S1E17: Makoto Fujimura: How to think like an Artist in creating new ideas.

 There's a question I've been thinking about for some time. How do we create truly new ideas that move us forward?   Fresh ideas that truly move our companies forward? How will we need to think differently to find fresh, new ideas? 

So much of what we call new is really just an extension of the present. The post industrialized work world has been great for incremental improvements and efficiency, but struggles to generate cultures that can voyage beyond the land we already know. 

Few would argue today we need leaders with the ability to bring both left and right brain thinking to the moment or maybe better said a more balanced approach using both intuition and reason.  It is hard to find a recent business book that doesn't advocate for more intuitive thinking at work or challenge us to "think like an artist." 

But how do artists think? 

To answer that question, I set out to reconnect with a brilliant artist who I knew would have a perspective worth hearing, Makoto Fujimura. Mako is not only an amazing artist, he's also an accomplished writer who is just as passionate about the process of art as he is the outcome. 

In this episode, Mako and I talk about intuition, how it works, and how it needs to be harmonized with reason.  We take a look back into history to 500 years ago, to a time when Europe was coming out of the Black Plague and how that applies to what we are going through today. 

We also talk about how artists look at constraints, mastery, and asking questions beyond the question. In the last half of the podcast, I turned the tables and asked Mako how he might use the approach of an artist if he were to take on a C-Suite job in a big company.  And I can tell you now, his answer was brilliant. Mako shares some practical stories from his work on the Board at Bucknell University. Lastly, I asked him to look forward into the future and tell me what gives him hope. Again, his answer will surprise you. 

Episode Transcript

Andy Murray (00:02):
There's a question I've been thinking about for
some time. How do we createtruly new ideas that move us
forward that moves cultureforward or moves our companies
forward? So much of what we callnew is really just an extension
of the present. The postindustrialized work world has
been great for incrementalimprovements and efficiency, but

(00:24):
struggles to generate culturesthat can voyage beyond the land
we already know. Few would arguetoday we need leaders with the
ability to bring both left andright brain thinking to the
moment or maybe better said amore balanced approach using
both intuition and reason. Bestselling books like David White's
Crossing the Unknown Sea andMargaret Heffernan's Uncharted,

(00:47):
How to Navigate the Future,they reference the importance
of developing our intuitivecapabilities. I n essence, to
learn to think like an artist.
Okay, so how do artists think?
To answer that question, I setout to reconnect with a
brilliant artist who I knewwould have a perspective worth
hearing Makoto Fujimura. Mako isnot only an amazing artist, he's

(01:10):
also an accomplished writer whois just as passionate about the
process of art as he is theoutcome. In this episode, Mako
and I talk about intuition andhow it works in harmony with
reason. We'll take a look backinto history to 500 years ago,
at a time when Europe was comingout of the Black Plague and how
that applies to what we aregoing through today. We also

(01:31):
talk about how artists look atconstraints, mastery, and asking
questions beyond the question.
In the last half of the podcast,I turned the tables and asked
Mako how he might use theapproach of an artist if he were
to take on a C-S uite job in abig company. And I can tell you
now his answer was brilliant.
Mako shares some practicalstories from his work on the

(01:51):
Board at Bucknell University.
And lastly I asked him to lookforward into the future and tell
me what gives him hope. Butfirst, let's start with Mako's
backstory.

Mako (02:02):
So I was born in Boston.
My father is a well knownresearch scientist. He was a
pioneer in Speech and HearingSciences, when such a thing
didn't exist. He was he wasdoing it. I was born in Boston,
because he was doing his postdocwork with Noam Chomsky at MIT,
and then went to Sweden, andthen to Japan. So I ended up

(02:25):
choosing American citizenshipwhen I was 18. Because I, I came
back to us in middle school. Andbasically, that's kind of my
identity. And I went to BucknellUniversity, where, by the way, I

(02:47):
serve on the Board now thinkingabout this interface between
creativity and imagination andpractical solutions to
challenging problems, especiallyin education today. But I went
back and forth and I went backto Japan, as a national scholar,

(03:09):
to study the Ancient art ofNihonga, Japanese style
paintings. Spent six and a halfyears in a privileged position
of basically being paid to do myart and, and to do have access
to museums and temples andanything that I wanted to study

