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Interview with Soichi Watanabe - Sonya Feddema

An Creative person'due south Apprehensive Response to God's Calling

Sonya VanderVeen Feddema: An Interview with Soichi Watanabe

Christian Courier, January 25, 2016

I commencement met Soichi Watanabe through his riveting painting,The Prodigal Son Returns inChristian Courier's Artful Eye cavalcade (June 8, 2015). Who was this artist who had and then vividly captured a father's love and a son's repentance and gratitude? I wondered. Who was this Christian man who had captured the Begetter's dear for united states of america and our repentance and gratitude toward our loving God? I decided to find out. In an electronic mail interview, I met the Japanese man behind the painting. I learned how Soichi Watanabe, 66, came to organized religion and realized his calling every bit an artist. As a member of both the Christian Art Clan in Japan and the Asian Christian Art Association, he has had an opportunity to grow as an artist inside a Christian community and has exhibited his piece of work in numerous venues.

Christian Courier: In the early on 1970s, you graduated from Tohoku Gakuin Academy with an economics degree and, in 1982, y'all graduated from the Ochanomizu Fine art Schoolhouse in Tokyo. What happened in the intervening years that led you to change form in your career from economics to art? When and how did you sense God's calling on your life to be an artist?

Soichi Watanabe: When I was in the sixth course, I had a vision exam and learned that I was partially colour blind. I idea that it would be difficult for me to have my favourite courses – scientific discipline and art. I worried well-nigh what course I should take. In university, I decided to enter the department of economics. While in that location, I came in contact with Max Weber's religious sociology. I took an involvement in the comparative report of Western and Eastern civilization. I was serious nigh finding out which mode was suitable for me.

I attended Professor Mitsuo Miyata'southward lectures on the history of European political thought. He invited me to nourish a student Bible study class at his home. That 24-hour interval, the first Bible text I read was from Mark 8. Peter rebuked Jesus for talking well-nigh his death and resurrection in Jerusalem, but, conversely, Jesus rebuked him: "Get backside me, Satan; for y'all are not setting your mind on God'southward interests, just human being's." Jesus also said, "If anyone wishes to come up after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cantankerous, and follow me." This vox – the voice of Jesus – was similar a astringent question that basically shook my way of life. So, I continued to attend the study and to read the Bible.

Soon, I was overwhelmed past the richness and splendid fashion the Bible shows us how to live. Merely then I had a new worry – the stubbornness of my eye and my poor ability to sympathize with other people.

In the next year, Professor Mitsuo Miyata and his married woman built a Christian dormitory for students that I could become into with other members of the Bible study class. While living at that place, my worry grew. Every evening, nosotros read from a preaching volume. One day, I heard Jesus' invitation to follow him merely as I was, with my weaknesses and faults. Just I persisted in rejecting Jesus considering I felt that I wasn't a suitable person for his invitation. Every evening, Jesus' dearest on the cantankerous was preached. Finally, I decided to follow him merely every bit I was with my faults. Then I was freed from my restricting worry. I entered employment at a business which I believed was the way prepared by the Lord.

My work involved arranging and reporting accounts and sales data. After three years, I tried to add some visual charts and graphs to my report. The executive commission was very pleased with them. Through this experience, I realized that I was able to practise fine art even though I had tried to become away from fine art for a long time considering of my partial colour blindness. My story was like Jonah's story. At that time, I was 27 years one-time. I studied cartoon and oil painting in art schoolhouse until I was 33.

By the end of the school year, my Christian faith and my art were combined together when, at a retreat meeting of former students of the Bible study class, Professor Mitsuo Miyata gave a lecture about Albrecht Dürer'due south faith and art. (Albrecht Dürer was a High german painter who lived from1471-1528.) I was very inspired with the message that we could exercise the mission of Christ through art. After, I felt that I would like to ask a skilful painter from my class to paint my grace-filled feel of organized religion. Only then I thought, fine art values the personality in the commencement place, so the person who had the experience should pigment it, fifty-fifty if it is a poor expression. Then, from then on, I connected to paint the subject of the Bible for 33 years.

