Hello.
I am a painter, and my name is Mimi Takamizawa.
I am truly delighted from the bottom of my heart to have this opportunity to converse with you today.
Right now, what kind of scenery is spreading out before your very eyes?
Could it be that you are being chased by the busyness of daily life and your heart has become a little weary?
Or perhaps, are you softly hiding a loneliness that you cannot tell anyone about in the depths of your chest?
Actually, I am the same way.
Did you know that you are living while carrying a little bit of loneliness?
It was to comfort such a heart of yours that the works of Mimi Takamizawa were created.
It is art meant to heal your heart.
This time, with the feeling of whispering together while drinking tea, just you and I, I would like to deliver a special time.
The main character is no one else but you.
By reading this story, I promise that an astonishing change will visit your daily life.
Because hidden here are first-class hints to fundamentally enrich your life.
Now, for the sake of an all the more rapid liberation of the heart, let us begin together.
Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.
— Thomas Edison
Don’t You Really Think That the Stress of Your Daily Life Can Be Erased by the “Energy of Eccentricity” of Nagasawa Rosetsu?
Do you know the genius painter of the Edo period, Nagasawa Rosetsu?
He is a person who became a disciple of Maruyama Okyo, the super-first-class master of the time.
However, Rosetsu was so unconventional that he was treated as an intense “eccentric” by those around him.
Within the school that valued discipline, it is said that he was on the verge of being excommunicated many times.
Why, indeed, did he clash so much with his surroundings?
It is because Rosetsu was overflowing with the passion of wanting to surprise and delight the person right in front of his eyes.
This stance of Rosetsu becomes a powerful weapon to resolve the stress of human relations for you, who live in the modern age.
Do you ever worry at your workplace, thinking, “I cannot fit in with my surroundings”?
Do you ever blame yourself, thinking, “I must live more normally”?
Please try looking at the pictures Rosetsu drew.
Next to a huge white elephant, a small black crow is sitting snugly.
That bold composition, that eye-opening humor.
This precisely is the special value that is different from others.
The “gap between you and your surroundings” that you carry is by no means a flaw.
Rather, it is a wonderful individuality unique to you, and a powerful weapon.
By incorporating the free gaze of Rosetsu, your daily life will become much easier to live, and things will go well.
During my active years, I had no hobbies and made no friends. I never even went to drinking establishments. I did nothing that would interfere with my work. There were times when I worked 5,640 hours a year. I did that because I thought my subordinates wouldn’t work unless I led by example.
— Tokuji Munetsugu
Would You Not Like to Experience the “Truth Behind Suffering” Revealed by the Bible Through the Paintings of Nagasawa Rosetsu?
Here, there is a special word that I absolutely want to convey to you.
In the New Testament, in the “Letter to the Romans,” Chapter 5, Verses 3 to 4, these words are recorded:
“And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope.”
These words of the Bible have rescued the hearts of countless people over many centuries.
And right after these words, the following words of the great Japanese writer, Osamu Dazai, overlap:
“Step not, move not, but wait quietly until the footsteps of happiness are heard on the balcony.” This is the word of Osamu Dazai.
These are messages with a supreme guarantee for you, who are in the midst of suffering right now.
Nagasawa Rosetsu was also a man who repeated patience in the midst of despair.
He spent a long time in a period where he was hidden in the shadow of his master and his own talent was not recognized.
However, he never gave up.
He went to a temple called Muryo-ji in Wakayama Prefecture and accomplished an astonishing miracle of painting temple screen paintings in a single night.
The current suffering in your life is also entirely a process leading toward a wonderful “hope.”
Even if it is painful now, the moment of resurrection and liberation is surely waiting beyond it.
The dynamic vitality possessed by Rosetsu’s paintings should give you the “courage to stand up once more.”
Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.
— Thomas Edison
Why Does the Tenacity of Sakichi Toyoda’s “Invention Madness” Blow Away the Anxieties of Your Work in an Instant?
Is the work right in front of you progressing smoothly right now?
Are you feeling loneliness, thinking, “No matter how much I endeavor, nobody recognizes me”?
Here, let us introduce an episode of Sakichi Toyoda, the founder of the Toyota Group.
Sakichi was completely treated as a “stranger” and a “madman” by his surroundings.
He was truly in an “invention madness.”
He was a taciturn person and was always shut away alone.
Only the passion of “wanting to invent and make everyone’s life easier” was his driving force.
From morning until night, day after day, he would make something and break it, build it and rebuild it again.
He continued such days for years, and for decades.
Nagasawa Rosetsu was also exactly the same.
Splattering ink, using even his fingers and fingernails, day after day, he pursued new expressions.
