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School experience
This page features testimonials from professional and leisure trainees.
Isabelle Y.
Alfortville, France
I’m a social services assistant working with a physically disabled adult population, with or without cognitive impairment.
I’m in charge of a team of social workers, and have worked with a variety of populations over the course of my career.
I’m a state-qualified social worker with a Master’s degree in Social Development Practice.
As a practising painter with an interest in art history, I discovered traditional Chinese painting through certain works, notably those by François Cheng. I was immediately drawn to the purity of Indian ink painting.
After some research on the Internet, I came across sumi-e and was seduced by the description of this traditional Japanese painting, at once sober and profound.
During the workshops, I went through moments of fulfillment, tension and inner struggle.
The rigorous pedagogy helped me refocus, accept imperfection and repeat the same subjects over and over again.
The International School’s comprehensive description of sumi-e, which I haven’t found anywhere else, won me over.
The practice of sumi-e teaches me to let go, to accept imperfection and to remain as present as possible.
Marieke de H.
Rotterdam, Netherlands
Entrance to the School in 2021.
Background and experience
- 1980 – 1983: Study creative therapy music, Hogeschool Utrecht.
- 1983 – now: Work in my own papermaking studio, where I do research in organic waste streams to find processes to recycle the waste into fibers for paper and cardboard.
- 1986 – now: Work in my own ‘orikadabra theatre projects’ with the origamitheatre on international festivals.
- 1996 – 1999: Study creative therapy drama, Hogeschool Utrecht.
- 2005 – 2020: Creative lessons for schoolchildren in afterschool time organized by the urban organisation in Rotterdam.
- 2020 – now: Sumi-e study with Beppe Mokuza Signoritti.
In 1988 I first went to Japan to study origami and make paper with sensei Akira Yoshizawa. During that stay I visited a temple where I saw the sumi-e for the first time in my life. I was struck by the simplicity of the drawing. That fascination never left me.
In 2020 I took part in the 5-day stage Zazen and Sumi-e in the Netherlands organized by Beppe Mokuza Signoritti. I found out that the simplicity that I desired to be able to do myself was not so easy to learn. It was not only a technical skill, but also a mental skill. So when I heard during the stage the next year in 2021 that the School was reopening, I felt strongly that that was my chance to study. So I entered the School.
And yes, in the School I have learned the technical skills of the first 3 gentleman -Bamboo, Orchid and Plumblossom-, but the mental skill is not something to learn, it is more about to unlearn…… So that part of the study is still progressing.
In the meantime I teach sumi-e now and then on special occasions, like open atelier days, Japan days, Asian festivals. The groups from 2 to 8 people that join the lessons are very valuable to understand myself what I have learned already and what there is still to be learned. Now, in my last year of the School I organize a serie of lessons the whole year through.
For me it is the starting point of the shift in my work. As I am 60+ and paper-making is quite hard work physically, I work on the change to teaching sumi-e, with sometimes making special paper, Japanese style for this painting technique and the ink. So a combination of all skills I have, completed with the sumi-e itself.
As a crafts woman I love to teach more than making art work to sell. I hope to enroll a program of sumi-e lessons in our open university program, or on schools for our children.
More than producing works for sale, I like to transmit and teach. My wish is to integrate sumi-e into a program of courses accessible to all – whether open universities or schools for children – in order to share this practice that unites art, meditation and simplicity.
Marieke V. U.
Eefde, Netherlands
Background and experience
- Psychologist │ 2023 – today
- Psychologist and neurofeedback therapist │ 2020 – 2023
- Nursery teaching assistant │ 2020 – 2021
- Psychologist │ 2019 – 2021
- Teaching assistant │ 2010 – 2018
What drew me to Sumi-e was the combination of painting and zazen practice that piqued my interest.
In my experience, sumi-e is a form of meditative painting that requires inner silence, concentration and perseverance. It’s a practice that invites calm and presence.
Initially, it was a chance encounter with this school that led to my initiation. But I continued, because I found sumi-e to be a natural extension of zazen meditation.
The practice gives me greater inner peace and serenity. It also strengthens my confidence in my gestures and in my personal expression.
Each stroke is unique and definitive: it cannot be corrected or erased. This teaches me to welcome the present moment, to commit myself fully to it and to stay focused.
I also learn to accept the result as it is, even if it differs from what I had imagined at the outset, and to go on composing with what comes up.
Marion D.
Théminettes, France
Starting school in 2023.
Studying living things in the hope of finding the meaning of life is what motivated me to obtain my master’s degree in biology/ecology in 2005. This was followed by a path made up of activism, social, spiritual, visual and living arts, in search of the right place.
My encounter with Japanese painting in 2022 was a revelation. This discipline responded to both my quest for meaning and my attraction to artistic practice. Sumi-e brings together everything that had previously been separated.
I met the school’s team at a seminar and enrolled in the long course. Sumi-e is an infinite field of investigation and discovery, of self-transcendence and transformation, so 4 years isn’t too much. What’s more, I soon felt the need to share my wonder, to pass on my knowledge, and the school offered this opportunity to train as a teacher.
Today, at the beginning of my third year of training, I’m starting to give monthly classes to adults in Toulouse, and I’m also developing a few short workshops with children in nearby schools. At the end of my training, I hope to make this my main activity.
The feedback has been extremely positive, and I can feel just how much this discipline has a place in today’s fast-paced world, offering people a bubble of self-connection, a moment’s pause.
Valérie B.
Villeneuve-lèz-Avignon, France
Shiatsu and Reiki practitioner, currently training to become an art therapist, I’ve been practicing Japanese calligraphy for several years, as well as Sôtô Zen.
It was Japanese calligraphy that inspired my love of brushes and Indian ink. So, when I found out that an international school was offering a Sumie training course taught by Sôtô Zen practitioners, I wanted to try it out: and I immediately loved it.
I like the teaching, which is faithful to the Japanese tradition, with its rigor and beauty, its depth, in this school where each trainee has his or her place, whether beginner or advanced, following the full training course or doing workshops from time to time, as I’m doing now. And one that takes into account the particularities of each individual.
I’d like to join the full training program so that I can deepen my practice in a safe and serious environment, with a view to integrating this ancestral art into my future art therapy practice, but also to offer teaching through workshops for which I already have requests and proposals for locations or organization.
I’d like to start this course as soon as possible. I’m saving up to pay the registration fee, so the CPF would be a great help.