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Left: The cover of author Keiko Honda’s memoir, Accidental Blooms. Photo courtesy: Caitlin Press. Right: Author, scientist, and artist Keiko Honda. Photo credit: Anton Fernando.

VANCOUVER — In watercolour painting, when the paper is too wet, or water is added to an almost dry surface, the water lifts the colour and pushes the pigments outwards in a burst of colour. Called the cauliflower effect, it is a common beginner’s mistake in watercolour painting.

When Vancouver-based scientist, writer, community organizer, and painter Keiko Honda first learned to paint, she would often make these accidental cauliflowers. Contrary to other paint mediums, the mistake cannot be undone, and frustrated, she would see it as a failure. However, she learned some artists use the effect intentionally or work around the mistake to create beautiful paintings. As the pigment erupts across borders into unpredictable bursts of colour, Honda felt a sense of camaraderie with the accidental blooms.

“My life has always been [venturing] into unknown territories to make small or big splashes. It can represent a small moment of embarrassment or could be a small moment of delight,” Honda tells Nikkei Voice in an interview.

“When I see the watercolours accident happen, I think that water is trying to find the balance, and even an accidental cauliflower can be seen as a beauty…and then you can actually work around it. So I started celebrating this accident, which is exactly what my life has been.”

Through growth, exploration, and tragedy, Honda has plunged into unknown waters and found the beauty and art in life. She’s crossed nations’ borders, born and raised in southern Japan, Honda moved to Manhattan to complete a PhD in international community health. And when a health crisis changed her life, she crossed the border from being able-bodied to living with a disability. Honda went from being a scientist to a community organizer, from an art-lover to an artist, and now she dives into a new unknown as an author with her new memoir, Accidental Blooms.

In 2006, Honda was 39 and living a busy life in New York City. She held a prestigious research position at Columbia University and was raising her 20-month-old daughter with her successful financier husband. In a day, her life changed forever when she abruptly lost all strength in her legs. Suffering the sudden onset of a rare autoimmune disease with a frequency of approximately one to eight cases per million per year, she was left paralyzed from the chest down and confined to a wheelchair for life.

The cover of author Keiko Honda’s memoir, Accidental Blooms. Photo courtesy: Caitlin Press.

In Accidental Blooms, Honda shares the story of her recovery and building a new life and community around art, her passion and determination often fuelled by her love for her daughter. Forced to depart from a career she spent 12 years building, Honda shares her life dedicated to community, friendship, and art, as well as the continually evolving process of self-discovery as a mother, Japanese immigrant, survivor, and artist.

After leaving New York City for Vancouver in 2009 and looking to build connection and community for her daughter and herself, Honda began hosting artist salons from her home. Inspired by 17th-century French salons, for the Artists in Residence (AIR) Salon, she would invite local residents and out-of-town guests to learn from each other through presentations by artists, musicians, storytellers, business owners, and other speakers, followed by meaningful dialogue.

Shortly after receiving Vancouver’s Remarkable Women Award in 2014 for her work with the salons, Honda founded the Vancouver Arts Colloquium Society (VACS), a way to bridge generations and culture through the arts, with the belief that art can be a way to transcend differences, find ways to connect and learn about each other, and cultivate empathy for each other.

This year, VACS celebrates its 10th anniversary, guided by the philosophy of nurturing community through promoting the work of established and emerging artists and encouraging co-creation to bring people together.

“I believe co-creation is really key to bringing people together. So once I put [the work] out, it’s not my idea. It’s going to be our idea. It’s so many different people’s perspectives, I always welcome the cooperation,” says Honda. “Whoever I work with, that they take away the experiences and the relationship that we built, it’s an intangible gift that we can give each other. So I think that part has been quite rewarding and successful.”

In the memoir, Honda explores her identity as a Japanese immigrant and despite living abroad for the last 30 years, finds herself surprised by how deeply she is immersed in Japanese culture. Through Honda’s work, she has been exploring art-based multi-literacies and understanding how people communicate with their different cultural and experiential backgrounds.

“All these nonverbal communications, multimodal ways to relate to people are so culturally diverse. So I really realize that as a Japanese national living abroad, it’s almost like my duty to share that with the world, writing about it a little bit more, this whole multimodal Japanese sensibility.”

The inspiration to write a memoir was sparked in part by Honda’s late maternal grandfather and his profound worldview. As a former researcher, Honda is always striving to learn more, like her grandfather. A retired banker, he embraced art later in life, exploring creative work like oil painting, poetry, and writing from retirement until his death.

Author, scientist, and artist Keiko Honda. Photo credit: Anton Fernando.

In her early 50s, Honda was looking to cultivate energy and harmony in her life and began revisiting her grandfather’s creative work, which felt like stumbling upon missing fragments of her own personal puzzle. Looking to understand his creative work through her mind, body, and senses, Honda began painting as a holistic way to explore his work.

“I really felt if I could combine watercolour and writing into one, I would do that, but I really feel compelled to write and paint as a means of observing the evolution of my own thinking and also attempting to make sense of it all,” says Honda. “It was really like an aha moment, and I really wanted to document [that] and the stories that I revisiting from my childhood. Obviously, I wanted to leave some stories for my daughter, of course. But mostly, I did this for myself as a new way of thinking or a new way to even bloom or flower if possible.”

Through Honda’s memoir, many of the decisions in her life were formed around her love for her daughter and wanting to provide the best for her. But now her daughter is an adult, searching for her independence. And so, Honda explores a new phase of life and continues to move forward like water. A drive to never stay stagnant and keep learning means accepting change and moving into the exciting and sometimes scary unknown.

“Reflecting on writing itself, it’s really made me realize that as long as we are open to new experiences and trust some level of our own adaptability and capacity, because if you’re not open to the new experiences, then nothing happens. I think the important thing is the movement, we need to move each other, like water.”

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THIS ARTICLE WAS REPRINTED FROM NIKKEI VOICE’S MAY 2024 ISSUE. SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE TODAY TO HELP SUPPORT OUR NEWSPAPER.