Even if laughed at by their surroundings as “that guy is crazy,” the two of them offered their lives to the work right in front of their eyes.
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
Anyway, I will do it longest and hardest myself.
This tenacity and patience precisely become the unique key to resolve your daily challenges.
In order for you to step forward even one step today, how about imitating this muddy passion?
There is no need whatsoever to care about the eyes of other people.
Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten.
— The Truth of Art
Just by Decorating Your House with Your Favorite Art, Why Do You Think Your Heart Becomes Astonishingly Calm?
Do you think that the hobby of collecting art is something only for a few wealthy people and has nothing to do with you?
That is a big mistake.
The people who became patrons of Nagasawa Rosetsu did not look at his paintings merely as assets.
By decorating their rooms and gazing at them every day, they healed their own hearts and improved their lives.
Familiarizing yourself with works of art is the easiest and most powerful method to reset your brain and heart.
Because when touching something beautiful, something infused with a soul, human psychology obtains a deep sense of security.
First-class art speaks to you beyond words.
“You are fine just as you are,” it says.
Please try to imagine decorating your room with a painting by Nagasawa Rosetsu.
That painting of an adorable puppy, or a painting of a powerful dragon.
Every time that enters your sight, the small worries of your daily life will vanish in an instant.
To collect art means to buy up a “resting place for your own heart.”
The benefits for you are immeasurable.
Why not find your own special piece as rapidly as possible?
In the end, being without talent and without art, I am simply tied to this one line.
— Matsuo Basho
How Does Steve Jobs’s Intuition of “Connecting the Dots” Connect with the Paintings of Nagasawa Rosetsu?
Here, I present to you a famous quote by Steve Jobs, the modern charisma:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will some how connect in your future.”
These words are deeply related to your past setbacks and experiences that seem to have been in vain.
Please look back at the life of Nagasawa Rosetsu.
When he was young, he greedily learned the techniques of various schools, and at times repeated failures.
There were times when he was criticized by his surroundings as “lacking consistency.”
However, upon reaching his late years, those “dots” that had been completely apart all connected, and masterpieces unique and unmatched, which no one could imitate, were born.
Is your life not exactly the same?
The painful experiences of the past, that time that seemed meaningless.
Those are entirely precious pieces meant to make the future you shine.
No matter what kind of marketing it is, you cannot make a bad work a hit.
As these words indicate, only the genuine survives.
In order to make the work that is your life “genuine,” please love all of your current experiences.
Opportunity usually comes disguised as hard work, or appears first as a crisis or a burden.
— Aizo Soma
How Does the “Attitude of Doubting Common Sense” Proved by Soichiro Honda and Others Change Your Tomorrow?
Soichiro Honda, Takeo Fujisawa, Shotaro Kamiya, and Taizo Ishida, who supported Japan’s high economic growth period.
The episodes of these four legends are full of lessons that can be used immediately in your business and daily life.
Soichiro Honda continued to build world-best motorcycles and automobiles while his surroundings strongly opposed him, saying, “Such a thing cannot be sold.”
Takeo Fujisawa believed in that Soichiro, and exerted his full strength in fundraising and marketing.
Shotaro Kamiya expanded the network of sales, and Taizo Ishida built the solid foundation of Toyota.
What was common to them was a thorough field-realism: “Doubt common sense and offer oneself for the sake of the customers right in front of one’s eyes.”
This completely matches the fact that Nagasawa Rosetsu smashed the common sense of the Kyoto art world of the time and drew original, free paintings.
Why are their stories beneficial for you?
It is because by learning their way of life, you are liberated from the “rules made by other people.”
Are you bound by a “correct way of living” decided by someone else?
Let us throw such a thing out the window right now.
You should just advance straight down the path you believed in.
First of all, it is about doing it.
Instead, you must persevere.
We do it because it is difficult. I do it because nobody else does it, and nobody else can do it. Such a person like me might be a fool, but if that fool is not there, new things will not be born into the world.
— Kiichiro Toyoda
Why Is the Cold Truth of “If It Does Not Convey, It Is the Same as Not Existing” Necessary for Your Human Relations?
Akio Morita, the founder of Sony, has left a very sharp word:
“A product that has never been produced yet, and that nobody has ever seen, is being diligently researched in some corner, and manufactured after extreme hardships. When trying to make that product a commodity, if you do not arouse the desire to obtain that product among people, no matter how excellent a ‘product’ it is, it cannot become a ‘commodity’.”
Reading these words, how do you feel?
This is not a story only about business.
Your own “feelings” and “kindness” will also become the same as not existing if they do not convey to the opponent.
Are you conveying your feelings rapidly and politely toward your precious person?
Are you being spoiled, thinking, “They should understand without me saying it”?
