Text for "healing"(Nov., 1994), text/Toshihiro Sakuma In the process of my daily work of creation, I often use tools and sharp instruments, and even though I am accustomed to the use of these tools and instruments, sometimes they cut my thumbs or fingers before I know. However every time I see the resulting scars later on, I recall the pains from the injuries that are sometimes bad enough to make me groan. Yet I am impressed at the same time by the fact that I am gifted with healing power, like other creatures, that eases the pains and erases the scars in time. Regrettably I feel my healing process has been slowing down in recent years. These incidents tempt me to imagine what I would do if the injuries are serious beyond healing or even fatal. Then my thought proceeds to compare my life with individual lives of a colony of ants or bees. An individual ant or bee may not be a being that deserves our empathy. Rather it should be seen as a unit, or cell, that composes the colony. Likewise, each of us human beings can be seen as a unit, or cell, that forms a colony in the form of family or blood relation. This observation leads me to convince myself that I am a mere member of a family bonded by blood, rather than an individual that deserves empathic empathy. Over the death of an old member of a family, other members lament or almost die of grief. However, the sorrow is lessened in time by their own spiritual healing capability. As long as the family continues to exist, the sorrow will be eased by the colony's own healing power because grief over the death of an old unit, or cell, will be taken over by joy over the birth of a new unit, or cell. Two times since last year, I have produced works under the title of "Healing." These works have been made in the hope that my own family, with its living members emitting light quietly like light bulbs, or its dead members finishing emitting light, will slowly heal the injuries and wounds of the members including myself, who are watching its serene light. While hesitating to recognize the possibility of my own replacement by a new unit, or cell, I am attracted by this interpretation of my own existence because it immensely and intensively impresses and encourages me as an artist with its irresistible force.