(03:34):
in the context of my particularinterest in 17th century
Japanese art and history 16thand 17th century. So I did that.
And I came back and had thisvision to be an artist with my
family in New York City. And wemoved into Murray Street and

(04:01):
Tribeca, which became groundzero in 2001. And I raised my
children as ground zerochildren. I'm now in Princeton,
and having gone through variouschallenges, I am settled here,
speaking to you from my studio,converted horse barn in

(04:25):
Princeton and I have been mymain work is obviously as an
artist, but I have done a lot ofadvocacy work to help culture. I
was a national council memberappointed by President Bush in
2003. Due to my work, after the911 reality post 911 reality I

(04:52):
began to do cultural projects.
And then I was asked byPresident Bush to serve on the
National Council. So I did thatfor six and a half years and,
and then learned a lot about howto be an artist and it was

(05:17):
frontlines of culture war. Andthen and to see the
effectiveness that artists, andpoets and leaders can have jazz
musicians can have in culturesuch as ours. And then I moved
out to Princeton. So that'swhere I find myself today,

Andy Murray (05:38):
I asked Mako how his international experiences
has shaped the way he views theworld today, and how it might
affect his art.

Mako (05:46):
For me, as I grew up, bi-culturally and not really
fitting into any culture,that's the gift that that has
given me is that I don't belonganywhere. I felt that you know,
this kind of alienation, butthen that became a huge asset
for me as an artist, certainly,but also to see, you know, this

(06:12):
ability to see beyond what, whatthe world was saying, , that
you can, you can assume, and sothose are observational skills,
I suppose,

Andy Murray (06:28):
To see beyond what others see. To go beyond our
tribal boundaries. That is atheme Mako consistently talks
about any elaborates on it inhis new book, Art and Faith, a
Theology of Making. He says, "Tobe effective messengers of hope,
we must trust our inner voice,our intuition that speaks into
the vast wastelands of our time.
In this way, we can train ourimagination to see beyond tribal

(06:50):
norms. So we can take in theVISTA of the wider pastures of
culture. I often describe artistas border stalkers in our
cultural ecosystem. They crosstribal norms to see the whole to
navigate in between the wallserected to protect the tribes."
Those words are not only helpfulto explain the way of an artist,
but can also be applied toanyone wanting to create

(07:13):
something new to stalk theborders of our assumptions
erected by our corporate tribes,

Mako (07:21):
You know, Art plus Faith book that just came out of Yale,
because of the title peoplethink it's about faith, right?
And it is, but but a friend ofmine who deals with counseling
CEOs of companies, said, "Youknow, this is the best work on,
best book on work". And I said,"What do you mean?" And he said,

(07:45):
Well, if you if you are able tointerchange word work with
making, right, what are wemaking, instead of asking, you
know, how to justify work, wesay, you know, we're gonna, what
is it that we're making, then itliberates work from this kind of
this drudgery of labor to,'we're making a cathedral',

(08:10):
we're making, you know,something beautiful, we're
making a company that really,serves this particular need, and
that elevates work as, as art.
And I didn't obviously write itfor that reason so it took me a

(08:31):
while to think about it and toprocess it. I was just recently
talking to him, and I said,"you're absolutely right,
because if we can do that, andif I can see work, you know,
anybody else's work, Amazonworker, nurse, you know, as just
as noble and beautiful as my ownwork, then that that's doing

(08:54):
something into the world."

Andy Murray (08:59):
When I first met Mako nearly 20 years ago at his
studio in Tribeca, it wasshortly after 911, and that
event was still reverberating inalmost every conversation about
the future. He told me about hisquest to answer the 500 year
question, meaning, "What are weworking on today that will be
around 500 years from now?" Itwasn't a question I'd ever

(09:21):
thought about really. But itstuck with me mainly because of
the context what was happening500 years ago.

