WATER AND DIAMOND: NO. 17 BEAUTIFUL THING

I would like to share my message for the exhibition, Prayer of Water, starting from 2^nd of July.

The action of life maintains a dynamic balance.

Nature moves constantly, yet, supports life with orderly flow.

The action is well manifested in a flow of water.

The water changes its form continuously.

At the same time, it sustains a balance as a whole.

Water moves, flows, and circulates while purifying itself.

Aspired to see the movements of the life force, which is the same as a flow of time, try to capture the image at a source of rivers.

Natural beauty dwells in the Absolute Moment of heaven, humans, and earth.

The beauty leads to life force.  Life is natural beauty itself.

WATER AND DIAMOND: NO. 16 CREATING THE BEAUTY

In order to create the beauty of the diamonds, they need to be cut and polished.  When it is cut, a cutter has to decide which part to keep.  When polishing, s/he cuts little by little to shape it, and finish by buffing the surface.  Usually, cutters focus on making a good shape.  However, we keep in our mind the image of taking out the child of the lights which inherits in each rough diamond.   

It means that the essence of beauty is already in the rough diamonds.  Putting into a good shape doesn’t make the beauty, but we help it to come out from the stone.

As a result, it will have a beautiful shape. 

I think this is same to paintings or sculptures.  Before seeing the external beauty or pulling things into shape, one has to face the sacredness of the stone or woods in front, which is invisible.  If the artist is only focusing on the external beauty, the work will be vain and empty.

Visible shape is supported by the invisible beauty

WATER AND DIAMOND: NO. 15 BEAUTIFUL BRILLIANCY

Brilliancy is a beauty.  Prettiness, Kirei, and beauty, Utsukushisa, means slightly different in Japanese.  Water has prettiness, but not beauty.  However, we say the flow of water is beautiful.  In the same way, we refer light as pretty and brilliancy as beautiful.

Thinking in that way, beauty refers the nature of the materials, or its function which stimulates human emotion to make a positive reaction.  That makes beauty and pretty different.

Moreover, the word beauty is often accompanied by a sense of dignity which the speaker has.  S/he observes and comprehends the object, and resonate it inside of her/him.

Brilliancy of the diamond also is a material term.  I would like you to know that the material tem is supported by the resonance from inside.  For those who can resonate, I really wish them to have diamonds.

WATER AND DIAMOND: NO. 14 SPARKLES

Recently, I have been posting entries on this blog regarding water and diamonds; their similarities and differences.  When I think back, I have to realize that I have spent much of my life on these two materials.  People often ask whether if they share anything in common.  Not until just 15 years ago, I didn’t even think about the similarities.  However, there are so many, and I soon realized that “Life”, which is the most important thing for living creatures, is the key word.

Carbon is the essential substance for living being, and diamond is a crystallized carbon. Water also is crucial for living. 

Moreover, in order to live a lively life, one must shine like a diamond.  Eternal life means circulating like water. 

Now you can see how these two materials are connected deep in the bottom.  Humanity has a responsibility to relate to them with value.

Some would say this sounds very religious, however, that is an opinion from people who have wrong conception of religion.  When we get older, we have different views on nature and life start to change naturally.  Therefore, getting along in years is a good thing.

WATER AND DIAMOND: NO. 13 LITTLE BREAK… LIGHTS AND GLINTS

I received precious E-mail yesterday, and I would like to share it with you.

It reads “Mr. Shigetomi’s Ryusui-mon is self-less and profound work which identify itself with a flow of water. 

While it shows a fast tempo of the flow, I can still hear an instrument sing like a water song.  I suppose this is because the work carries memory of water. 

It reminded me of a phrase ‘human is a drop of water, and God is water’. ”

Setsuko Klossowska de Rola

 

This is a message from Ms. Setsuko for my exhibition starting from July 2^nd, In gratitude for the water of life; Prayer of water.  Due to her elegant vocabulary and sophisticated sentences, I can easily picture warm and blight light from Ms. Setsuko.  This, I believe, is a sparkle.

WATER AND DIAMOND: NO. 12 ESSENCE OF THE BRILLIANCY

One most important and true value of the diamond lies in its beauty.  Or, you can say its brilliancy.  Diamonds glitter due to its ability of optical refraction and dispersive power.  In order to maximize the glittering effect, human technologies are needed.

Only a cutter with a special ability can maximize the beauty of glitter, which is to take out a child of light hidden in a rough diamond.  You can see a huge difference in diamonds which is just cut to put in a shape, and the one with the final cuttings.

Natural world is always changing, flowing, and circulating.  It is a transformation from chaos to order.  During the process, nature expresses the beauty.  Humans are capable of finding and taking out the hidden essence of nature.  I assume coexistence of human and nature will be possible somewhere in that area. 

Each of us definitely has hidden light within us.  Taking out the light with own hands will lead to vivid lives.  Beauty equals to being alive.

WATER AND DIAMOND: NO. 11 REAL VALUE

Big diamonds are hard find.  So are colorless, transparent, and flawless ones.  Therefore, they are high in price.  It is understandable; however, it does not necessarily mean that those diamonds have high value.  Prices only talk about diamonds as commodity, and values are different thing. 

People who buy the commodity decide the value, and not by the one who sell.  There are certain conditions which would change purpose, meaning, and reason to buy a diamond.  That is the value.

One most important value of the diamond is its beauty.  Everyone appreciates its beauty.  However, it is very questionable that many people were successful to buy the most beautiful diamonds.  The most important value to buy diamonds has to be its beauty, for both people who buy and sell diamonds.  Beauty is the true value of diamonds.

WATER AND DIAMOND: NO. 10 VALUE

The value of diamond is its scarcity.  There are numerous legacies in finding diamonds.  It is said the first diamond was discovered in South Africa by a boy called Jacobs, who happened to find it while playing.

For long time, nobody knew how and where to find diamonds until they find the vein.  Therefore, value of diamonds is largely depended on their scarcity.  Moreover, size also mattered for it is more difficult to find bigger ones, so carat and weight have decided its value.  Due to those circumstances, value of diamond still largely depends of its size.

During middle age in Europe, they did not have any technology to cut diamonds, so they used rough diamond for rings and pendant.  Diamonds are symbol and charm to signify the power of invincibility.  There is a wedding painting in Vatican City, and you can see a rough diamond is used for the ring.