Hello.
My name is Mimi Takamizawa, and I am a painter and digital artist.
Right now, to you standing before this text, there is a “precious secret” that I must deliver.
Would you kindly spare me just a fraction of your time?
This is a quiet, private dialogue between just you and me.
It is a story that will bring a surprising amount of light into your daily routine and your future life.
Please, let the tension leave your shoulders, relax, and listen.
To begin, I have a question for you.
Are you aware that you carry a small sense of loneliness as you live your life?
When you are in the hustle and bustle of the city.
The exact moment you turn off the light in your room at night.
That quiet solitude, where your deep chest aches just a little bit.
It is to comfort that heart of yours that the works of Mimi Takamizawa were created.
It is art meant to heal your heart.
I will never, under any circumstances, leave you alone on the other side of the screen.
“There is no life within life; true life exists within death.”
This ancient proverb means that true life dwells precisely at the edge of despair.
If you are currently carrying deep loneliness or hardships you cannot tell anyone about, that is merely a precursor to a new door swinging open.
Why is that? Because if you look back at the history of art, all truly beautiful things have emerged from the deep darkness of solitude.
Here, allow me to tell you the surprising story of the genius artist of the Edo period, Ogata Kenzan.
You may have heard the name Ogata Kenzan at least once.
He was the younger brother of the famous Ogata Korin.
In stark contrast to his flashy and brilliant older brother Korin, the younger brother Kenzan was an “indomitable recluse” who thoroughly confronted his own inner self throughout his life.
What wonderful benefits will the pottery, paintings, and stoic lifestyle he left behind bring to your daily life today?
To bring you peace of mind as quickly as possible, I will explain that secret concretely from here on.
Is the Hobby of Art Collecting Truly a Luxury? Why It Powerfully Elevates Your Life
Here, please allow me to ask you a special question.
“Collecting art, or decorating a room with artwork, is a luxury that has nothing to do with me.”
Do you happen to believe that somewhere in your heart?
In fact, that is the first, and biggest, misunderstanding.
Ogata Kenzan was born into a wealthy merchant family that dealt in textiles.
However, despite gaining vast wealth at a young age, he did not drown himself in pleasure.
Do you know what he did, and can you guess the reason why?
He secluded himself in a quiet mountain village, passionately collected excellent works of art and classics from all times and places, and poured all of his life and passion into studying them.
For Kenzan, collecting art was not merely a hobby of the newly rich.
It was a “self-investment” to save his own lonely soul and find the truth of life.
“For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.” (The Bible, Old Testament, Proverbs 23:7)
As shown here, the importance of looking at one’s inner self is preached even in the Bible.
Following these words, Osamu Dazai, a great Japanese author, spoke about the essence of human beings in this way:
“Human beings, it seems, live their lives holding onto an unmanageable loneliness at times.” (Osamu Dazai, Mono Omou Ashi)
As Osamu Dazai says, there are holes in our hearts that cannot be filled.
However, just as Ogata Kenzan collected art and immersed himself in its beauty, simply decorating your room with a single piece of genuine, soul-infused art will bring about a surprising change.
First-rate artwork is not just a mere decoration.
It possesses a powerful force that gently embraces your loneliness and instantly transforms your room into a “sanctuary.”
When you return to your room, the fact that a beautiful harmony of colors and a gaze watching over you exists there—this is the most concrete, guaranteed benefit that dispels your daily stress and generates vitality for tomorrow.
An eye-opening, beautiful harmony brings an absolute sense of security to your daily life.
What Is Your Heart Searching For Right Now? Why Kenzan’s Pottery Cradles the Loneliness of Modern People
The pottery Kenzan made is different from the dazzling gold-leaf folding screens his brother Korin painted.
It was pottery that was somewhat rustic, imperfect, yet surprisingly warm, leaving the trace of human hands.
Why did Kenzan dare to pursue such imperfect beauty?
It is because human beings are, by nature, imperfect creatures who live their lives holding onto a small sense of loneliness.
Because Kenzan knew his own loneliness, he was able to create vessels that gently fitted into the hearts of the people who used them.
Don’t you think this serves as an important lesson that applies directly to your relationships and work troubles today?
We always tend to push ourselves too hard, thinking we must be perfect or highly capable.
Here, let us recall the famous words of Matsuo Basho, who was hailed as the master of haiku.
“Ultimately, being devoid of talent and artless, I simply cling to this single path.”
Even that great Matsuo Basho confessed that he called himself “devoid of talent and artless,” and lived his life clinging solely to the single path of haiku.
What profound humility, and what powerful tenacity.