Mako (09:29):
The work still continues through a movement called
I-am-culture-care. And they arelittle groups everywhere that
that actually talks about this.
Maybe not this particular issue,but certainly in terms of
thinking about culture andhistory.
Yeah, 500 years ago, what washappening? Well, the black

(09:52):
plague was happening. It's threegenerations were affected by
this and we forget. And duringthe pandemic, I got even more
interested in what happeneddirectly due to the plague. And
I note I think I might have toldyou when I wrote the essay, Fra

(10:16):
Angelico and 500 year questionthat Fra Angelico was painting,
as you noted when things were inturmoil. And I believe three
Pope's were excommunicated infive years. And there were
invasions and the black plaguewiped out 1/3 of the population

(10:38):
on Europe. And so how couldanybody paint? You know, this is
the question I asked myself andwhen you see Fra Angelico's
paintings in Florence, so Iwrite about this experience of
going to the Met soon after 911in New York and encountering

(10:59):
these really small, but weightyworks. They're just so powerful
because they speak of hope intime when there was no hope. And
this Dominican friar chose topaint and create beauty. As much

(11:22):
as I'm sure he was involved inhelping the neighbors. That made
me think about, okay, so whatlast for 500 years? Here I am
standing at the Met looking atthese beautiful paintings. And

(11:42):
these were literally done byhand 500 years ago by somebody
who had a different kind ofhope, than I could imagine. And
so I look back and then duringthe pandemic, I did some more
research and found out thatShakespeare built his Globe

(12:04):
Theater outside of Londonbecause of the plague. And, and
because it was kind ofscandalous at the time, too. But
he intentionally built it sothat people can be quarantined
to the classes and there wasthis class structure anyways,
but this is part ofShakespearean theatre is to play

(12:30):
one area of commoners versuskings and queens and princesses
up on top. And so Romeo andJuliet is very about that, and
is addressing and poking fun atcreating out of this divide that
is in front of you, basically.
And so the audience knowsexactly what's happening. And of

(12:53):
course, Romeo does notunderstand the feigned death of
Juliet because the messenger wasquarantined. So this is right in
this reality of darkness. Andand yet this amazing art came

(13:14):
out in the Michael Angelo, DaVinci, Shakespeare Fra Angelico.
So what is that about? So Ibegan to think some more about
this. And, you know, I used tosay that so much of art and
writing that we value today wasborn directly out of trauma,

(13:34):
war, frontlines. So you thinkabout Hemingway, you think about
JD Salinger, CS Lewis, you'retalking I mean, all these people
experienced directly the traumaof war, TS Eliot, and Dante and
you know, so forth, right. So SoI said, you know, well, if you
remove all the works of art andliterature from directly

(13:55):
influenced by war in trauma, youwill lose 80% of the world's
art. And then, during apandemic, I thought some more
about this, and I said, I don'tknow if there's any art, Emily
Dickinson was writing during theCivil War, you know, so we go
back to, Virgil, all thesewritings that we call

(14:20):
civilization and art camedirectly out of times of
darkness and trauma, and peoplewere painting as if were
creating work as if that was theonly way to create something new
in the context of severescarcity. So, to me, this idea

(14:41):
that art is a luxurious extra,you know, that's nice to have,
but it's not essential to oursurvival. It's been said so many
times it's fluff. It's notimportant. You know, why? Why do
anything to promote artists?

(15:04):
It's nonsense because this isthe reality from which all, not
just not just the arts andculture, but businesses,
education, everything that weknow to be life giving flows out
in response and correspondingwith, with some artistic

(15:26):
products.

Andy Murray (15:28):
I've been guilty in the past of using phrases like
left brain to communicaterational analytic thinking and
right brain as the intuitivecreative side with not much
thought really on therelationship between the two,
other than to see new thingsthat you have to create or want
to create, you need to leveragethe intuitive thinking skills.

(15:48):
Mako's take on right versus leftis quite different as he sees
less divide and more harmonybetween the intuitive and
rational elements of thecreative process.