On your website (world wide web.omsc.org/art-at-omsc/soichi/soichi-intro.html), you say, "In hindsight I realize that [my works] are my own apprehensive responses to God's calling in my life. The images are often given to me through the words of God, at worship services on Sundays and during my daily devotion. I have the earnest promise that I will proceed painting to praise the Lord." You lot betoken out that your artistic work is clearly rooted in the spiritual disciplines of prayer, Bible reading and worship. Could you select one of your paintings and explicate to us how God inspired you to create the painting?

Outset, I would like to annotate on my 2010 oil on sail entitled,Together with Those Who Weep,based on Romans 12:xv: "Rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who cry." Priest Masahiko Sekiya of the Anglican church wrote this text on the front page of the English Bible I received as a gift at my graduation. He had guided me at the meeting of the Fellowship of reconciliation (For) in Sendai. (For is an organization that works for peace, justice and nonviolence.) This Scripture text had remained as a question in my mind e'er since then.

Later, I was touched by a book written past Pastor Seiji Ojima that I illustrated in 2006. From John eleven, I painted Jesus as he wept with Martha and Mary when their brother Lazarus died. Subsequently, I painted again on the subject of peace at a conference and workshop of the Asian Christian Fine art Association in Sydney. In guild to prove weeping together, at get-go I tried to employ blue equally the basic colour. Next I was led to apply yellow, because I had been taught the promise of Jesus' resurrection. Later the massive convulsion in Due east Nihon in 2011, I was encouraged by the message that "God is with us in difficulty," so I painted information technology again. With the vertical and horizontal lines that appeared behind Jesus as he hung on the cantankerous, I showed that resurrection comes through a cross. I was then gratified by the bulletin that God is with us, so I produced many other paintings on that theme as well.

What biblical theme do yous most enjoy painting?

My favourite theme, I suppose, is the flowers of the Bible. In 1986 I began drawing with pencil objects found in nature and started to depict dozens of flowers mentioned in the Bible. I was overwhelmed by the beauty produced by God. My drawings were nothing but an incomplete response to the dazzler God created. since the flowers of the Bible take historical backgrounds and symbolic meanings, I painted them receiving these moments. For case, I paintedCyclamen – The Glory of the Lord in the Wilderness based on Isaiah 32:1518,The Almond Tree – A Sign of Hope based on Jeremiah ane:11-12,and Bamboo – Emptiness, Flexibility, and the Holy Spirit based on Philippians ii:six-7, as well as many others.

What take you learned well-nigh God, the Bible and the Christian life as y'all have painted biblical themes?

Pastor Seiji Ojima and Dr. Kosuke Koyama's books taught me that God became the least of all people and loves the to the lowest degree of all people. Professor Mitsuo Miyata and Professor Kenichi Kida's books taught me that God is with the states in our difficulties. Through painting a series on the volume of Revelation, I learned to alive in the hope of the eschaton. I also learned that God saw his creation and "it was good." In Hebrew expert usually ways beautiful. So, the creation of the globe and heaven is also the creation of beauty. The globe every bit the creation of God is God'southward work. Art as a homo deed ways learning from the work of God and giving just an incomplete response to it. I learned this specially when I painted plants constitute in the Bible. During and after I painted I often found a deepened richness and depth in the Bible, particularly in the relationship between the Sometime Testament and New Testament. I had the aforementioned experience by looking at a book of Christian art, as well as art work from all over the world and from ancient and contemporary periods.

Co-ordinate toThe Christian Century (May 7, 2015), "The number of Japanese Christians is tiny – barely one per centum of the population." What impact does this reality have on your piece of work as a Christian artist?

The number of Christians in Japan is surely very small, but Christian art, and Christian music and literature, are non refused in general by non-believers. If anything, they are extremely interested in them. Though Christians are a minority, I think that the Bible has a universality because there is truth in it. Therefore, Christian visual fine art should have a universal application, and if it has a high quality, all people should be impressed. I have been encouraged to continue to produce Christian art by the footprints of the pioneers of faith and fine art, who struggled to produce their works in the Protestant church fifty-fifty every bit they had to put upwardly with the prohibition against idol worship. I was touched by the lives of the 51 artists who were presented in the volume,Beauty and Truth – Art and Christianity in Modern Japan, written by Masao Takenaka (2006). I was taught and encouraged almost Christian art as a response to God (prayer, praise, confession and mission) through books written by Mitsuo Miyata:Witnesses of Life – Fine art and Faith (1994),Faith and Fine art (1996),The Star in Bethlehem – Meditation through the Biblical Symbols(2005) and others.

