We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Natsumi K. Goldfish a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Natsumi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I had my first academic fine art class at my university, which is pretty late for Japanese artists. In the art school, I took a few painting classes and other art classes including drawing, film and digital photography, printmaking, and art history. Since youth I was into making things by hand. When I was a little girl I was already drawing when I was still learning to speak. I was drawing on square papers and on outside roads with chalk almost everyday. I didn’t grow up in an artistic family so when I finally learned about the existence of artists and art that is beyond what we can see on the surface, it became my dream that I wanted to paint on a large canvas with endless colors someday.

I believe never fading fascination, dream, passion, and interest in the world have helped me to grow the skills I have today. Visual art is a lifelong progress yet we can speed up the learning by constant daily practice, and seeing a lot of art by various artists. For constant practice, it is important to hold tools and touch materials frequently and experiment with them and be confident with them, and let them become an extension of our body. Especially for oil painting I agree with the idea: “It(oil) requires confidence to paint”.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Natsumi K Goldfish and I’m a Japanese visual artist. I’m mainly known for the window paintings which look inside spaces of unique windows. I was born and raised in Japan and moved to the US in late 2011. Around 2012, I started my first window painting which looked into the interior space and the specific one had a large china cat and sunflowers inside. Since then, I have been growing my window paintings as a series which I call “Window Mereology” and they are paintings of various windows looking inside different spaces. My work can be divided into several subjects but most of them are related to my interest and question: what makes a human human, as individuals as well as as a community, unique and different from other creatures. I enjoy finding and observing the subtle nature of our being that we might be neglecting the time to think about in our daily life. My art is made of my imagination and my observations and questions in society and human nature. Other than windows, I have been painting fish tanks, bathing, self portraits, imaginations, animals, and so on as they catch my heart.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

There are two things I can think of for this question. Firstly, and this is something everyone can do right away, it is to look at various art by living artists. An artist can have several faces not limited to but including a scientist, a philosopher, mathematician, activist, biologist, economist, anthologist, spiritual expert, therapist, environmentalist, feminist…, and many more, while being an artist. I think having an interest in what today’s artists are creating is very useful to everyone. An artist is not everything but each artist has different interests and knowledge and sensibility, in a different way than for instance a straight philosopher or a biologist. By looking at several artworks and artists you can engage with those abundant information about matters in our lives. To look at art means to look at the world from different angles. Artists will greatly benefit with these attentions too. In the long run these eyes will mature the artists.

Second thing is to buy one art. Not the art of trend, celebrity art, nor artistic products, not those commodities, but a unique artwork a collector wants to invite in their home. If we have more new art collectors, more artists are able to grow and survive. Collectors do not need to support every artist, and I think it is important that collectors also grow their own tastes, finding artworks that they enjoy and speaking to them.

If I had a friend who is now reading this and needed a change in their life, I would suggest going to a museum alone and have a walk and see some art, and or just pick one artwork today and display it in the room, and see if the world changes. Art has a great potential as age-less education, as therapy, as self-reflection, and as an alternative language.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I think there are several moments when I feel very fruitful and gratifying as an artist. One of them is when I give a life to something in my mind and when it becomes better than when it was still in my mind. Another moment is when I see my work touches someone’s heart. It is the most precious and rewarding moment for me that I cannot describe enough with words. When my art is taken inside of someone through their eyes, and makes chemical reactions inside of them I feel I am actually experiencing the idea “everything is connected to everything else” at first hand.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://natsumigoldfish.com
• Instagram: @NatsumiGoldfish
• Other: Official Online Store: https://natsumigoldfish.bigcartel.com

Image Credits
Natsumi K. Goldfish