Chapter 6

Trends are often described with the metaphor of a pendulum swinging radically back and forth

minimalism to maximumism and then back to minimalism

Pastels to bold colors and back-to-pastels

Preppy to punky then back-to-preppy one extreme then the other and

Arguably this view of pendulum swinging change is very American

You know, I think in the West the ideal for the last few centuries with artistic innovation has been

More or less the idea of the avant-garde which is that you need to radically

Innovate at all times W. David Marks author of Amatora

So whatever the standard is you should go the complete opposite and destroy

Every kind of assumption and convention that exists in order to really find the truth and then once that's established

The next group comes along says oh, we have to radically

Innovate upon that radical innovation

But in all the years that David Marks has lived and studied in Japan

He's noticed there's another way to look at innovation

One that's not a reactionary pendulum that might seem on its surface

a bit slower and more conservative

Yeah, so in Japan especially around traditional crafts and martial arts. There's an idea of kata which is a form

and for every kind of school that you join of Karate or

Ikabana or whatever it is there's a kata. There's a way of doing things and what you're doing as a student is

Learning how to perfectly imitate that kata and that's it

For example when I was learning how to do sumi a ink painting

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