“Step on Thin Ice” , “Looking Back” (Response to “Time Exists”)

Hi, I’m Yukiko. Nice to meet you here, everyone!
Now our collaborative image relay has started! It’s my honor to have such a great opportunity.
The three of us are from and in different places, situations and occupations.  We live in Prague, Tokyo and Brno. A painter, Japanese calligrapher and western calligrapher. But when we meet we always feel something very similar and common on our very basis. That’s a great thing. I think it’s a kind of miracle.
Hope you have some fun & inspiration from this project!

Then, this is my response drawings to his work – “Time Exists”.

1. Step on thin ice

2. Looking Back

When I saw Kazuo’s new work on the web, I was on the way to home from Spain, which I’ve really wanted to visit and see my very important painters’ works. I was strongly inspired by them and really wanted to start my work soon – then I saw Kazuo’s work, and immediately I got an inspiration of both two pictures.
Still I didn’t know which words would be in the shadow under the foot of them, but when I came back home and read Ecclesiastes 3, I understood that those words should be there.
Then I made them and these two pictures were naturally divided to be Japanese and English. (By the way, I have different feeling when I use different languages, so the art expression changes according to it.)

The beginning of the 3rd chapter that shows 28 scenes of shadow and light in a human’s life was very impressive for me. I was drawing these words and continued thinking; what is life for me?
The 1st pic exactly shows one dimension of my daily mind. For me, to live is of course a lot of fun, but there is also fear because no one knows what will happen in the next moment. I always feel both of them strongly so it’s really like “stepping on thin ice”. Sometimes I feel fear to think about some things like that; all the things are beyond my capacity, or some uncertain future… or so.
On the other hand, I’m still sure that in the end all the good and bad will be like a big river and back to God. I really can trust it, so I even feel relieved.  Because the”God’s time” is always working, I know it somehow. The words of 28 scenes in the 2nd pic ends with this sentence; “He has set the right time for everything.”

Like the Big Bang’s end will be just a one very small point of the gravity, if I experience too many things in life and how messy it is, I imagine that just one very small pure-white truth will be left in the end of it all. And it’d be quite enough for me.

Because God takes all the responsibility and adjusts everything from “God’s Time”, OK, I can leave all such big and unknown things to Him, and all I can do is to live my small stream with a lot of surprise, confusion, fears… and smile, have fun and love. 🙂

In addition, this collaborative project’s process happens always on unexpected but perfect timing as a result, so I think it’s also under God’s time.  It’s always fun and a nice surprise!

May our small works do His will.

©Yukiko Taima, 2018