If you have nights where you feel down, thinking “I have nothing,” please rest assured.
Focusing clumsily yet wholeheartedly on one thing—that posture itself is more beautiful than any art.
Ogata Kenzan also dedicated his solitude to the single path of pottery making.
That is precisely why his works can transcend hundreds of years of history and deliver a warm message to your heart living in the present.
Encountering art is the most wonderful means for you to love your own weaknesses and loneliness just as they are.
I Want to Reassure You Right Before Me! What Are My 3 Deep Worries and Their Surprising Solutions?
Here, please allow me to share a personal story of my own.
In fact, I, Mimi Takamizawa, also have three questions and worries during my daily creation that keep me awake at night.
They are worries regarding “you,” who are reading this text.
Would you please listen to my story?
- The 1st Worry: A fear that my work and this message might not reach you, my precious reader, and that I will fail to save you from your loneliness.
- The 2nd Worry: A question of whether my art, which utilizes the new technique of digital creation, will withstand the test of history and endure 100 or 200 years into the future.
- The 3rd Worry: A great concern that you might currently be in the midst of real-world hardship or isolation, and are about to give up because it is simply too painful.
These worries were very heavy and urgent matters for me.
However, one day, when I encountered the truths of history and the words of great figures, I became convinced that all of these problems are, in fact, completely solvable.
This is because conveying good things is what matters most, and the moment it is conveyed, all anxiety turns into pure joy.
Akio Morita, the founder of Sony, left this supreme maxim regarding the essence of marketing and products:
“A product that has never been produced before, which no one has ever seen, created after immense hardship and through diligent, quiet research in some corner. If one wishes to turn that product into a commodity, one must arouse the desire to possess it among the people. No matter how excellent a ‘product’ it may be, it cannot become a ‘commodity’ without that.”
These words teach us the harsh reality that if we just wait around, even the most wonderful things will end up as if they do not exist.
If it is not conveyed, it is the same as not existing.
That is precisely why I chose this method of speaking to you directly.
The fact that I am thinking of you, spending my own resources, and writing this text and creating works as a desperate service—when that passion reaches you, the first worry vanishes, and your heart and mine are bound by a firm tie.
My method of printing digital art using the highest echelon of the giclée printing technique on carefully selected museum-quality printmaking paper boasts archival durability.
Above all, the central theme of my work is the “gaze” between you and me, and the “truth” of human psychology.
As long as the human heart remains unchanged, the value of this work will be remembered forever, and it will continue to heal people 100 years in the future.
With this, the second worry is completely solved.
And regarding the third worry—that you might be about to give up in the face of hardship—the episodes of indomitable men that I will speak of from now on will give you powerful courage and solve it completely.
Please, find peace of mind as quickly as possible.
You will absolutely be fine.
I will continue to support you, no matter what.
Why Does the Tenacity of Sakichi Toyoda, Who Was Treated as a Madman by His Peers, Cultivate Your Unbreakable Mind for Tomorrow?
In your daily life, are there moments in your work or relationships where you think, “I’ve hit my limit, I can’t keep going anymore”?
When that happens, please remember the eye-opening way of life of Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of the Toyota Group.
Sakichi was a man who was treated as an extreme “eccentric” or even a “madman” by those around him.
He was a very taciturn person, and from morning till night, day after day, he repeated a life of making something, breaking it, building it, and rebuilding it again.
The neighbors called him “invention-mad” and watched him with cold eyes.
However, why was Sakichi able to maintain such tenacity and patience to that extent?
It was because he possessed a single, pure passion: “I want to ease the lives of everyone and my mother, who is struggling with weaving, through my inventions.”
“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
This is a famous quote by the Wizard of Menlo Park, Thomas Edison.
Sakichi Toyoda’s way of life was the literal embodiment of these words by Edison.
In any case, you do it the longest and work the hardest.
That is the only way to make the impossible possible.
When you take on a new challenge in your work, or when you are fighting a lonely battle that no one understands, how much of a great lesson will Sakichi’s “muddy tenacity” become for you?
The moment you can think, “I don’t care if I am treated as an eccentric by those around me, I will follow the path I believe in,” a powerful, unbreakable axis is born in your heart.
Is this not the greatest benefit for your long life ahead?
What Is the Meaning of Daring to Jump into a Difficult Path? Why Does a Passion Crimson Enough to Be Called “Foolish” Change the World?
Kiichiro Toyoda, who inherited Sakichi’s blood, was also a person of unbelievable tenacity.
His words, as he laid the foundation of the Japanese automobile industry, should pierce directly into your heart now, especially if you are worrying about something.