Nagasawa Rosetsu drew while thoroughly calculating how his paintings would convey to people.
He wanted to surprise them, make them laugh, and move them.
For that purpose, he tenaciously set up dynamic brushwork and adorable expressions.
It is important to convey good things.
Please try starting the effort to convey your wonderful charm inside you to your precious person from today.
Human relations will go astonishingly smoothly and well.
Most people think of success as something to get. But in reality, success is giving.
— Henry Ford
Let Us Raise 3 of Your Doubts and Worries in Life, Explain That Those Problem Points Are Actually Solvable by Art, and Reassure You.
Here, let us think together about the deep anxieties inside you.
The three big doubts and worries that you carry day by day are probably something like the following.
- The 1st worry: Anxiety about old age and the future, thinking, “Am I going to be left all alone in loneliness like this from now on?”
- The 2nd worry: Shaking of self-esteem, thinking, “What on earth is the value of my work and existence?”
- The 3rd worry: A sense of emptiness, thinking, “Every day is just a repetition of the same thing, and the time of life is passing away in vain.”
Hearing these anxieties of yours, I want to convey to you with a loud voice.
“Please, be at ease. Those problems are all completely solvable by art,” I say.
Because art is something born to heal human loneliness, prove the value of existence, and breathe eternal life into time.
First, I will speak about the 1st loneliness.
When you face a painting of Nagasawa Rosetsu or a work of mine, a “dialogue of souls” that transcends a time of several hundred years is born there.
You are not alone.
The gaze drawn by the artist by scraping his life is now steadily staring at you, who are right in front of it, and wrapping you up gently.
Next, regarding the 2nd self-esteem.
Art does not evaluate humans only by productivity or efficiency.
The very heart of yours that feels “beautiful” or “sad” when looking at a work is the unique, absolute value in the universe.
The work affirms you.
Finally, regarding the 3rd sense of emptiness.
The moment you touch art, the time of your daily life stops and connects to an infinite space.
A mere daily life changes into a wonderful moment filled with color and light.
Look, hasn’t your heart become just a little lighter?
Art is always opening its door and waiting for you.
There is no life in life; there is life in death.
— Ancient Japanese Wisdom
The Moment You Decide to “Advance Without Looking Aside,” What Kind of Miracle Will Be Waiting?
Here, let us tell a story full of surprise.
Do you know the episode of Choya Umeshu’s founding period?
It is a story of a decision that cut off retreat, saying, “If you do not succeed with plum wine, give up on life.”
They threw away all other businesses and bet everything on the single path of plum wine.
This precisely is the ultimate psychological law to make things succeed.
Nagasawa Rosetsu also ran through his lifetime while covered in paint.
Without looking at other things, he simply and intently continued to face the canvas (sliding doors and folding screens).
If you are hesitating, thinking “this and that,” please try narrowing it down to just one thing right now.
Concentrate your energy on one point.
Immediate decision, immediate conclusion, immediate execution.
If you do anything, results will come out.
First of all, it is about doing it.
Instead, you must persevere.
When you start concentrating on your own life without looking aside, the noise of the surroundings will completely vanish.
And an eye-opening, new world will show its form before you.
Valuable things are often things that do not have immediate effect.
Like stacking bricks, do it with concentration every day.
Because only beyond that continuation does true happiness exist.
The secret of success is constancy of purpose.
— Ancient Wisdom
How Does the Wisdom of “Victory Without Fighting” Taught by Lao Tzu Protect Your Wounded Heart?
Lao Tzu, the philosopher of ancient China, has left an astonishing word:
“The supreme good is like water. Water greatly benefits all things without striving with them, and resides in places that the multitude of men dislike.”
These words hide the power to radically rescue your heart, which is exhausted by modern competitive society.
Are you thinking only about fighting with someone and winning?
Are you depressed by comparing yourself with others and thinking that you are inferior?
The way of life of Nagasawa Rosetsu was exactly like this “water.”
He did not fight head-on with existing authority or stiff rules.
He simply drew with his brush freely and pliantly, as his own humor and eccentricity directed him.
Because he does not fight, he loses to no one.
Please try incorporating this wisdom of Lao Tzu into your daily life.
Against the criticism and attacks of others, just let it wash away like water.
When you stop fighting, absolute peace visits your heart.
This precisely is the maximum benefit for you, and the wisest method to protect yourself.
Do not look aside, offer yourself to management.
— Tokuji Munetsugu
Why Does Knowing Jean Calvin’s “Idea of Calling” Change Your Daily Labor into Something Sacred?
Jean Calvin, the religious reformer, proposed a very important idea regarding human work:
“All occupations are sacred ‘callings (heavenly decrees)’ given by God. Humans must manifest the glory of God by faithfully fulfilling their own work.”
