September 2025 Culture Care Newsletter

Heading image: Abraham van Beijeren (1620−1690), Banquet Still Life, 1655, oil on canvas, 99.5 x 120.5 cm. Mauritshuis, via Wikimedia Commons. Public Domain.

A Note from IAMCultureCare

Greetings this beautiful September—

In his reflection this month (below), Mako writes on the ​“Feast” as a model for our Culture Care work, inviting us to explore the connections between feasting, art, and culture and to share our discoveries with our community here. 

But what actually makes a feast a feast? Ever prone to philosophizing (my fatal flaw), I thought I’d expand on what ​“Feast” might mean as an initial response to Mako’s call. 

By my reckoning, a feast is made up of at least four, interrelated elements: the activity, occasion, spirit, and effect.

First, the activity. Feasts are most of all characterized by the consumption of rich food and drink. After all, it’s hard to imagine a feast without food — and lots of it. This gratuitous abundance is sacramentalized such that the meal is both the substance and symbol of the feast itself. Because eating is such a basic human need — and because the feast provides so much good food — the satisfaction we get from food and drink becomes the archetypal referent for the feast in the other bodily senses. Thus when we speak of feasting one’s eyes or ears on a beautiful sunset or melody, for example, we implicitly recognize that such experiences satisfy in the same way as good food does at the feast.

Yet the activity of eating, while necessary for the feast, is not sufficient; one doesn’t merely attend a feast or eat at a feast, one feasts. That’s because a feast is a unique occasion that requires its own verb. A feast typically marks a transition point, the commencement or culmination of a special labor or season, such as the wedding feast or the harvest feast. It is often related to religious observance, connected to words like ​“festal” or ​“festival”, and that connotation is important in defining the occasion. The feast has a ritual beginning that ushers the participants into a new space: a simple, ​“Let’s eat”; or, more medieval, ​“Let the feast begin”; or, ​“Therefore let us keep the feast.” And, once begun, the feast takes place outside the regular passage of time. Participants leave behind chronological cares of to-do lists, deadlines, and market indicators and enter a kairic moment, a ​“still point of the turning world”, marked by revelry and reverie.

This is a spirit as much as it is an activity or occasion. A feast is a joyous celebration wherein the participants are freed from an economy of scarcity into a radical inclusivity: all are welcome at the feast because there is no fear of lack. All are satisfied with a satisfaction not limited to the five senses. The ​“spirit of Christmas” commonly (and crudely) depicted in the countless Hallmark films churned out each year is really just the spirit of the feast. In these films and the feast alike, dormant, antiquated words — like ​“merry-making” or ​“mirth” — are suddenly and startlingly apropos to describe the festivities.

For those of us who dare to feast, this spirit of merry-making and radical inclusivity has a profound effect: the feast shapes the collective identity of the participants. Individual rank and ego outside the feast are of no importance here. All share in the abundance, prince and pauper alike, and in the feast become one community. Another effect: participants frequently express a desire that the feasting never draw to a close. There is a shared recognition that in the feast we get a taste of a greater reality beyond the drama of ordinary human existence. It’s bittersweet, but oh, so glorious!

* * *

Why does this matter for Culture Care, for art, for our community? Well, I think Mako is right that art is a feast (and if you want more from him on that, check out the forthcoming Art Is book, details below). Similarly, twentieth-century philosopher Hans Georg Gadamer draws on imagery of the feast — what he terms the ​“festival” (though I judge the terms to be largely equivalent) — to make claims about what a work of art does. For Gadamer, experiencing an artwork is essentially the same as the experience of a festival: a sensory, communal encounter with abundance (beauty) creates a portal into a space freed from the confines of time and individual, competitive identity; it overcomes the defenses of ego, uniting an audience together in a fleeting but nevertheless shared taste of a larger reality. Art and feasting alike matter because they remind us who and what we are meant to be.

Of course, this community has always had a unique epistemological capacity to recognize the importance of somatic knowledge, and Mako’s call yet beckons. So, why wait — let us feast!