“We do it precisely because it is difficult. I do it because no one else will, and no one else can. I might be a fool for doing so, but without such fools, nothing new would ever be born into the world.”
Reading these words, what do you think?
Don’t you feel something burning deep within your chest?
The sophisticated success philosophies of the world might teach you to “do things efficiently and smartly.”
However, what appeals to the deep parts of human psychology is this kind of clumsy, hot passion that is crimson enough to be called foolish.
If you ever feel dissatisfied in your daily life, thinking “No one recognizes my efforts,” please reread these words of Kiichiro over and over again.
Precisely because no one else does it, it is worth it for you to do it.
Your hardship and your self-sacrificing efforts will never be in vain.
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
Again, this is Edison’s word, but just one step beyond where you think “It’s no use” and are about to give up, a surprising success and liberation await you.
The art of Ogata Kenzan and the automobiles of the Toyoda father and son were all supreme fruits born from the tenacity of the “fools who did not give up.”
What Is the “True Nature of Crisis” Spoken by Aizo Soma? Why Trouble Transforms into the Greatest Opportunity of Your Life
Life is inevitably accompanied by sudden troubles and urgent hardships.
There are days when you want to resent the heavens, thinking, “Why does this only happen to me?”
To you in such a state, I present a special quote by Aizo Soma, the founder of Shinjuku Nakamuraya.
“Opportunities always arrive at first disguised as a crisis, or appear as a burden.”
These words possess a powerful force that will completely flip your outlook on things 180 degrees from now on.
If you are currently about to be crushed by a large problem or burden in front of you, it is actually just a “wonderful opportunity” to drastically improve your life, coming to you wearing the mask of a crisis.
Why does such a surprising development occur?
It is because human beings are creatures who can truly squeeze out wisdom, improve themselves, and be reborn into a new self only when they face a major burden or crisis.
Here, let us look at the episodes of the legendary leaders who supported the Japanese industrial world.
The famous duo of Soichiro Honda and Takeo Fujisawa of Honda Motor, Shotaro Kamiya, who was called the God of Sales at Toyota, and Taizo Ishida, who supported the transition from looms to automobiles.
Their history was truly a “succession of crises.”
Post-war chaos, capital shortages, and fierce market share battles with competitors.
It was an extreme state where a single mistake meant bankruptcy.
Yet, they never gave up.
They literally captured crisis as “opportunity,” and cleared the path through immediate decision, immediate conclusion, and immediate execution.
If you face any crisis in your work or life today, try shouting this in your heart:
“Wonderful, an opportunity has arrived!”
This psychological inversion of thinking is the finest life hack to lead you to become a first-rate successful person.
What Is the Wisdom Left by the Charismatics of Business? Why Only “Quality” Will Never Betray You
Furthermore, as a modern example, let us introduce the famous philosophy of Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple.
Jobs demanded a perfect beauty even for the invisible wiring on the back of products.
This is the famous word he loved, and the truth of marketing:
“Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.”
“No amount of marketing can turn a bad product into a hit.”
These words should have a decisive impact on your attitude toward your daily designs, document creation, or the quality of all your daily work.
Work that is compromised with a thought of “This much should be fine” is quickly forgotten, and it cannot move anyone’s heart.
However, the quality you finish by grinding your soul and putting forth a thorough service for the person in front of you will remain in the recipient’s memory eternally.
Why is it that Ogata Kenzan’s pottery is still treasured as a National Treasure or Important Cultural Property and traded at high values hundreds of years later?
Prices and fashion trends change with the times, but the overwhelming “quality” and “sincerity” Kenzan infused never wear down.
Thoroughly elevating the quality of the work you provide—that is the only guaranteed way to make your own value immortal and keep yourself needed by those around you.
What Is True Strength Taught by Lao Tzu? Why a “Way of Life with No Side-Glances” Brings You Absolute Happiness
Here, let us shift our perspective slightly and listen to ancient Eastern wisdom.
Lao Tzu, a philosopher of ancient China before the Common Era, advocated a surprising paradox for human beings to live happily.
“He who knows that he has enough is rich. He who acts with vigor has a will.” (From Lao Tzu)
How much energy do modern people waste by always looking sideways, caring about the eyes of others, and thinking “I want this, I want that”?
Lao Tzu teaches that deeply knowing oneself, being grateful for what one has now, and simply executing one’s duty strongly—that is true happiness and real strength.
The founder of Choya Umeshu also possessed such a tremendous resolve that he said, “If you do not succeed with plum liqueur, give up on life,” and without casting a single side-glance at other businesses, he focused solely on improving the quality of plum liqueur.
