February 2, 2006

Let there be light

Lord of the Light Art Studio and Gallery rekindles Old Almaden Plaza

By Kymberli W. Brady
Staff Writer

A nasty reputation for failure hasn’t stopped Mimi and Michael Fujii from moving into the repeatedly darkened anchor space in the Old Almaden Plaza. In fact, they plan to brighten things up quite a bit.

Mimi Fujii caters to hundreds of students throughout the week, including this Monday morning adult class. Pictured from left are Atsuko Kinoshita, Fujii, Nayana Patel, Karen Crocker, and Mizuka Mizuno. Photos by Kymberli Brady

And a new location deserves a new name. In March, Mrs. Fujii’s Art School will officially change its name to Lord of the Light Art Studio and Gallery as she teams up with her husband at Heaven’s Heart Beat Drum School to enrich the artistic and musical palettes of patrons in the Almaden Valley and beyond.

Until now, the storefront at McAbee Road and Almaden Expressway has harbored a reputation for failed retailers, including its most recent victims, a produce market and a discount card shop.

Built in the mid 1980s, the 53,000 square-foot center occupies nearly six acres at the intersection of McAbee Road and Almaden Expressway. The 25-store plaza recently suffered two devastating blows—Trader Joe’s cited growing pains and moved to a larger piece of real estate at Almaden Plaza on Blossom Hill Road and Almaden Expressway and McDonalds pulled up roots months later and relocated further north toward Chynoweth Avenue.

None of that matters to Fujii because she brings with her a knack for teaching students how to capture light through a technique she calls “breath strokes.”

Her specialty is flowers, a fascination that started when she was exposed to the work of Georgia O’Keefe and the realization that every petal is unique, as is every artist’s interpretation—a proven theory as no two paintings of the same subject are ever alike. Each is an original.

“Flowers touch my heart,” she says. “The beauty in each one makes me want to paint—and teach others how to discover the beauty of it.”

Inside, the transformation has been impressive. The now brightly lit gallery and studio is awash with vivid displays of color, movement, emotion, and, yes, light—all in an attempt to capture and breathe life into itself, one stroke at a time. Fujii says her technique is the foundation and vision for teaching living art.

“I believe each breath stroke is life itself and a prayer that brings peace to the hearts of many,” she says.

To aid those who suffered due to Hurricane Katrina, Fujii, along with her staff and students, created a series of art pieces that were sold at the recent Almaden Valley Art & Wine festival. One hundred percent of the proceeds—$500 in all—was raised to help the victims in the rebuilding process.

To teach is to learn
According to her instructors, Fujii’s passion is contagious.

“I absolutely adore my job,” proclaims 18-year-old Eri Kameyama, who has spent the past two years working with Fujii. “When students make improvements and I see their happy faces, I cannot help but smile because I know I am making a difference in their artistic future, no matter how small it may be.”

Dove Eng, 22, stands next to a horse portrait she painted in one of Mimi Fujii’s classes. After earning a bachelor’s degree in art at UC Riverside last year, she accepted a position at the school and has been a full-time instructor since November.

Kameyama says the experience has been most rewarding and although she hopes to attend UC San Diego and study anthropology, she says art and its’ lessons will stay with her, especially the realization that teaching is very different from doing.

“I cannot be afraid to make mistakes,” she explains. “In fact, it makes me a better artist because I have to believe in myself in order to teach the children to my full potential. Now, I believe that if I pursue an area that excites me as much as this does, I am bound to be happy in life.”

“I’ve learned so much more from my students,” agrees Dove Eng, who at 22, just earned a bachelor’s degree in art at UC Riverside. She has been a full-time instructor with Fujii since November.

“In college, most of us were so focused on technique and making everything look real that we lost ourselves and started following what the teacher was doing. It lacked expression and here, you learn that expression and technique go hand in hand.”

Fujii says the progression from student to teacher was the impetus to expanding the school.

“That’s exactly why I started to have my students teach,” Fujii says. “I myself have improved so much and realized my full potential by doing so.”

Full circle
Originally from Japan, Fujii attended Columbia College for four years to study art, specifically Georgia O’Keefe’s famous calla lily painting, which she discovered as a child and credits with her love for flowers.

