unwitting or witting agent for destruction. So can we unpack that? Like, what is art that is trapped in hedonism and narcissism? Yeah. And why is it often destruct?

Makoto Fujimura (07:54)
Yeah, that's a really provocative line. first, in this book, even though the title is Art Is, I don't try to define art. ⁓ It's more like a question and it's more like an existential statement. Art exists. Art is here. Art is in front of us, any of us, not just here in my studio, but any person living in this world is filled with

not just designed reality, but nature. And obviously we live in a broken world. So all of that is part of art, and I go on. But there's a stewardship responsibility for imagination and creativity that we have to deal with that many times in the art world that I'm accustomed to, they don't talk about.

these stewardship responsibilities or responsibility of an artist or even the word beauty is suspect because it has connotations with this imperialistic past and all sorts of Western ideas. So I bring in Eastern Japanese ideas about beauty and that in a sense redefines

what we are talking about, because Japanese beauty is connected with brokenness and nature in a really invaluable way that ⁓ it's more integrated that way. And when we walk through that door, we realize, okay, so if this is stewardship of nature and culture at the same time, what I am making does matter.

And obviously, what we make can destroy the world. We know that with atomic weapons. But at the same time, human imagination is such a key way of understanding our lives and our faith. It is just a way that we have even as coming into the world, being born into the world,

our senses does not one-to-one, you know, ⁓ identify and categorize and here's a tree. ⁓ And it's more complex than that. you know, all these studies of perception has taught us that actually it is part of, we have to develop our imagination to see.

right, to find a framework for what that tree is. And as we grow older, we lose that freshness of encountering a tree and seeing all that there is with our eyes. And we, know, kind of analytical part takes over and we stop seeing at all, you know, and we make assumptions about the world. And I have noticed that when we do that, we tend to have this

force binaries that come out of that simple, just identifying and categorizing mode that leads to us judging people ⁓ right away because of how they look or what kind of neighborhoods they live in or whatever. ⁓ And artists resist this kind of path to reduce experiences.

you know, artists of all kinds, theater artists, know, visual artists, poets, they walk in to any realm and say, wow, that's fascinating. You know, what is that? You know, can I see more of that? And that kind of curiosity toward wonderment is what we have increasingly lost because of propensity for efficiency algorithm.

of our social media doesn't help because it will, you know, it's basically funded by our tendency to make prejudgments about something. you know, it feeds into that mechanism. So this book is kind of an antidote. If you want to experience a world as an artist sees and, you know, for the Wonder Man, for the...

different types of delights that we no longer stop to see beauty in front of us, right? So this is a kind of a training that artists will do naturally every day that opens up the world in its, what I call, prismatic complexity that is not reduced to four spinaries. It's not black and white. It is, you know, this rainbow.

And our eyes are equipped to do that, our ears are equipped to do that. And so I ask, is our hearts able to contain the glory of God, the fantastic realm that we are placed in?

Amy Julia Becker (13:34)
And I think this might kind of prompt you to say even more. One of the things you write about is slow art and that sense of wonderment and curiosity, it doesn't ⁓ come simply because of slowing down, but I do think that there is something about speed and slowness that might enable us to not only develop our eyes and ears, but our heart to seeing that beauty and having that sense of wonderment.

And you were talking about slow art, not only in terms of your actual process, although your process is something that is slow, methodical. So I was wondering if you could describe that. I mean, you have a couple of different processes, so maybe pick one to describe and then also talk about like, why does that matter? ⁓ Not just in terms of the art, like the functional art, but in terms of some of these broader ideas around slowing down and paying attention.

Makoto Fujimura (14:33)
Yeah, so what I do in the studio is I ⁓ use traditional Japanese way of painting. It's called Nihon-ga now, but you can go back to 16th century Japan and I use the same materials today. ⁓ you see these gold panels and vermilion panels, but they are more layered and layered. ⁓ Sometimes, you know, it's 100.

150 layers before you start to paint. So you're preparing and you're mixing. It's all water-based, but it's mixing ⁓ first by melting the glue, glue sticks into this double boiler. every day you kind of mix the glue. So you come in and there's this whole liturgy that I go through and I describe in the book where

I am slowing down myself. And then the reason why I still insist on continuing to work that way, there are faster ways of working. You can use acrylic, you can use social mediums. But I insist on doing this. It's really an excuse for myself to force myself to be present, to be aware, to slow down.