As a result, it became a brand loved worldwide.
Casting no side-glances.
Refraining from dipping your hands here and there, and dedicating everything to the theme of your own life.
This way of life becomes a compass that fundamentally rescues you when you are about to get lost in an information-overloaded society.
Ogata Kenzan also continued to cultivate his own garden of pottery and scholarship, without envying the flashy success of his older brother Korin.
That is precisely why he was able to reach a grand pinnacle entirely different from his brother.
You do not need to compare yourself with someone else and rush at all.
The work right in front of you, the precious person right in front of you, and the art decorated in your room.
Try concentrating all your nerves on just that.
At that exact moment, your loneliness will vanish, and a quiet, unshakeable, powerful sense of happiness should fill your heart.
What Is the Mission Spoken by the French Theologian Calvin? Why Your Daily Tedious Work Has Sacred Value
Jean Calvin, known for the Reformation, presented a new and surprising concept regarding human occupations that had never existed before.
“Every person’s occupation is a sacred ‘calling’ given by God.” (From Jean Calvin)
Calvin preached that not only prayers inside a monastery, but the secular work that ordinary citizens perform every day is itself a service to God and a daily art that possesses a sacred meaning.
The routine work, housework, and support for others that you do every day—it is far too wasteful to dismiss them as “tedious tasks.”
Just as Ogata Kenzan silently baked pottery day after day, covered in mud and enduring the heat of the kiln’s flames, stacking days like bricks, your daily steady accumulation holds immeasurable value.
My works, which incorporate the context of Christianity, also exist to stand by your daily “hardships” and “patience,” and to bless the “resurrection” and “liberation” that will surely visit someday.
“My success is due to persistence after others have given up.”
For the third time, I grant you Edison’s words.
When everyone else gets bored, or gets tired and gives up, you step forward just one more step with a smile.
In that beautiful posture, a sacred beauty dwells.
What Is the Promise Left by Paul, the Great Apostle of Christ? Why Unbelievable Hope Visits After Hardship
At the end of this long and deep dialogue, allow me to deliver directly to you the most powerful word from the New Testament, which forms the ultimate, most special biblical foundation of my art.
“More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” (The Bible, New Testament, Romans 5:3–4)
This is the ultimate “truth” proven by human psychology and history.
If you are currently experiencing loneliness, isolation, or hardships beyond words in your life, please embrace these words of Paul deeply in your chest like an amulet.
That hardship does not exist to destroy you.
It is an absolutely necessary process to beautifully refine your character as a human being, and eventually lead you to an eye-opening, wonderful “hope.”
Ogata Kenzan was also a true “man of patience” and an “indomitable man” who fought through financial difficulties and loneliness, moving his base from Kyoto to Edo multiple times throughout his life.
He did not give up.
That is precisely why his works, like a doctor who saves our souls, grant us deep comfort even now.
I sincerely pray that my art stands by the path of life you walk, and that your heart becomes even a little lighter.
You are not alone.
Believing in this beautiful promise, please walk through this day proudly and with a smile.
With heartfelt gratitude for this wonderful encounter with you.
P.S. Allow Me to Whisper into Your Ear About the Painter Mimi Takamizawa’s “Life-Staking Comedy and Service”
Thank you so very much for reading my long story up to this point.
Finally, as a postscript, allow me to share a slightly fun, close-to-home story about myself, a clumsy painter named Mimi Takamizawa.
I do not use canvases and brushes like ordinary painters.
I utilize cutting-edge digital technology to draw pictures on a screen, and finish the works by printing them on the highest grade of printmaking paper using a highly sophisticated method called the “giclée printing technique.”
The themes of my works are always related to you.
They are “your eyes and my eyes, Christianity, eternity, psychology, truth, gaze, history, loneliness, isolation, hardship, resurrection, and liberation.”
Why do I keep drawing “eyes” to this extent?
It is because I want to feel “you,” the main character of my work, at all times.
From inside the screen, I am gazing at you, wishing forever to know your loneliness.
Actually, the reason I decided to become a painter was because I learned about the intense yet sorrowful life of that famous Vincent van Gogh.
The “Mimi” (which means ear in Japanese) in my name “Mimi Takamizawa” was taken, believe it or not, in honor of that famous ear-slitting incident of Van Gogh.
Are you a little surprised?
Or did you let out a little chuckle?
Van Gogh left the following wonderful maxim:
“I want to express something comforting in a picture, as music is comforting.”
I believe that is exactly true.
