The Great Wave

Katsushika Hokusai, known simply as #Hokusai, was a Japanese painter and printmaker born in 1760. His career spans decades of artistic evolution, culminating in his most famous work, "The Great Wave off Kanagawa," part of the series "Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji.

Hokusai's reflection on his progress at different ages illustrates lifelong learning as a master craftsman. The Wave, his greatest work (and innovation) didn’t occur until the end of his career.

All I have done before the age of seventy is not worth bothering with. At seventy-five I'll have learned something of the pattern of nature, of animals, of plants, of trees, birds, fish and insects. When I am eighty you will see real progress. At ninety I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At one hundred, I shall be a marvelous artist. At 110, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before.

Hokusai's story exemplifies many of the key themes im exploring in a current manuscript about the importance of subjective intelligence in the advent of ai: the importance of #persistence, the value of #lifelonglearning, and the deep #insights that can come from looking closely at one's craft over an extended period.

What a happy accident it was to stumble upon this exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago I find it motivating and inspiring to know that my best work and most fertile thinking lay ahead if I continue to invest in my craft.

Thank you to those craft inspires and who encourage me in mine.