Please apply these words to your current work.
That labor of yours, where you are shaken by crowded trains, face computers, or sweat for the sake of someone every day.
It is not merely a means to earn money, but an extremely sacred act to support the world.
For Nagasawa Rosetsu, drawing pictures was precisely this “calling.”
No matter who the client was, he exerted his full strength in the work right in front of him.
Instead of drawing for himself, he drew it by scraping his life for the sake of the person who looks at it.
Your work is also surely connected to someone’s smile.
The world will never forget your small effort in a place where not a single person is looking.
Make work your hobby and offer yourself to work.
When reaching such a state of mind, your tedious daily life transforms into a wonderful story shining with light.
I should like to paint pictures which would express something of the comfort that music gives.
— Vincent van Gogh
When You Start a Way of Living of “Offering Everything to the Person Right in Front of You” from Today, How Much Will You Come to Be Loved?
The Apostle Paul, the first disciple of Christ, has left the following immortal quote:
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” (The First Letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verse 1)
Even if there is wonderful technique, even if there are refined words, if there is no “love” there, everything becomes valueless, it says.
Why the paintings of Nagasawa Rosetsu strike the hearts of us in the modern age so much, the reason can be understood.
Because there is a bottomless “love” and “spirit of service” toward the person who looks at them.
The work of an artist is a wholehearted service by paying out of one’s own pocket.
It is a dedication to you.
Why don’t you also try delivering this “service of love” to everyone you meet today?
To family, to friends, to colleagues at the workplace.
When the opponent is right in front of you, applaud in your heart.
Welcome the opponent with a standing ovation.
The world cannot possibly leave you alone when you start such a way of living.
You will become an existence that is loved and needed by countless people.
Because success is not something to get, but giving itself.
Just as you and I are communicating our hearts like this right now, love erases all loneliness.
Postscript
Thank you very much for reading until the end.
Here, please let me speak just a little about myself.
It is a story about a single painter named Mimi Takamizawa.
I do not use conventional canvas and brushes at all.
I produce everything digitally.
And I print that digital data onto the highest-grade printmaking paper using a cutting-edge technique called giclée printing.
Why do I take such a method?
It is to deliver beautiful colors that do not change at all from now to you, who live 100 or 200 years ahead.
History, eternity, psychology, truth.
These are the themes at the core of my works.
And the most important motif is “your eyes, my eyes.”
The deep neighbor-love of Christianity, loneliness, isolation, suffering, and the resurrection and liberation from there.
Entirety of those, I condense within the “gaze.”
Mimi Takamizawa continues to draw eyes in his works, thereby continuing to feel you, who are right in front of him.
I want to know you, right in front of me.
What decided me to become a painter was knowing the life of that Vincent van Gogh.
My name “Mimi” (Ear) is also something that paid homage to that famous ear-cutting incident of Van Gogh.
Van Gogh has left the following wonderful quote:
“I should like to paint pictures which would express something of the comfort that music gives.”
Expressing something, yet unable to make anyone’s heart enthusiastic, unable to comfort—such a work, such a production has no value.
Holding these words in my chest, I continue production for more than 12 hours every day without looking aside.
Another person I deeply respect is Mr. Tokuji Munetsugu, the founder of CoCo Ichibanya.
He did not know the faces of his real parents and spent a childhood of extreme poverty.
He is a man who crawled up from an unfavorable environment where he even ate weeds in summer to stave off starvation.
During his active years, he threw away all hobbies and friends and貫通ed customer-first-realism.
At first, customers did not come, and there was a period when the husband and wife staved off hunger by eating the crusts of sandwich bread.
However, with the single mind of “wanting to please people, wanting to be told that it was good that I existed,” he made work his hobby and offered himself.
Like stacking bricks every day, he continued to do it with concentration.
The work of an artist is a wholehearted clowning.
It is a desperate service to you.
An artist offers everything to you right in front of him.
Please do not abandon me.
Please laugh at me.
Become strong by being laughed at.
I am a man of patience, a man of indomitability; I do not give up.
After Van Gogh passed away, it was Jo, the wife of his brother Theo, who spread his works to the world and made its true value recognized.
Jo said 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.”
Right now, the Jo for me is no one else but you.
If my work could comfort your heart even a little, there is no greater happiness than this.
Did you know that you are living while carrying a little bit of loneliness?
It was to comfort such a heart of yours that the works of Mimi Takamizawa were created.
It is art meant to heal your heart.
Lastly, I present to you the supreme words of my beloved Henry Ford.
“If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.”
I always pray that a lot of light and healing pour down upon you.
Let us meet again.
From Mimi Takamizawa