Mako (16:00):
Right. So first of all, you know, you need both
analytical rational and theemotional emotive, not
emotional, but effective. Andintuitive, right, the intuitive
core is what you want, becauseintuitive core happens at the
base of the brain, rather thanleft or right brain. So you want

(16:23):
to get to the base becausethat's where integration
happens. And in order to getthere, though, you have to kind
of do the backward movement ofhow we come to know anything
know the world. When we areborn. My friend who's a clinical
psychologist says, you know, welearn things bottom up, right,

(16:44):
left. In other words, when weare born, we learn things by
touch, smell, taste, firstbody's come to know, hopefully,
in a loving environment,nurturing environment, we we are
able to grow out of our sensorywhat I call somatic knowledge

(17:05):
into the first the affectiveside, were our feelings, grow
first, if you're in the rightcontext. Then the rational
language, and so forth developsafter that. And in education and
in information, there iscertainly we done the opposite,
right? We force feed the leftbrain and force that into the

(17:29):
right try to make it stick. Sothe marketers try to be all by
creating this storyline thatsomehow connects the left to the
right. When you have a need forthis product. So we need a gecko
to speak. So, so we identifywith a gecko, and then that

(17:50):
becomes action, some, whatever,whatever they were trying to get
to. So we try to do theopposite, but it's very hard.
Like, the challenges are huge,enormous in terms of us, you
know, some people can do it, putin inflammation and actuate it,
but most people can't. And so,we're finding out, especially

(18:16):
during a pandemic, we had timeto kind of recalibrate and think
about this, you know, whatendures? What lasts?
Experience, is it something thatis more resume building? Is it
something that we considersuccess to be the center, as the

(18:37):
bottom line to be the centers?
Now, we can do it that way, butthey tend to be converging tasks
which, means that there is, wenarrow down the outcome to,
let's say, one successfuloutcome, and we deem that
success, and we educatechildren, basically, to do that
well, right? So, and yet, youknow, I had a recently I had a

(19:03):
conversation with the Dean ofEngineering at Bucknell
University. And, and he said,"Five years ago, what I was
looking for are kids who can dothat well, convergent tasks
well, and process and analyzeand, and do it quickly and
efficiently and so forth. Butnow I have to look for students

(19:25):
who actually think about theproblem behind the problem. Who
actually think divergently fromthe problems they're given not
just to solve a fixed point ofa problem, but to understand
that there is a problem behindthe problem and how they do
that? How they create divergenttaking. So you know, you do it

(19:49):
through theater, through dance,you do it through the arts, you
have to get back to the somaticand somewhat of a communal way
of knowing. In order to do thatyou have to develop empathy
skills. You have to develop acertain type of leadership
skills that previous would havebeen considered to be something

(20:14):
to avoid if you are trying toclimb up the ladder of success.
And yet, as the research hasshown that kind of selective
empathy is essential for theworkplace, right? And, and the
culture of the workplace isparamount in how people would

(20:37):
come back to the office today,right? I mean, why not just do
everything by zoom? Why not hirepeople cheaply all over the
world? And you can do that, andyou know, education too, why not
just do everything remotely?
Well, you can do that. Butagain, it's force feeding

(20:58):
information rather than actualtangible experience of living
and communities being together.
And that requires a differentset of ways that gifts that we
need to cultivate. And the bestway to cultivate that, by the
way is through the arts, music,and theatre, and so forth.

Andy Murray (21:23):
Mako describes the skill of demonstrating empathy,
as core to growing our intuitiveabilities. Empathy is really
about learning to ask differentquestions that uncover what you
don't know about a situation. Iasked Mako what other questions
should we consider asking toincrease our ability to know
things intuitively,

Mako (21:43):
The idea flows out of the experiential reality for an
artist. So a dancer knows herbody more than she knows
rationally how the body works,right? I mean, it helps to have
that knowledge in case you getinjured. Or you you know, you
want to prevent injury, but thebody knows, instinctively, like

(22:10):
what it can do, and what itcannot do, and the dancer is to
try to do the impossible. You'reactually pushing back against
the way you think it's possible.
And that kind of thinking, andartists, you know, obviously,
like me, are always trying toask the impossible questions.

(22:31):
There are works behind me calledwalking on water. And it's, it's
simple question can we? Can wewalk on water? And, and if art
doesn't answer that, and it willbe a mistake to problem solve
that way, but it certainly posesthe questions and the deeper

(22:52):
ways. Yes, and, and so, you canget to the problem behind the
problem. If you learn to dothis, the challenge is how to
do it collectively as a group.
How to ask these questions morein an integrated fashion. And

(23:17):
so you need both actually, theleft and the right brain, you
need the analytical and and andthe effective that is integrated
into something that we addressholistically, rather than bits
by pieces, bits and pieces.