I didn't realize that in recent times how much research has gone into because people are struggling with anxiety and struggling with, you know, all sorts of depression. you know, researchers are discovering actually, you know, if you lay down on the floor for 10 minutes, know, literally your brain shifts. what you hear, you hear differently. What you see, you see differently.

And because we don't do that, right, we are constantly on this adrenaline drive and we cannot process information that is more complex than, again, these false binaries we create. It's like a survival technique because we don't take in, we are unable, our body shuts down basically. And so I did an intent to.

practice, you know, ⁓ form of opening up the senses this way, but it turns out to be that way. Maybe I was into thinking that, as you you make little decisions along the way. know, even learning this technique in Japan, long time ago in graduate school. You know, I insist on shipping the materials here, working with ⁓ the ecosystem of artisans in Japan, and that

takes quite a bit of effort, You're trying to, there's an ecosystem of relationships and tradition as much as it is buying something off the shelf. ⁓ And then using my own hands to create paint that way every day, thinking about everything from atmospheric pressure here to ⁓ what kind of surface I'm working with to how much layering will affect

the outcome of what I want to paint. And so I have ⁓ kind of made this a lifestyle of to be able to stay with what I see and how even the book begins with this 25 meter walk from my house to the studio. And it's so fascinating because

I didn't even think that that would be interesting to write about. And it was my editor who said, can you just write a paragraph of what you see? And so I sat down and wrote this paragraph. I was like, oh my goodness, this is a whole book. And that's exactly what the book is. It's just like the Mason Bee that I described in first chapter. It's kind of meandering and observing and looking for beauty to pollinate.

And artists are not aware of this consciously, but we are literally pollinators of culture. We seek out beauty and we are doing something that the nature is required of us to do. And by doing that, being faithfully doing that every day, artists are able to create something, an ecosystem that others can thrive in.

And so this whole slowing down is maybe also just paying attention to what is happening and being faithful in that journey.

Amy Julia Becker (19:32)
I want to come back to some of what you've just said, but before we do that, I'm also thinking about you've talked about beauty and we've talked about wonder. You also write about darkness. And this is, again, a quote from the book. There's a difference between depicting the darkness and participating in the darkness. So I wanted to talk a little bit in this broader conversation about beauty and culture care. And we'll get back to that. Like, why is it important to also depict the darkness? ⁓ What place does that have?

Makoto Fujimura (19:57)
And the ⁓

difference is ⁓ artists need to depict the darkness because it's real. It's really ⁓ reality that it's a canvas in a sense that we pour ourselves into. And if we don't do that, the art itself will be sentimental, superficial. It will not resonate beyond your time.

It might be something that people will want because we want to escape the world. But our job really is to stay and dive in to the realities of darkness. And I describe in the book some of the experience that I had in my own personal journey of ⁓ going through darkness and then discovering grace in that. ⁓

And at the same time, know, we stewardship of imagination is literally to fight back against darkness. And it is to be aware that every thought captive, you know, that matters, every thought that we imagine, right? We are imagining a future.

And so it's not enough to just depict something that is broken and dark and, you know, that is real. But we are literally by writing that experience down or, you know, painting it, we are doing something to that reality that through brokenness.

literally some light can shine in. Otherwise paintings are impossible, you know, if it's not lit. So we are exercising our imagination through somatic means to manifest hope into the world. And that is really ⁓ a key understanding of, as you know, the culture care.

Amy Julia Becker (22:15)
I was going to ask you to tell the story from the book about going to India, I believe, and being in, ⁓ you know, essentially a brothel where young girls have been trafficked and are essentially held captive. And just the again, that's a dark experience and you describe it without trying to ⁓ make it anything else. And yet ⁓ there is hope and there is art that comes out of that. Would you just again, to try to put maybe some

like words, more words to what you just described, like, ⁓ tell us that story.

Makoto Fujimura (22:50)
Thank

you. My wife has been helping women trapped in trafficking in Southeast Asia. So I get to accompany her and to experience this for myself.

Initially, I really know what to expect. I am very adventurous in nature. So ⁓ I am there to observe and understand reality as it is. This you know, this may be, you know, 5,000 miles away, but it's connected to how we live. are people who have propensities to

discard things, To push things into the margins. And it's out of our own hearts of trying to preserve ourselves or in some way ⁓ that we have created kind of our own casteism to push people aside or to use people in a certain way. And that whole mentality, ⁓ which

culture wars language makes it worse because it creates these extremes and, you know, actually rationalizes some of this. ⁓ You see the direct result of that in the slums of the world. And it doesn't have to be in Southeast Asia, it could be in Trenton, New Jersey. You go there and this is literally what you avoid, you know, and...