Jacob Beaird, Editor

A Note From Mako Fujimura

We just gathered 150 people — close friends and supporters of Embers International—for a ​“Fuji Farm Feast” celebrating Haejin’s birthday and our 5^th anniversary of marriage. God was good to us, providing beautiful, cool weather. We were also quite amazed that there were exactly 80 families represented at the gathering, as we take care of precisely 80 families in a red-light district in South Asia, journeying with them over decades to end intergenerational oppression and violence. (Embers is launching an Artist Advocacy group to serve in this group, so consider joining us by applying here.) At the Feast, I opened my studios for people to visit, and made pieces available for sale to benefit Embers.

Art is a Feast, and our gathering proved that placing art in the context of such celebration can bring out deeply layered meanings, and even the allusiveness of my art can become part of the intrigue. In an age in which the old wineskin model of a gallery system is literally falling apart, and many artists feel betrayed by the system of art fairs and biennials, it is time to consider what a new wineskin model can be. Well, it turns out that the Fuji Farm Feast gave us a model to consider.

A table of feast does not have to be a big tent affair, and it can be limited to simply what we have. A welcome hospitality, a neighborly attention, and a willingness to share an afternoon is all we need to create a feast of our own toward caring for your culture. Your culture care group, consisting of the ​“three capitals” (see my ​“Business Care” chapter of Culture Care), can be part of it; or, additionally, a gathering with younger artists you are mentoring. Or it can look like this Canadian commercial shared with me by my friend Andy Crouch, one of the Fuji Farm Feast attendees.

With a little preparation, gatherings like these are ideal venues to find an audience to exhibit art and share music with. Gratuitous, generous sharing can lead to so many more generative ends. Whatever the version you come up with, try it, and do share with us how it went. 

Mako Fujimura, Founder of IAMCultureCare

Guest Post: Meaghan Ritchey Mitts

By Meaghan Mitts

When I left New York City in the spring of 2022 after living there for eighteen years, struggling with questions that didn’t have obvious answers, I did so because of an encouragement from my pastor. After a long pandemic and a lost relationship, I was sad and tired. He put it to me simply, ​“Go where the love is,” he said. At the time, to my mind, love was in two places: New York, where I’d built my life, and San Antonio, Texas, where my family had built theirs. 

It was a scary prospect — moving to a new place in my late thirties, with no idea what a future in Texas would look like. After dragging my feet about it for months, I finally decided to trade my dreamy apartment for my parent’s spare bedroom. On paper, things were bleak. 

I couldn’t see it at the time, but this season, as it turns out, was what Mako refers to as a ​“Genesis moment.” Though I was able to bring most of my work with me to Texas, thank goodness, most of my life was a blank slate. 

My first few months in San Antonio were spent clinging to my old life — denying that anything had changed, with frequent trips back to the Big Apple with long stints in Los Angeles, where I was working for a gallery in Hollywood. But then one afternoon a close friend approached me with an idea that would give me a reason to stay home. She wanted to start an artist residency dedicated to supporting artists who are actively parenting or supporting dependent parents and partners — in other words, caretakers.

She and her husband were both artists and had been disappointed by the lack of resources for artist parents. It made sense that she invited me to launch this program with her: I had twenty years of experience working as an arts administrator and I had a lot of energy and willingness to try something new. But a parent, I was not. Nor was I an artist.

I was willing. And I’ve loved serving artists. I’ve known for as long as I can remember, since my early days at the International Arts Movement, that arts service was my vocation. It’s taken so many varied forms.

We would name the residency Parts & Labor.

Artists need space and time to pursue their vision. Residencies are among the greatest opportunities for rejuvenation, connection, and artistic growth. Unfortunately, this path is virtually closed to parents and caregivers since so few residencies welcome families. We created Parts & Labor to address this gap, and to infuse the San Antonio art scene with fresh ideas and inspiration from our visiting artists. We offer residents a studio and a living space that can accommodate families, and we offer a modest stipend that can be used for transportation, childcare, food, or materials. 

Little did I know that less than a year after we hosted our first resident, I would be married, parenting a beautiful five year old boy, with a family on the way. Now, to my complete surprise, I shared the concerns and burdens of the residents of the Parts & Labor artist residency.

Over the last eighteen months, we’ve presented small exhibitions, poetry readings, craft talks, lectures, and family art workshops that are completely free. 