Andy Murray (23:38):
We're all familiar with the cliche, think outside
the box, which means look beyondthe familiar. What it doesn't
mean and can fuel a misbelief isin order to be creative, we need
to work without constraints. Itis easy to imagine an artist's
looking at a blank canvas as amoment when the imagination is
limitless. And when we visualizethe artists that way, as one

(24:00):
without constraints, we knowthat's not the real world of
work. In the real world, wenever have enough budget time or
resources that we think we needto do something truly new. I
asked Mako how he looks atconstraints and the artistic
process.

Mako (24:16):
So the answer is materials, no. And I listen to
the materials. And of course, Icreate parameters around
creativity, you know,limitations of your friends. So
you limit if I were asked to docommission, I ask, "what's the

(24:42):
work that you don't like?" youknow, What color don't you like?
And those are helpful to me. Andthen even if, if you have a
particular type of work, theseries that I've done in the
past that they respond to, thenit's not gonna come out the
same, right? And every batch ofminerals that I get from Japan

(25:04):
and the right amount of Kite andso forth, is different. I have
to understand. And also, becauseI mix, the pigments with hide
glue, Japanese hide glue, themixture is going to be different
every time because the moisturelevel in here, the season, the
temperature is all different.
And all those things I don'tthink about, I just know. Like

(25:26):
through years of failure. Llikethis is gonna work, this is not
gonna work. And so by my bodyhas learned a certain rhythm,
it's almost like a liturgy ofunderstanding and I walk into
the studio, and I try to notthink about a lot of things.

(25:48):
Especially being highly selfcritical, or having these voices
say, "Well, how about this? Howabout that?" I kick them all
out. And then I kick myself out.
And then let the materials startto speak on there own. My eyes

(26:12):
know, right? When the mixture isright. When something is
happening that I've neverexperienced before, even though
I've used the same material overand over for 30 years, every
time it's new. So there's somethere's always the surprise. And
now I'm you know, I delight inthat. And I want that so I'm

(26:38):
actually looking for it.

Andy Murray (26:41):
I was finally beginning to put some pieces
together based on what Marco wastelling me. For him, learning
his craft, how materials work,what is possible, all that he
learns rationally becomes somastered, that he knows what to
expect intuitively withoutthinking about it. Then when the
materials don't behave as heexpects, it's in those moments

(27:01):
of surprise that he begins toexplore for new. This resonated
with me, because I believemastering one's craft at work is
essential to the discoveryprocess. Mastery helps you know,
when you're experiencingsomething that is unexpected.
And from that you can know whatis worth exploring. Someone
without mastery will reallystruggle to see what is the

(27:23):
unexpected. However, in the workworld, we rarely create by
ourselves and interacting withpeople and knowing intuitively
people requires a certain amountof being together. I asked Mako,
"Doesn't zoom and remote orhybrid remote, make it much more
difficult to know how others arefeeling and thinking at the

(27:44):
intuitive level?"

Mako (27:45):
That's correct. And one thing that zoom has allowed
though is I'm entering into youroffice right now you are doing
to my studio, right. So everytime we zoom somebody, there's
something in the background,which tells you more about the
person than what the person istelling you. So I've gotten good
at playing the show and tellgame. And actually, you're

(28:09):
absolutely right, though, if Iwasn't so highly sensitized to
reading the group, you know, I'mso intuitive. I'm a high
introvert, highly intuitive. Sothere's not a moment when I want

(28:30):
to be in front of people. Right?
But when I, when I do first ofall, it takes a lot out of you
because your intuition is onoverride and, and like taking in
information. Even without youknowing, right, and you're
reading the room, you'realready processing what people

(28:54):
are feeding, not just thinkingbut feeling. And when you walk
into a room full of a boardroomor whatever, or any kind of
classroom or church, youinstantaneously you know.
That's, how my makeup works. Youknow, what this culture is like.

