The Centripetal Art of Junko Chodos, Matrix of Spiritual Growth

to a principle—not every artist aspired to creating it. let us call it “centripetal art”: art which seeks the center. even among those artists who share an impatience with the surface—the artists who might be called “subjective” to distinguish them from the many kinds of “objective” artists2—the aspiration toward divine presence is unusual. It is a new kind of art, post-postmodern, which involves the most serious issues and processes in the lives of both the artist and the viewer. This book is a document of the artistic journey of my wife, Junko Chodos, whose paintings and writings established this new concept of art: centripetal art. as a child born in Japan and growing up there during World War II, surviving the allied bombings, Junko lived through a period of the darkest destruction, cruelty, and death. It became her spiritual project, as it did for many philosophers, psychologists, and serious thinkers of that age, to transcend that darkness—not only as a victim, but as a responsible representative of humanity. so this book is also about spirituality, and religion, and mysticism, and psychology. Junko chose to emigrate to the united states when she was in her late twenties and soon afterward she married me, who am the son of a rabbi. so this book includes a personal account of my own multicultural experience—that is to say, of the crosscultural dimensions of my marriage to Junko. The Japanese say that you cannot graft a tree onto bamboo, which means that there can be no satisfactory resolution of the conflict between eastern and Western cultural ideals and that the best that can be hoped for is compromise and mutual tolerance. This may be true as long as the cultural categories are taken as given and immutable. But compromise and tolerance lead inevitably to frustration and anger, and they are incompatible with the love and intimacy which married people share. something more radical and much deeper is required: something which involves a transcending of the cultural givens. I want my book to document the ways in which the tree iii 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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