(University of California Press, 2005)
Having trained under Brancusi, initially worked with stone. Influence of Japanese Zen gardens:
"In Japan the rocks in a garden are so planted as to suggest a protuberance from the primordial mass below...We are made aware of this floating world through consciousness of sheer invisible mass."
We see the stone and sense what is invisible - both are part of the work.
Saw himself as interpreting the East to the West through sculpture.
Moved to Kyoto, started to work in clay, but saw an art that was beyond made objects and in a way of life.
Concept of sculpture evolving into a relationship of form and space that illuminates the environment in which we live.
Started to work with light.
Developed paper lanterns, akari, for general sale. 'The ideal of akari is exemplified with lightness (as essence) and light (for awareness). . . the quality is poetic, ephemeral, and tentative.' His father had written a poem ending with the line 'Alas, my soul is like a paper lantern in the rainy world.'
Still working in stone - forms influenced by Buddhist iconography (zen circle, lotus).
In the year before he died he wrote: 'I don't think that art comes from art. A lot of artists apparently think so. I think it comes from the awakening person.'
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| Nine Floating Fountains, 1970 |
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