How have viewers responded to or been influenced by your paintings?

I accept been told that my fine art work is warm, gentle and healing. When I met a woman at one of my solo exhibitions she expressed her gratitude to me because when she went into surgery, she was encouraged by my minor art volume and had confidence in God.

One day a packet containing a letter and a gift arrived at my firm. The sender expressed her gratitude to me because she also had received healing from my fine art volume, when her difficult sickness was cured in the hospital. At another solo exhibition, a pastor from the Congo smiled at me and told me in English language, "I hear the words of the Bible from Watanabe's paintings." I was impressed when I realized that even through my poor expression, the message of the Bible could be transmitted to a viewer across my own country. And I was delighted that even though he couldn't speak English language well, only every bit I couldn't, he wished to convey his center to me. At each and every exhibition many viewers purchase my art works with pleasure. And some universities and churches take likewise ordered and bought my fine art works.

Yous're a fellow member of both the Christian Art Association in Nippon and the Asian Christian Art Association. Tell united states of america about these organizations. Accept they benefited you as an artist? Have you contributed to these organizations? If so, how?

These two associations were established in 1973 (Japan) and in 1978 (Asia), about in the aforementioned yr and both ecumenical. An artist generally works in solitude. This was true for me likewise, so I was encouraged by the contact with the pioneers of the Christian Art Clan in Japan (CAAJ). And in the same style I was inspired by artists and works from other Asian countries.

In Japan I was a member from 1993 to 2013, a secretary from 2000 to 2006, and an executive fellow member from 1997 to 2013. I served as an editor of the commemoration booklet titled The History of 25 Years of Christian Art Exhibition and as well for that of the 30th and 35th annual exhibition. In Asia I was a member from 1998, and an executive member from 2003 to 2008.

I worked as a bridge between Nippon and other countries in Asia. The Christian Art Clan in Japan was congenital by uniting the Catholic exhibition (from 1931) and Protestant exhibition (from 1935) in 1973. Tadao Tanaka was a consul, and Sadao Watanabe, Yasuo Ueno and Yasutake Funakoshi were the central artists. The exhibitors were well-nigh 25 artists. In Asia Dr. Masao Takenaka and Ron O'Grady were leaders. The magazine Epitome – Christ and Fine art in Asia was published till 126th number in 2010.  The part of the ACAA moved from Kyoto in Japan, Yogyakarta in Indonesia, to Manila in the Philippines. Many books and booklets were published, for example Christian Art in Asia (1975), The Bible through Asian Eyes (1991), Christ for All People (2001).

What are y'all painting at the present time? What are your plans for the futurity?

I am working on a painting with peace as its theme. The bulletin is that peace is found by abiding in Christ. I was impressed by Micah iv:iii-4: "They shall beat their swords into plowshares" and "they shall sit down every man under his vine and under his fig tree," and past John 14-16: "I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, bears much fruit," and "These things I take spoken to you, that in me you lot may have peace." And in the future I hope to paint Jesus' words, the Prophets, the Psalms and the campaigner Paul.

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Soichi Watanabe:Together with Those Who Cry ,2010.

Soichi Watanabe:Bamboo - Emptiness, Flexibility, and the Holy Spirit , 2008.

Soichi Watanabe:Fifty-fifty though I Walk through a Valley Nighttime of Expiry , 2014.

A resident of Koshigaya City, Saitama, Japan, Soichi Watanabe 's oil paintings have been displayed in numerous solo exhibitions. He is a member of the Christian Art Association in Japan (1993-2013) and the Asian Christian Art Association.

Sonya VanderVeen Feddema  is a freelance author living in St. Catharines, Ont., Canada

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Source: https://www.artway.eu/content.php?id=2051&lang=en&action=show

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