Sometimes unwittingly we tell our children to avoid that because it's dangerous and that might be a good idea. But at the same time, artists imagination are critical in going into such places and an actual experience of that, immersing yourself in that, realizing that that that very dark and rejected and oppressed place.

is the ⁓ pinhole through which we see a new world. And it's kind of this opposite effect of something that is so extreme that you almost have to bring in hope and light ⁓ because it's so dark. And even a candlelight lit in a dark room can illumine the whole room. And an artist is that.

candlelight. People like Vincent van Gogh did this literally in their lives. They went into the darkest realms and they came out with this vision for Starry Night. So this is a way that artists have been able to depict the darkness and at the same time, illuminate it and bring something into the world.

that we need to get out of our propensity to create these marginal realities and reject entire population in this case. And so I describe in the book this journey of going into a brothel and then realizing a vision that I received while I was praying for this woman.

it kind of completed my own work here in the studio. But it ⁓ was in my imagination that God poured into my heart something that I did not know how to resolve visually. And I didn't know that it was a visual conundrum that was just, I was...

perfectly fine with not being resolved. But surprisingly, right, that experience opened up this new vista where I felt like new creation was breaking in and that that literally was a prayer that will be poured into this dark room. And that, you know, somehow by me being an artist, bringing beauty into that context in some way,

⁓ through prayer and imagination at first, can the God is going to use that in some way that I don't understand. ⁓ And it's really part of our collective work, even talking about it right now. I don't know the outcome of this, other than to say that people who are listening to this, you know, I hope will

be part of this story, ⁓ this portal of some kind, ⁓ because my faith tells me that it's experiences like this, that music or theater that can create something that our intuitive side is like longing for, and we don't have a language for it. And all of a sudden something sits in front of us.

like Mango's Starry Night, know, millions of people see that. And I wonder, you know, how much of that is transformative, you know, not just going to MoMA and seeing this painting that's world famous, but it does something to us, our hearts, and we see the world differently after that.

Amy Julia Becker (29:07)
Well, and I think this is related. The idea you write about giving away beauty rather than creating art to be noticed. This is the fuller quotation. If you create art to be noticed, that art can grow only shallow roots and you will not develop the resilience of hope through a harsh winter of dismissals and rejection letters.

It is in the habit of giving away beauty, of developing through many failures a resilient humility that art can grow to serve rather than to be served. And I think you've been talking about what it looks like for art to serve. ⁓ And I'm also wondering how we cultivate a habit of giving away beauty and what transformed, what gets transformed within us when we cultivate that habit.

Makoto Fujimura (29:51)
Yeah, first I'm preaching to myself. You know, I'm constantly reminding myself. The work behind me is called Kenosis. It's a new series of works that I've been doing, you know, using very expensive gold, but distressing it and then using it in such a way that it pours itself out. And it's a constant reminder for me to, first in my life,

you know, be able to live out a life that is kind of altic, you know, to be able to serve and to find God in these dark places with my wife and Embers. And we tried to do this, you know, not in a transactional way, obviously, because it doesn't make sense to.

go to the darkest realm and serve people. But what I always find is that these children that we serve, they inspire me. They're so creative and their imagination is so active and their imagination is full of color. And I need that in my life.

⁓ And so it's kind of this vicarious way, I suppose, of being immersed in a world in which wonderment and imagination is activated. ⁓ And I found this to be true, even in the most stressed, distressed areas of the world. ⁓ And obviously trauma can do a lot to

delimit that. ⁓ And, you know, obviously, that realm of trauma can limit everything we're talking about. ⁓ So alleviation of that by, you know, working on the systemic issues, working with beauty and justice, both together, ⁓ we, we

we see these amazing things happen. ⁓ And I think part of art that we really need to reawaken in our communities is that ability of the artist to ⁓ move into these places that are unnamed and begin to name them one by one. And that naming

will release something into the, I will activate some part of us, whether it be ourselves, our communities, our families, but also in them, there's this vicarious thing happening. And that naming can only happen if you love, right? If you love deeply, if you are willing to stay with it in present long-term. ⁓ And that...

is a literal kenosis is that act of moving in, surrendering to that reality in some way, giving ourselves away. But what we gain out of that, my goodness, is so remarkable and something that I have experienced over and over as an artist.