If a work or a job expresses something yet fails to move anyone’s heart, fails to comfort your heart right in front of me, it holds no value whatsoever.
I know that all the historical masterpieces of the past were not painted by innate talent alone, but were birthed through decades of muddy trial and error.
The job of an artist is not to look stylish.
It is a thorough service spending one’s own resources for you, a life-staking devotion.
An artist dedicates the entirety of their life to you right in front of them.
Therefore, please do not abandon me.
Rather, please laugh loudly at this desperate sight of mine.
I am a man who grows stronger by being laughed at.
The essence of an artist’s job is to become a thorough “jester (clown)” to make you smile and save your soul.
Like Sakichi Toyoda, and like Ogata Kenzan, I am an indomitable man of patience who never gives up.
Deep down in my heart, I respect Mr. Tokuji Munetsugu, the founder of Curry House CoCo Ichibanya.
Mr. Munetsugu lived a life dedicated solely to his work without casting any side-glances, doing absolutely nothing else.
Saying “This is no time to be indulging in hobbies,” he supposedly did not listen to classical music—which he loved—at all during his time as an active executive.
This was to dedicate the entirety of his time to his customers.
During the initial days when they started a small coffee shop, the predecessor to CoCo Ichi, there was a period when customers did not come at all, and Mr. Munetsugu and his wife supposedly staved off hunger by eating “bread crusts” (the ears of the bread) for lunch.
They were the leftover crusts of the bread that were not used for the sandwiches served at the coffee shop.
Since they started from zero, such hardship was natural.
Believing that “Customers aren’t coming right now, but if we stick to the customer-first principle, things will surely get better,” they continued to focus and work every single day, stacking days like bricks.
Immediate decision, immediate conclusion, immediate execution.
The posture of dedicating one’s life to work, and dedicating one’s entire life to the customer right in front of them.
Mr. Munetsugu left these tremendous words:
“During my active years, I had no hobbies and made no friends. I have never even been to a bar. I did nothing that would get in the way of my work. There were years I worked 5,640 hours. I felt that if I didn’t lead by example, my subordinates wouldn’t work. I cast no side-glances and dedicated my body to management.”
“It was a very lonely life. That’s why I wanted others to show even a little interest in me. I wanted them to be interested in me. That became my starting point. That’s why, when I started the business, rather than making money, I wanted to make people happy. I wanted people to say it was good that I was around, even if just a little.”
Every time I read these words, tears almost well up in my eyes.
Mr. Munetsugu did not know the faces of his real parents.
Even after being taken in from a lonely, helpless orphanage, due to his adoptive father’s gambling addiction, he spent a destitute childhood, even eating wild weeds in the summer to stave off hunger.
Life is not decided by one’s birth or upbringing.
What kind of life it becomes is decided by that person’s diligence, patience, and ability to continue.
I also believe that creating art for 12 hours or more a day is the minimum requirement, just like Mr. Munetsugu.
I do not want to rest, nor do I want to play.
My hobby is drawing pictures for you.
When you stand before my work, in my heart, I am welcoming you with a thunderous standing ovation.
Things of value often lack immediate effects.
Things do not go well from the very beginning.
Rather than thinking, try doing it first.
Please, do not easily give up on your own life either.
After Van Gogh passed away, the one who believed in his talent and spread his works to the world was a single woman named Jo, the wife of his younger brother Theo.
In the midst of the despair of losing her husband Theo as well, Jo spoke like this:
“In addition to the child, Theo left me another mission—to have Vincent’s work seen by many people and to have its true value recognized.”
Precisely because she had this tenacity, Van Gogh’s paintings are now healing the loneliness of people all over the world.
Conveying good things.
If it is not conveyed, it is the same as not existing.
The reason I am composing this text like a love letter to you is also out of a singular sense of mission to save your loneliness through my work.
Here, allow me to etch those important phrases I delivered at the beginning deeply into your heart once more:
Are you aware that you carry a small sense of loneliness as you live your life?
It is to comfort that heart of yours that the works of Mimi Takamizawa were created.
It is art meant to heal your heart.
If you look at my paintings and think even just a little bit, “Let’s try living tomorrow too,” I, the jester, could not be any happier.
Lastly, I would like to offer you that beautiful, great maxim by Henry Ford, whom I respect from the bottom of my heart, and bring this quiet chat to a close.
“Most people think of success as something to get, but in reality, success is giving.”
I will dedicate and continue to give the entirety of my art and my life to you.
Thank you very much for staying with me for so long.
May the supreme light and overflowing happiness visit your everyday life.
