Art and Faith: A Theology of Making

From a world-renowned painter, an exploration of creativity’s quintessential—and often overlooked—role in the spiritual life

"Makoto Fujimura is the rare artist whose life has something of the same purifying and galvanizing force of his work. His new book brings those two elements—life and art—even closer together, and is a real tonic for our atomized time." —Christian Wiman

Conceived over thirty years of painting and creating in his studio, this book is Makoto Fujimura’s broad and deep exploration of creativity and the spiritual aspects of “making.” What he does in the studio is theological work as much as it is aesthetic work. In between pouring precious, pulverized minerals onto handmade paper to create the prismatic, refractive surfaces of his art, he comes into the quiet space in the studio, in a discipline of awareness, waiting, prayer, and praise.

Ranging from the Bible to T. S. Eliot, and from Mark Rothko to Japanese Kintsugi technique, he shows how unless we are making something, we cannot know the depth of God’s being and God’s grace permeating our lives. This poignant and beautiful book offers the perspective of, in Christian Wiman’s words, “an accidental theologian,” one who comes to spiritual questions always through the prism of art.