The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth

to fill our lungs with the air we have to breathe, we have to dirty our hands with the soil on which we have to stand, and we have to accept this world in all its complexity. Having accepted it, the task is to bring order back into the world, to reconfigure the soil and the dust into structures that will call us to our highest selves. Junko’s centripetal art exhibits a complex spirituality: a spirituality woven of many threads, a spirituality that does not require, or pay obeisance to, any notion of simplicity. It is thickly layered: it is a tangle of concerns and aspirations that seem to have little to do with each other but which, in her art, are convincingly conjoined. I call your attention to the most important of them, one by one. Formative Experience: Destruction Look again at Junko’s Esoteric Buddhism series. (see p.42-43 above). What do we see? Something fascinating but disconcerting. It is thickly layered and each piece of film was obviously carefully cut and then pasted onto the finished work. There is acrylic paint applied; there is handwriting. This appears to be something constructed, something built up out of nothing. But listen to what Junko wrote about it as she was crawling around on her studio floor in 2001, creating these works: Now all the images for these five panels are laid out on the wall and floor, powerful and beautiful as they are. But the real task starts from here; after perfectly constructing the images, which is hard work but fun, I am going to destroy them. I have to break their completed perfect looks: they look just like a self-righteous man and I have to destroy the complacency of their illusional beauty. I will slash them, tear their skin literally, twist them, liquefy them by splashing Clorox on them. Then they will bounce back and fight against me: if they are real, they will grow stronger in the fighting with me. I can see this clearly in my pictorial space. But some of them are destroyed by me, and they have to go. This is the most frightening but the most exciting part of creation. — Letter to a friend, 2001 p. 226 Centripetal Art / matrix of 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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