We routinely hear from residents that Parts & Labor has supported them in a way no other residency ever has, with comments like ​“My month at the Parts & Labor Residency was the first time in recent memory, maybe my whole life, when I was able to devote all my time to art and family.” Or another artist from California shared, ​“When I reflect on my time at the Parts & Labor residency, the word that rises to the surface is hospitality. Hospitality often shows up as care: shared meals, thoughtful gestures, inclusion, hosting, and the gift of time and space. These same qualities are deeply connected to the idea of ritual. In that sense, I’ve come to see my time at the residency as a kind of creative ritual — one held and uplifted by extraordinary hospitality.”

And so, in a small way, this is our faithful act of culture care — of trying to meet the practical and emotional needs of the tireless caretakers who are so often overlooked by the bottom line of the art market. 

Meaghan Mitts, née Ritchey is the co-founder of the Parts & Labor artist residency in San Antonio, Texas. She also works with Mockingbird, the Laity Lodge, and the Foundation for Spirituality and the Arts. She has been on staff at Image Journal, Commonweal, Baylor University, and International Arts Movement (now IAMCultureCare). 

Culture Care Events & Announcements

• “Into the Silence: Winter into Spring” Exhibition—Boston, MA, Now-October 15. Mako Fujimura and Bruce Herman exhibit original works from the QU4RTETS project alongside newer works by Fujimura in a special exhibit in Gordon College’s Barrington Center for the Arts. 
• “The Spiritual In Art” McDonald Distinguished Lecture — Hong Kong University, Hong Kong, September 19, 7PM. Mako Fujimura to speak about his painting process and how his paintings connect with the history of Japanese painting, American 20^th-century masters, and reflections on silence and light. Register here for this in-person lecture.
  
• “Dust and Gold — Makoto Fujimura & Shozo Michikawa” Exhibition—ALIEN ART CENTRE, Taiwan, September 28, 2025-August 30, 2026. Major works by Mako Fujimura are exhibited in poetic dialogue with sculptor Shozo Michikawa in an expansive two-part exhibit — each part lasting six months — reflecting on time and impermanence. The Luminous Chapter invites viewers to explore the question ​“How is light born?”, and to discover the potential for healing and renewal. The Formative Chapter asks ​“How does force take shape?”, guiding viewers to explore the gestures behind the works and how time leaves its mark. 
• Makoto Fujimura: Art Is: A Journey Into the Light is published October 21. ​“Luminous…an impassioned artistic manifesto” (Publisher’s Weekly)… Mako’s next book with Yale University Press will be available this fall wherever books are sold (pre-order now from any of the retailers linked here!). Art Is takes readers along on Mako’s meandering journey as an artist. We witness him making his​“process-driven slow art” — using pulverized minerals, gold, or pigments made from oyster shell — as he considers the plants and wildlife on the land where he lives, including further reflections on tree swallows! Bringing together the author’s written reflections with over 70 of his paintings, drawings, and photographs in full color, Art Is invites us to see the world in prismatic and diverse lights, helping us navigate the fractured, divisive times we live in.

Do you have a news item or upcoming culture care event? Consider sharing it with us for a possible feature here in the newsletter! Email jacob@​internationalartsmovement.​org.

Web Links

• Belonging Conversation from Mako Fujimura & Julia Hendrickson
• Music recs: weird but incredibly effective, ABBA meets French baroque music all played on saxophone; the ever-inventive Brad Mehldau’s jazz album Ride Into the Sun; viol consort Fretwork and choir SANSARA collab on a new album of music by Arvo Pärt.
• Nadya Williams for Inkwell, on creativity and the ​“library of your mind”.
• Also in Inkwell, teaching literature to the incarcerated.
• Andy Patton makes a compelling case for creativity in community rather than isolation, for Rabbit Room.
• Richard Gibson writes for The Hedgehog Review on the promises and limitations of AI translation services.
  
• Elizabeth Catlett’s incredible prints and sculptures are on view at the Chicago Art Institute.

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All content in this newsletter belongs to the respective creators, as noted, and is used with permission. If you would like to submit something for consideration in a future newsletter issue, you may do so by filling out this form or by emailing jacob@​internationalartsmovement.​org.