Amy Julia Becker (33:40)
Well, and for anyone who's listening and doesn't know the word kenosis, I realized I should probably say there is a passage that's pretty famous in Christian circles in the book of Philippians where it talks about Jesus giving himself or kind of self-emptying ⁓ as kenosis. so that idea of kind of pouring yourself out, but for the sake of love, for the sake of something, that pinhole of hope that

open something up on the other side. ⁓ I'm curious to talk a little bit more about the imagination. You've mentioned it a couple of times and ⁓ art developing the imagination, ⁓ art, well, imagination coming out of love. Like what is it that, how are these things related? The imagination, art, love, ⁓ and who we are becoming.

Makoto Fujimura (34:34)
Yeah. So imagination, when we talk about the word, we tend to use it in negative terms, like you're imagining things. But really, according to everything, according to research, perception, to understanding of love, understanding of theology, we

cannot see anything without imagination or understand anything without imagination. we tend to forget that. we have raw data of the world, it's too overwhelming for us to understand, take it all in. So we have to create certain ways that we see a tree and we say, that's a tree.

Well, a child has to go through the process of developing their imagination to see that tree in a way that we think is normative. Now, artists tend to be the type that kind of remains a child in that sense, that they see light in it, they see all sorts of colors in it, they can imagine the tree against the backdrop of different colors and

You know, there's all sorts of things that can happen in an artist. And I realized, really, as I've gotten more older, that that faculty of imagination is critical for faith. And what I mean by that is that for God, imagination is, right? There's no gap for God between what God imagines and reality.

For us, because we are foreign, there's a huge gap. And we have to work hard to harness our imaginative faculty, which God has given to us, but we have to work hard to make it into reality. And that takes an enormous amount of ⁓ discipline and love to do that. That's what an artist is able to harness. And really, when you're making anything, whether it be an omelet or...

you know, a bridge, you really have to have this discipline and hopefully love. But the imagination therefore is critical for our faith. And we don't talk about this in the church. We make a list of things, know, check checklists of things are sent to, but we don't say, well, you have to first of all, understand

this invisible God, you know, manifesting itself through Jesus Christ, know, like all everything we say in our creed. In order for that to be activated in any way, we have to imagine it. Like, what does this mean? And how does this translate, certainly into my life, but collectively as a church, or collectively as any institution? I mean, you know, in America, we are

struggling with what we understand liberal democracy to be. What does freedom mean? Who is our neighbor? All those things are an act of imagination. And if we don't understand the sanctification of that element, that faculty, as critical part of our discourse in education, in politics, everything, we will not be able to

talk about this, right? So even language is imagination. So I have started to say that for Christians, we have to learn to live or any kind of faith, we have to learn to live in the imagination of Jesus. We are talking here, but this is out of the imagination of Jesus that we are able to communicate at all.

Right. And to talk about love, talk about beauty, talk about art, talk about healing, talk about anything, we are activating our imagination in some way. But collectively, we need to learn to harness that if our imagination is fallen, which it is, then sanctified by the Holy Spirit, how we activate our imaginative faculty

to maybe made alive in the spirit, right? That will create literally new creation. Like how we do that, how we talk to our children, to how we face problems that happens every day. Even thinking through that, the language of how we talk about it will shift the course of the future, not only for us, but...

for the entire world and the entire universe. And that's what Jesus' imagination is. It is absolutely transformative. And I want, as an artist, to be able to frame that in certain way, to give language to that, ⁓ hopefully prove it in some way through my art and my exhibits, ⁓ that will allow people to first recognize it, that it is, ⁓

not an important part, but it is necessary part of how they will move into the creative future together with their children. ⁓ And somehow, right, to have this unction, to have conviction that we are created to be creative. We are created to imagine the future together. that is not, if we don't do that.

we will use our imagination to worry, to create conspiracy theories, to create all sorts of false universe. And that may become real as well. Right.

Amy Julia Becker (41:04)
So interesting. The last person I talked to on this podcast was a man named Justin Gibbony who's working in kind of the political realm, but he talked about the moral imagination in somewhat similar terms. And I just think that's lovely, this idea of God giving us this ability to envision a good future that is not based on a fantasy, but it is based on ⁓ the reality of love.

rather than destruction and rather than anxiety being the path we're walking. ⁓ And again, I'm going back to that idea of a pinhole that opens something up because I think about Jesus's words in the Sermon on the Mount that the path is narrow. And I think that can sound like it's restrictive or ⁓ only available for a few or something like that as opposed to, no, it's the one that's hard to see unless you're paying attention.

