The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth

and knew it. so although we agreed that we would construct our life together to support her commitment, the fact is that when we married I could not even understand the full extent of Junko’s commitment to her art. Two years after we married, she started working on her Dead Flower Series. she would spend ten hours a day or more in her studio, staring at a vase of dead flowers and making sketches, every single day. I thought I was familiar with commitment to artistic endeavor: my older brother is a classical pianist and from his childhood he spent many hours a day practicing. I had always admired that kind of diligent, steady work but the quality of Junko’s commitment to her art was something quite different. she did not go into her studio out of any sense of discipline or diligence: she was compelled to go there, and while she was there she was in a state of mind quite outside the range of what is normal. I began to realize that her compulsion to paint and her access to her inner world were far beyond anything I had known. a year later she began her Root Series collages and as those works emerged from her studio, one per month, even I sensed that there was something very special about them. When she exhibited that series at a museum in Tokyo, I saw hundreds of people a day walk meditatively through the gallery and stare at the works with evident emotion. I saw many people weep at the works, and the newspapers were full of commentary about them. I saw one man return, day after day, and draw up a chair in front of one of the works, Root Series, No. 16, Mandala and meditate silently until the gallery closed. This experience has repeated itself every time Junko exhibits her art: in Boston, in new York, in California, among her viewers there are always some who are so deeply moved that they seek Junko out to tell her their reactions to her work—and usually, to share their innermost secrets with her. after one slideshow lecture Junko gave in northern California, a woman came up to her to tell her that she was dying of aIds and that she was ready to die in peace now that she had seen Junko’s art. she said that she realized that her own life, personal as it was, had universal meaning. Junko’s art had made a bridge for her from the very p. 2 centripetal art / Matrix of Spiritual Growth

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth

PREFACE

-Definition of Centripetal Art -Its Place In Art History: After the Postmodern Period -Introducing the Subject Matter: One Centripetal Artist's Journey -The Relationship With Multiculturalism -After the Death of God and of Art

FOREWORD

-How the Author's Connection With His Wife's Art Grew More Intimate Over the Years -Learning In Marriage -"Why Does God Need To Paint?" [Section One] Individual Visitants -Dead Flowers and Root -Lungs and Rib Cage

CHAPTER FOUR - A Vital Spirituality

-Why This Art Could Not Have Been Created Earlier -Echoes of the Spiritual Arts of the Early 20th Century -The Impact of the Atomic Bomb; Ecological Concerns -Markers for Spirituality -Centripetal Art Overflows the Studio: Therapy

CHAPTER SIX - A Complex Spirituality

-Spirituality of the 21st Century

AFTERWORD - THE FURNACE

-Polytheism and Monotheism in Art -Goethe’s Aphorism -Marriage and the Alchemist’s Furnace Themes In Series

PREFACE

(Page I) The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth - -Definition of Centripetal Art (Page II) The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth - -The Relationship With Multiculturalism (Page III) The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth - -After the Death of God and of Art (Page IV) The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth -

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