A profusion of lovable goddesses had already blossomed from the imagination and brushstrokes of Kealakekua resident Mayumi Oda when she realized it was time to become a goddess herself. It didn’t happen overnight. ADVERTISING A profusion of lovable goddesses had
A profusion of lovable goddesses had already blossomed from the imagination and brushstrokes of Kealakekua resident Mayumi Oda when she realized it was time to become a goddess herself. It didn’t happen overnight.
There were the early years of struggle, the terror of being a 4-year-old child in Japan as atomic bombs detonated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the horror of seeing the shadow images of people imprinted on concrete, the with no trace of their flesh or recent lives in sight. She could smell the death, hear the voices of survivors crying for help, water, and their mothers — anything to soothe their pain.
Oda heard echoes of their voices during her intense training in traditional Japanese kimono design and while studying the complex textiles, joyful lines and saturated colors of the native Yamato-e (“Japanese painting”) style. She went to famous art schools, started meditating, traveled the world painting goddesses, and still, 45 years later, after her art was established in the permanent collections of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress and the Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music, the screams of those victims still haunted her. They played a part in her decision to trade in her dyes and drawings for the placards and pens of an anti-nuclear activist, and the screams of hurt and protest became her very own.
She founded Plutonium Free Future (PFF) in 1992 and lectured at the United Nations, in Washington, and in workshops, festivals and classrooms around the world to stop nuclear plants like Fukushima from being built. After almost a decade away from painting, her life seemed to be defined by what she was against, rather than what she was for.
Moving to Hawaii, Oda started her family’s working organic farm called Ginger Hill where she paints, plants, writes, chants, plays and prays for the well-being of the planet.
“I want to show people what life can be like, what we can create,” Oda said. “I thought that maybe if I show some positive vision, someone will say, ‘Oh, this is beautiful; this is the way to live.’”
Nourishing our collective vision with exotic, playful goddesses, bold beings and soothing creatures, her art reflects the war and peace of Mayumi Oda. From her Japanese roots, uplifted by tradition and scarred by nuclear explosions, to the present moment in her Kona studio where she’s surrounded by loving family, an abundance of taro and turmeric, her art says everything and yet defies description.
Drawing from the Rinpa School, one of the major historical approaches in Japanese painting, she often depicts nature abstractly, using abundant colors and hue gradations. Mixing tints on the surface to achieve unconventional effects, Mayumi may apply gold- and pearl-paint crystals to produce the sparkling effects that catch the light in her work.
Using mostly acrylics on paper, silk or canvas, she also works with traditional Japanese pigments like the ones on her work table now, right beside Hoku Non-GMO Seed catalogue designs, a computer, correspondence and manuscript pages from a book she’s writing on thangkas, or prayer banners.
“I use watercolors and pastels too, whatever’s needed, but on silk or cloth, I like using acrylics. I can thin it out,” she says, getting the transparency she wants simply by adding water. For smaller pieces, she might make a wood block and print more as she does for collectors’ reproductions that often attract buyers who join waitlists for prints to become available.
“I usually start on raw canvas with acrylic when I work on the larger thangkas,” she says. For a pivotal 2011 exhibit in Nara, Japan, and a 2012 One-Woman Show, “The Prayer for New Birth of Japan,” at the Honolulu Museum of Art, she created 30 thangkas similar to Tibetan teaching devices often called thangka scrolls.
Deciding to use the historic Yamato-e style, she was refreshed by the plunge back into native styles of early Japanese art. Relying on Yoshino paper, black sumi and colored pigments, and brushes from the famed brushmaker Suzuki Seiko, she painted Buddhist subjects and asked Yoshimura Shosaku of Nara to mount the paintings as traditional scrolls.
“These are my political messages I wanted to send out, have them shown in more public places. It’s really timely,” she says of the expansive 5-foot-by-11-foot banners, “and the canvas is very durable. I want them to travel to festivals and schools. We have to know and respond to the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear war, and artwork moves people at a visceral, subconscious level.”
Traditional Tibetan Buddhist thangkas were made to be carried by lamas in the form of scrolls for portability. Oda’s thangkas are created for carrying out the peace and environmental activities she promotes and are used at international meetings, large demonstrations and religious ceremonies.
When she sits down to work, because she has so much wisdom she wants to convey, “Clearing the mind is the hardest part,” she says. That’s why she begins with mindfulness.
Oda’s art process in four not-so-easy steps:
1. “I usually do meditation and clear my mind so I don’t have any other obstructions. That’s a lot of work,” she says. She says chanting to Saraswati, the Indian goddess of creativity, language, art and music, helps. “I sing to her. I adore her. I love her and I do a lot of things for her. All these things are for Saraswati,” Oda says, sweeping her hand around her studio filled with the afterbirth of her creative labors: strips of paper scribbled with words trailing around the wooden leg of her massive work table; unfinished sketches meandering over the high table in front of her Saraswati shrine; the messy desk of a person working on five different projects.
Amid the happy chaos, the artist finds a clear mind. And then…
2. “If I’m going to work on a certain Goddess, I will have read her stories and studied about her, so that’s something to draw on,” said Oda. “But then it just comes. You see the vision inside.” At that point, concentration and a strong imagination are key. The arising image may come first as a line, a foot or a color — you never know beforehand. But you have to wait and when it comes, see it as clearly as possible.
3. “To articulate it outside is the thing. You’ve got to put something on the page,” she said. “But do you have the training to follow through? Many people don’t have the focus. You need the discipline. There’s a lot of control required, but then it starts showing up on the page.”
4. When is it done? If the object has become one with the original vision given to her by Saraswati, then it’s ready. “I just know it,” Oda says. “People tend to overdo it. You have to know when to stop.” Is it a body sensation? “No. Your heart knows it.”
Practicing meditation, living a Buddhist life, farming, teaching and speaking out about her mission to create a radioactive-free future, Oda finds her passion and creativity most alive in her painting. They are her tools for transformation.
“These paintings came from deep within me like my screaming voice,” she says. “They are my gifts to this world I love.”
For more on Oda, visit www.gingerhillfarm.com and https://mayumioda.blogspot.com.
Contact the writer at marya.mann@gmail.com