(29:19):
That can be depressing becauseyou know on the surface they may
say one thing, and you walk inand you're like, "Oh," you know,
and you sit in the back, wearblack, you know. But that's also
something that you know, if it'sapplied to organizational

(29:44):
psychology, or it's applied tothe way that we understand our
customers. That's like acritical information that the
whole entire board needs, right?
So I try to pay attention tothat. And try to articulate it
in a way that's hopefullytranslatable to the rational

(30:08):
side.

Andy Murray (30:10):
So far, we've been on a quest to understand what it
means to think like an artist, Idecided to flip the conversation
on its head and asked Mako toimagine that he left the art
world, and was now a newlyappointed Chief customer officer
at a fortune 500 company. And Iwanted him to take us to the
first 90 days, how would heapproach the assignment, after

(30:30):
of course, he got over theinitial shock of such a career
change.

Mako (30:33):
The assumption is that it's a highly competitive world
is scarcity filled, it's a zerosum game, you have to win at all
cost. We have to producesomething that is going to make
us wildly successful. But thatis a photo of like assumptions
like, like, what is success? Ifyou have it will be really,

(30:57):
really happy? In terms ofcompany's objective. You're
assuming that it's a scarcityfilled environment, but is it?
Is there a model of abundancealready built into the client
base, that you are assuming tobe not there. That you're

(31:21):
creating your product in termsof creating desire for the
product that they don't reallywant you set your thinking. But
is that true? Or is it somethingthat is, you know, we haven't
seen yet and in that case, youknow, you have to directly
interface with your customersand and live in the life that

(31:42):
they live in order for you totruly incarnate or bring in
these essence of what you aretrying to do. And perhaps they
can tell you what success is.
More than you can.

Andy Murray (31:56):
Okay, Mako totally delivered on that answer. From
my experience, learning to getto the problem behind the
problem is the art and scienceof great leadership. Mako then
said something that surprisedme, when I made an assumption
around reasoning being far moredeveloped than intuition in
business today.

Mako (32:14):
Right and again, the assumptions... are we really
good at reasoning, if we'reignoring the intuition, right?
It's because reason comes flowsout of intuition, not the other
way around. So you cannot forceintuition to react with forced

(32:35):
information. So, what are wedoing in marketing? We're
assuming that we can affectchange, which the most enduring
change happens in intuitivelevel, the integrated level,

Andy Murray (32:53):
Bringing an artist way of thinking of looking at
the problem beyond the problemand asking difficult questions,
it's not only healthy for teamsworking on innovation, but also
it's very relevant for teams atthe top. One of the things Mako
is involved in is in highereducation. And He currently
serves on the board of BucknellUniversity. He shared a story
about asking a different kind ofquestion, resulting in a

(33:16):
different outcome than the boardwas considering. For me, the
story Mako is about to tellabout serving on the board shows
he's keenly aware that not allideas are going to work. And
there's a humility to know andaccept that.

Mako (33:32):
My experience of serving on the board of Bucknell, I am
the only artist. I was the onlyAsian when I got on there. Yeah,
it's where I went. And Iunderstand the context ofhigher
education, the challenges of it.
Of course, the pandemic,highlights that, but has been
about that. About discoveringthings that...I have this kind

(33:56):
of a churning wheel inside thatit's always generating ideas,
you know, at any moment, right.
So, I scare people, because Isay things that are just so
outlandish. And I have toexplain I'm not like saying this

(34:19):
as a conclusion, I'm saying as abeginning of a process, so,
thinking out loud, you know, sodon't think that anything I say
is, is true, but but in a boardsetting, right? It's absolutely
critical to have somebody likethat, like, throwing out like
crazy ideas, like impossiblethings. Have we thought about
this? What if we did this? Whatif, and, and, you know, I said

(34:41):
in the beginning, I amexperienced enough to know that
if I can bat 300 I'm doingreally well. So seven out of 10
ideas, you know, get thrown outof the window right away, that's
fine. You know, these you got tobat right? And if one idea,
sticks, then you change, youchange something. And if I can

(35:07):
tell you a story, a tangiblestory. Very first few meetings,
I don't know how I, what am Isupposed to be doing as an
artist on the board? You know,I'm not going to give millions
of dollars, and we werechatting, just getting to know
fellow board members. And theysaid, "We actually have a master

