Infinity Net: The Autobiography of Yayoi Kusama

By continuously reproducing the forms of things that terrify me, I am able to suppress the fear.

Each day I learned anew what an inscrutable, ambition-filled human struggle it is to paint, to create.

But I was under the spell of the polka dot nets. Bring on Picasso, bring on Matisse, bring on anybody! I would stand up to them all with a single polka dot. That was the way I saw it, and I had no ears to listen

In time my friends grew uneasy and peered at me with anxious blue eyes. ‘Yayoi, are you all right?’ they’d ask, genuinely concerned. ‘Why are you painting the same thing every day?’

One day, I addressed a letter to the president of France:

Dear Sir, I would like to see your country, France.

Please help me.

scattered cattle bones and lived like a spiritual recluse

From the point of view of one who creates, everything is a gamble, a leap into the unknown

producing the unique art that came from within myself was the most important thing I could do to build my life as an artist.

Unable to sleep, I would get out of bed and paint. There was no other way to endure the cold and the hunger. And so I pushed myself on to ever more intense work.

having reached the foot of the mountain, I wanted to climb to the top.