Living Artfully: Creativity, Attention, and Making Art, with Makoto Fujimura
With and For hosted by Dr. Pam KingShow Notes
You are a beautiful masterpiece. But the practice of living artfully comes slowly, often through brokenness, weakness, or failure. Contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura integrates traditional Japanese styles with abstract expressionism and Christian theology, to explore the beauty that can emerge from the ashes pain and suffering.
Makoto Fujimura—renowned artist, writer, and theologian—joins Dr. Pam King to explore the deep connections between art, faith, and flourishing. Fujimura shares how his Japanese heritage and study of traditional Nihonga painting have shaped his understanding of creativity as a sacred act. Through themes of brokenness, beauty, and slow art, he challenges us to rethink success, embrace imperfection, and create from a place of love and abundance.
In this conversation with Mako Fujimura, we discuss:
What art is, what creativity means, and the human capacity for making beauty
How we can live artfully through imperfection, brokenness, trauma, and suffering
How the practice of a gift economy can lead to mutual thriving
The slow art of pausing, stopping, and beholding that contributes to our mental and spiritual health
And the connection between knowledge and love in a life of creativity and artmaking.
Helpful Links and Resources
Follow Makoto Fujimura on X @iamfujimura
View Mako’s art at makotofujimura.com
Makoto Fujimura’s Writings
Makoto Fujimura’s Books
Nihonga Art and its Traditions
Refractions: A Journey of Art, Faith, & Culture
Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life
Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering
Art and Faith: A Theology of Making
About Makoto Fujimura
Contemporary artist Makoto Fujimura is a painter, an author, a speaker, and an imaginative maker with a gift for theological integration.
A blend of fine art and abstract expressionism, Mako describes his work as “slow art,” being influenced directly by the distinctively Japanese Nihonga style, which is patient and methodical, using slow drying pigments from ground minerals.
Mako’s art has been featured in galleries and museums around the world, as well as notable collections in The Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo, The Huntington Library in California, and the Tikotin Museum in Israel.
Mako is the author of several books, including Refractions: A Journey of Art, Faith, & Culture, Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life, and Silence and Beauty: Hidden Faith Born of Suffering. His most recent is entitled Art and Faith: A Theology of Making. And his next book will be available soon—titled, Art Is: A Journey into the Light. And with his wife Haejin, he’s producing a new work on Beauty and Justice.
Follow him on X @iamfujimura, and view his beautiful work at makotofujimura.com.
About the Thrive Center
Learn more at thethrivecenter.org.
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About Dr. Pam King
Dr. Pam King is Executive Director the Thrive Center and is Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy. Follow her @drpamking.
About With & For
Host: Pam King
Senior Director and Producer: Jill Westbrook
Operations Manager: Lauren Kim
Social Media Graphic Designer: Wren Juergensen
Special thanks to the team at Fuller Studio and the Fuller School of Psychology & Marriage and Family Therapy.
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