(35:31):
plan to build an art building,you know, $15 million of the art
building and I, you know,somebody needs to spearhead
this. " And I said, so how manyart majors do you have? It's
like, 22. So you got tosequester 22 art majors, it is
$50 million. That doesn't makesense to me. Did we just vote to

(35:52):
create a new building for schoolof management? They said, "Yeah,
yeah, that's, I'm really excitedabout that." I said, Why don't
we stick the art and Art historymajors in there? And there was
this pause, right. And, and thechair of our board was sitting
behind me. And he turned around,he said, "Now, that's a good

(36:14):
idea." And then the guy who wassitting across from me, he is a
board member gave millions ofdollars to Bucknell and he said,
"You know what, that makes somuch sense to me, because I was
an accounting major at Bucknell.
But if you would ask me, "Whatclass did I take at Bucknell

(36:36):
that helped me the most withwhat I do as an entrepreneur,
today successful entrepreneur,"I would say it was my art
history class. Because I learnedhow to see. So he said, You
know, "I'm gonna do an endowedchair of an endowed position of

(36:57):
a business professor and artprofessor together to, to make
this building sing." So thisone, one statement, crazy
statement, right? It's literallyso Bucknell has now a brand new

(37:18):
school of management building,with art and art history, that
will be announced this Fall.

Andy Murray (37:34):
Shifting gears to the present, I asked Mako about
his perspective, right now, inthis moment. What is the thing
that he's looking for? And tothe form, he took me to the
ancient art of Kintsugi, ametaphor for now.

Mako (37:49):
Well, you know, I talk about Kintsugi in my book, which
is, I can't even show it to you.
This is a pottery that beenmended with gold. And I love
this metaphor. Because, youknow, when things break in
Western culture, we throw thingsaway, or, you know, glue it back
together. So it looks like itwasn't broken. Where in Japan,

(38:12):
they highlight the fracturespour gold into it, making the
Kintsugi bowl more valuable thanthe original. So, that's the
question after the pandemic.
It's not just to ignore it, getback to normal. It's how do we
use what we have experienced,the brokenness we experienced

(38:35):
and lement that we're goingthrough, but pour gold into
that. And I think that's forevery business to do.

Andy Murray (38:48):
Lastly, I asked Mako to turn to the future and
to describe what is it that hesees that brings him hope? And
once again, his answer surprisedme.

Mako (38:58):
Disruption gives me hope.
It sounds crazy, but but but tome, all good things come out of
the fractures, you know, and,and that's been certainly true
of my life. And, you know, I,once you learn to walk into
them. You can run away and manypeople do, and, and I do, but,

(39:21):
you know, but the key thing isto stay with it and let it speak
to you as you know, my materialshave to be pulverized, to be
layered and to be madebeautiful, right? And that's
very painful for minerals to gothrough. But the master

(39:41):
craftsman, artisan is makingsure that every pulverization
counts into a new creation. Andthat's what I see in the world
right now. And I don't know allof the details of how that would
come to be. But as an artist,you know, I can see why Fra

(40:06):
Angelico painted. As the onethird of the population is dying
with black plague. There's fear.
There's invasion. There is evena question of can civilization
survive? Right? And in the midstof that he found his answer. It
was, it's gonna survive here.
I'm gonna create one, here. Andthat led to the Renaissance. So

(40:29):
it's like, okay that audacitythat you mentioned to believe
that what little thing that I domatters. My faithful presence
let's say, at the desk that I'mwriting my poetry you know if
your Emily Dickenson, that's allyou had. A 70 and a half inch by

(40:51):
17 and a half inch little desk.

Woke up every every morning (40:56):
30 in the morning to write. Even if
no one knows that you're doingthat. I think that audacity
creates an imprint in history.
And even if nobody sees that,you've done your work. And and
so to me that so in that sense,this disruption and this time,

(41:21):
horrific difficult time that wewent through a very painful
time, is one of the ways that Ithink I've learned to see.
understanding the arts andliterature. This is the, you
know, in my end, there's mybeginning, my beginning as my

(41:42):
end, you know, that kind ofthing, where there's something
that is being birth right nowthat the future generation will
look at and say, Oh, that'sbeautiful. So that's what I hope
to do in my work.