Where Painting and Poetry Merge
Are you searching for your soul? Then come out of your own prison. Leave the little creek and
Join the river that flows into the ocean. Like an ox, don’t pull the wheel of this world on your back. Take off the burden. Whirl and circle. Rise to the top of the world’s wheel. There is a different view.
~Rumi
Where Painting and Poetry Merge
by Setsuko Yoshida
Poetry and painting are both art forms; poetry uses words and sounds, and painting uses shapes, shades, and colors. Each of them is an expression of the artist’s heart and inner experience; and each has its own impact on people’s hearts and minds. In combination, poetry and painting become like two seas merged into one great ocean with its mysterious calmness and majestic roar. I am a painter not a poet; but I am sensitive to images, and imagery is common to both painting and poetry. This is especially true for the poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi, the great Persian mystic poet of the thirteenth century whose poems in English translations are now widely popular in North America. Rumi (as he described himself) was like a celestial bird in Earth’s aviary; his poetry is rich in elements of nature and the secret garden of the human heart; it portrays the soul’s journey in this life and world and in the light beyond the apparent physics.
My face has the color of autumn and yours, the color of spring. Unless these two become one roses and thorns cannot grow.
Roses and thorns appear to be opposites. The garden laughs at those who see them as opposites.
~Rumi
I was born and educated in Kyoto, an ancient capital city of Japan which has a long spiritual tradition of Zen Buddhism. I grew up in an atmosphere of traditional Japanese craftsmanship where both my parents were engaged in the Japanese weaving textiles called Nishijin-Ori. I enjoyed my childhood in an environment of rich culture and nature. I was fortunate to have a renowned fine arts teacher, Kozo Miyo, at my junior high school who taught me the joy of painting and encouraged me to pursue it. I graduated in fine arts from Kyoto University of Education and taught this subject in schools for ten years. Since I moved to the United States, I have continued producing my art works. The focus of my painting has been spiritual themes and natural features. I like the brilliant colors and transparency of watercolor media which allow me to expand my imagination about subjects more freely.
