We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mariko Yoshiwara a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Mariko, appreciate you joining us today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
I spent a lot of my life playing it safe and avoiding big risks. I avoiding risks until I couldn’t anymore and learned something huge. Risk also holds the possibility of something great, as well. What I have learned are risks can hold the possibility of something bad, but also have the potential of holding something wonderful and unexpected. Something you couldn’t possibly conjure up, even with your most imaginative mind. When we choose to take risks, we not only build up our resiliency to setbacks, but also open ourselves up to the possibility of the unimaginable unfolding in our lives . Once you learn the power of taking risks, the absolute magic that can unfold. When you allow yourself to move into the uncomfortable, stand at the edge of fear and accept impermanence, you find yourself opening to the abundant opportunities the world has to offer. Once you learn how fear is fuel, you begin to see taking risks as a chance to expand your universe and tap into your absolute most fullest and authentic potential.
I learned to step into fear and take risks from a place of pure desperation. A place of such discomfort and pain, that the outcome of the risk seemed impossible in outweighing the current state in which I existed. I moved and changed, took risks because I felt I had no other choice. I moved into the unknown because what I had known had caused my heart and soul to die. I took risks at the bottom of the barrel knowing it couldn’t get worse. It didn’t get worse, not because of perfection or unique opportunity. It didn’t get worse because I learned to trust myself. I learned I know what feels good and what doesn’t. I learned to trust I could take risks and always continue to steer my ship in a different direction if I found the risk to bring something unpleasant. Just as I had to accept the impermanence of the good in my life, I learned the unpleasant moments are also impermanent. The change, the possibility, my potential can only be fueled by me and me alone. As long as I don’t allow fear to engulf me.
For far too long I was tethered to teaching by the security and financial stability, despite my discomfort. The risk of giving up my sense of identity, financial stability, retirement, health benefits, job security, and career paralyzed me. When I took that risk I never imagined finding myself joyfully making art, people loving it, and successfully sharing/selling in my community and beyond.
Mariko, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My name is Mariko Yoshiwara. I was born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. The outdoors, moving, building, and creating were the backbone of my childhood. Also in my childhood were the varying types of adversity and a core belief I did not fit in and did not belong. I was a strong kid who developed a thick skin, a great sense of humor and found a place I felt safe and free. That place was wherever I could create. Creating with whatever I could get my hands on. That love for creating continued as I found another creative outlet and passion in teaching. I spent 14 years in education, all while the public education system slimmed and narrowed the freedom of creative instruction and sucked the time allowed to think creatively. Decimating creativity in space meant to spark inspiration, curiosity, passion, love, and creativity. I burnt out, dried up, extinguished to nothing. Luckily, I knew happiness. I knew where I was was not providing joy and realized a life without joy was no life at all.
I quit teaching. Grieved my perceived future, grieved my identity, grieved any sense of control I thought I’d had. When I grieved, I felt so much awfulness. So much awfulness, that when I found moments of joy, I knew it. I took one step at a time always forward, each towards joy, knowing if I walk towards my joy, I’d inevitably feel it
That was two years ago that I left teaching. Two years ago I decided to choose myself, my happiness, my joy and my health.
Today, my art business that symbolizes my independence and control, Riko Burns, is alive with creation and growth. Riko Burns was born from a hobby in wood burning. I created wood burnings as gifts and as a creative outlet. In my most turbulent time, pyrography became a rock, something to rely on. As I opened up to sharing my pyrography work, Riko Burns evolved organically. A majority of my work centers around nature and the PNW. A huge portion of my work is commissions. So much of my joy resides in connection with others. Commissions allow the opportunity for me to connect with buyers more intimately. I learn what they love, who they love, what they’re passionate about, or who they’ve lost. Riko Burns has allowed me to connect with my communities and find new opportunities that bring me joy. I am ecstatic about the opportunities Riko Burns has brought. I currently organize writing workshops and community events, specifically focused in the queer, bipoc and marginalized communities. I share my journey, learning and self through as many outlets as possible in hopes of inspiring others to follow their dreams and joy. To create a ripple effect that results in more voices, more compassion and more love.
By building Riko Burns, connecting with my communities and loving myself, I have found a new balance in my life. I recently stepped back into education. I am able to balance my long time passion in teaching, desire to create and self love in harmony. I pay close attention to how I feel and remind myself everything is impermanent. Thank you for today and am excited for what tomorrow may bring.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
The biggest lesson I’ve unlearned has been how to live an authentic life. I’ve learned my life is mine and mine alone. My life is measured by my own values, not other’s constructs. My life is now, it is not limited by my past. I can change directions and shift at any point. I can choose to grow from my past instead of being defined by it. My life does not lie in my future. My discomfort now should not be justified in hope of a better tomorrow. My life is how I choose to experience and engage in it today and each and every following moment after. My life is measured by my positive experiences and my relationship with joy. My life is not what is written in my biography or obituary. My life is the sum of love and connection and the purpose I feel. If your life is yours and yours alone, and your life is only as fulfilling as a depth of which you know yourself. Meaning, the deeper and more intimately you know yourself and allow yourself to grow without judgment, the more authentically you can connect to living a life that is meaningful and fulfilling to you as an individual.
Art is my joy, my expression. Sharing myself through creating or words allows me to make space for my voice in a space I once believed it didn’t belong. With what I know to be true, what I know about my life and loneliness in navigating a seemingly foreign world, I feel an urgency to break the narrative. I feel empowered to share my learning, to create space that is safe and gives us permission to be, to express, to create, to explore the inner depths of each of us as individuals. Only we as individuals can do the work in order to connect more genuinely to each other, and our community. We must first feel free to explore ourselves for our most authentic self.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
The most rewarding part of being an artist is being able to share a meaningful part of myself with the world. When I share my art, it is as if people can see an external extension of who I am on the inside. When people connect and are moved by my art, and my creations, I feel they’ve connected to the core of who I am. We connect over a shared vision, feeling and experience. I feel seen, not for what I did, but who I am. Being an artist gives me the opportunity to help others see the creative that lies within all of us. How, what and in what capacity we create is as wide and varied as individuals in the universe. The commonality, we all have an expression of who we are, what we love and our passions. Art is a painting on the wall
Art is parenting
Art is singing
Art is design
Art is building
Art is process
Art is talking
Art is teaching
Art is moving
Art is love
Art can also be none of those things, those can exist without being art. Art is intentional. Art is passion and a declaration. Creating is a space in which I feel free to express. Having what I create be seen and acknowledged vibrates back I am seen and I matter.
It took a long time to admit or acknowledge I was an artist. When I accepted I was an artist, it was around the same time I realized we are all artists. Art exists within all of us. An artist is proclaimed to be someone who has refined their craft and has the tenacity to persevere. An artist shares their art with the world freely, shares themselves unattached to whether they will be loved or rejected. Either way, they’ve shown an expression of themselves with the world so authentically, allowing opportunity to connect with the world. How the world responds or reacts is out of an artist’s control. The art is free to exist outside of the artist to be seen and engaged with. That’s the most rewarding part of being an artist. The reward is being seen and the opportunity to connect deeper with others, by sharing a piece of myself. Thank you for the opportunity to share myself.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.rikoburns.com
- Instagram: riko.burns