“I absolutely adore my job,” proclaims 18-year-old Eri Kameyama, who has spent the past two years working with Fujii. “When students make improvements and I see their happy faces, I cannot help but smile because I know I am making a difference in their artistic future, no matter how small it may be.” Photos by Kymberli Brady

As with many starving artists, struggling to make ends meet, Fujii channeled her energy into the field of graphic design. While at University Graphics in Palo Alto, she fashioned the cover design for a popular series of how-to books. The concept, she says was initially too simplistic for the client’s more refined tastes, but she convinced them that it needed to speak to the emotional condition of its readers. The first in the series, “DOS For Dummies,” was published in 1991 and today, more than 900 titles make up the more than 150 million copies of “For Dummies” books in print.

Ready for a change, she moved with her family to Almaden five years ago. One day, she ventured into Graystone Elementary and offered to help with the art program, but instead accepted a position teaching fourth and fifth grade students. In 2003, she opened her own art studio and now teaches hundreds of students, young and old, including Saba Tabrizi, 7, who travels from Stratford School because she knows how important proper techniques have become to her work.

“I’ve learned how to draw perfect bubbles,” she says. “And they’re not just blue everywhere. I know how to put shine on them now.”

Heaven’s Heartbeat adds multi-sensory enrichment
Fujii’s husband Michael also left a prominent 20-year position at the Fujitsu Corporation to follow his passion for rhythm and shares the facility that now encourages artistic expression through sound as well as sight.

While his wife pursues her dream, Michael Fujii lives his own down the hall, inside Heaven’s Heartbeat, a moniker derived from the low, rhythmic sounds of the Tomback, a traditional Iranian “goblet” drum that is painstakingly carved out of a single piece of wood. He also offers lessons inTyco, a large Japanese drum, center, and a Daff, a tambourine-like instrument with 360 gold rings that line the inside ring.

Although Japanese, a chance meeting with a Persian master “drum hitter” gave birth to his fascination with the Tomback, a traditional Iranian “goblet” drum. Rich in history that dates back more than 4,000 years, the Tomback is an ancient, undeveloped drum used in the biblical days of Moses, David, and the Old Testament. According to Fujii, it is also a complicated instrument that takes an average of five years to learn—a feat he mastered in three hours. However, he not only wanted to play the Tomback, he wanted to make them.

The master, whom he met by chance one day while passing by the Iranian Christian Church, now teaches at the school, so there is now a combined effort to resurrect the art that is little known in the United States.

“Most people try to hit it like a drum,” he says. “But I realized it’s such a sacred thing. You don’t actually try to hit the drum; you let God hit the drum. All I do is slap my wrist down and relax my fingers. It’s all in the snap—like a wave that most drums can’t create.”

When playing, Fujii says he’s encountered spiritual experiences that have confirmed what he now considers his life’s work. Whether fast, slow, hard, soft, loud—even silent—the Tomback has unlimited range, but is a technique that must be learned.

“A lot of people don’t use it because it’s so complicated to play,” he says. “And yet it is so unique in its sound. It is truly in a category all its own. It is truly the king of drums. It is a complete drum set in one. It makes all the sounds and then some, with more rhythm than any drum can make. It will vibrate the words and that’s what’s really cool about this.”

In thinking about how to promote his work, Fujii instead says that he relies on his faith.

“I believe that He will send those who truly need to learn,” he says.

The gallery starts taking shape
As you enter the facility, the beginnings of the gallery are starting to take shape, with paintings and sculptures representing original pieces of Fujii’s, her instructors, and in some cases, her students. Depending on the painting and the artist, they may even be for sale.

“If someone sees something and it speaks to their heart, they can come to me and make an offer,” she explains. “Eventually, everything will be professionally framed and Almaden will finally have its own gallery.

For both Michael and Mimi, their dream has not been without sacrifices, but the business, like the flowers she paints is beginning to bloom nicely.

“When you have a passion for something, you want to make it on your own,” she explains. “You want an original—something that has your heart in it.”

Ironically, Georgia O’Keefe, her mentor since childhood once said, “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”

She would have been proud.