But once I mean, how often do you get on a narrow path versus the highway and you climb up a mountain and you can see so much more, right? I mean, there's there's actually this like real invitation, I think to everything you're saying that but it does enact there's some trusting and some surrender in that to like walk that path and to go the way of what looks like small and slow and hidden rather than

fast and obvious and according to the adrenaline and the algorithm. ⁓ And you're really, you know, your art and this book and this conversation, I think invites us into all of that. As we come to a close of this conversation, I wanted to just follow up on one more concept that you've mentioned, but I'd like to just kind of leave our listeners with it, which is that concept of culture care. And I'm thinking especially about people who don't consider themselves artists. What does culture care

look like. And I know you think about this not only in terms of your own actual painting, but actually for people who are never going to pick up a paintbrush and yet who are still people with stewardship responsibilities and imaginations and the capacity to love and attend well.

Makoto Fujimura (43:09)
Yeah, thank you. Culture Care, I wrote a book on culture care and then the second edition is coming out this summer. Okay. With a fold by David Brooks. So it's really, you know, I think it's been 10, 15 years. Well, it's certainly been 15 years since I began to talk about this. at the time as an artist, you're

kind of conscripted into the front lines of culture wars, know, like, which side are you on? And I felt like that was such an unhelpful way for artists to participate in civic activities. And I began talking about culture care as simply changing a metaphor. know, that the culture at large is not a battlefield, but it is a garden to steward, it is an ecosystem to steward.

Let's just change the metaphor and see what happens. And this conversation has kind of become a movement of sorts because of really the toxic effect of culture wars rhetoric, literally playing havoc on people's lives, creating real wars. So ⁓ they wanted to release the second edition so many years later. ⁓

just for me to go back to pages, I'm literally doing that right now to reflect on some of the things I have written 15 years ago and how does it apply today. Well, not much is changed, you know, but ⁓ the actualization of the words we use has become real. It has manifested in the world in so many different ways all over the world. And this is a

critical conversation for, I think, for survival. Talk about imagination being hijacked. ⁓ And so if we believe that culture is something to Stuart and give it to our next generation to Stuart, There has to be telling, there has to be slowness to that act of caring for ecosystem. It takes a while for tree to grow.

What do we plan today so future generations can enjoy the branches and the fruit? Those are questions that our culture doesn't ask. It's so driven by ⁓ efficiency and determinism to push away things and to create these false binaries. So artists are critical for this work.

And ⁓ we tend to see in places where culture is seen as an ecosystem, and by the way, many of the so-called third world places, culture is seen differently, and it's valued. Family is seen differently, it's valued. There's this collective feel, even though they may be considered poor by us, they are rich in...

their ability to push back against the efficiencies of industrialization. And they grow their own food. the ⁓ food tastes amazing. And so that reality, it occurs to me, is something that we in America need to at least reconsider and to think about the next generation and future generations.

We should be educating children to be stewards of reality, stewards of culture, stewards of nature, stewards of everything ⁓ with this loving care that we would demand of ourselves, but we have in some ways failed to do that. ⁓ But if we, and all of that will start with changing the metaphor.

Amy Julia Becker (47:28)
I love that idea of changing the metaphor and I love all the ways that you give us just different, mean, again, different ways to see what's already there, right? An invitation into that. So thank you so much just for doing a little bit of that here today. I certainly will continue to point anyone who's listening to the book itself as, ⁓ again, both a visual and kind of intellectual way into more of what we've talked about here today. And anyone who's listening to this,

You might want to just check it out on YouTube for a minute just to see your studio, little glimpse of what is in the background there, because it'll give a little, again, glimpse of the type of work that you do and the beauty that you are bringing into our world. So thank you for all of that.

Thanks as always for listening to this episode of Reimagining the Good Life. This is the final episode of Reimagining the Good Life for this season. I am taking a break to focus on my other podcast, Take the Next Step, which will start up again next week, February 4th. We will be dropping new episodes every week, so if you want to stay in touch while this podcast is on pause, please do follow Take the Next Step.

or sign up for my weekly Substack newsletter and or sign up for my weekly Substack newsletter. I would love to keep the conversation going with you. And both of those are great ways to do that. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being faithful listeners. You can also go back and listen to other conversations that I've had here on Reimagining the Good Life. And hopefully we will be able to start up again at some point in the next year. I want to thank Jake Hansen for editing this podcast.

And Amber Beery, my social media coordinator, she does everything to make sure that all of the pieces are in place to get this out into the world in a beautiful and sustaining way. I hope that this conversation and all of these conversations will help you to challenge assumptions, proclaim the belovedness of every human being, and envision a world of belonging where everyone matters. Let's reimagine the good life together.


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Amy Julia Becker

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