Heart Imprint Like the Northern Dipper, Artistic Journey Illuminates the Flow of Time— Jingmin Ren’s Seals of the Soul and Her Cultural Boundary-Breaking Voyage
Jingmin Ren: Heart Imprint Like the Northern Dipper — Seals of the Soul, Art, Calligraphy & Cross-Cultural Journey.
Heart Imprint Like the Northern Dipper, Artistic Journey Illuminates the Flow of Time
— Jingmin Ren’s Seals of the Soul and Her Cultural Boundary-Breaking Voyage
The salty glow of a Sydney afternoon breeze slipped quietly through the window. On August 13, I gently opened the door of Jingmin Ren’s studio. Inside, the light was warm and tender, golden beams sliced by layers of frames, slanting across the wide worktable. Dust motes swirled silently in the rays. She leaned over the desk, focused and breathless.
A wooden box lay open, filled with leisure seals steeped in time. Bookmarks of cotton paper lay spread like clouds awaiting color. She picked up a seal, set it face down, and pressed it steadily—cinnabar seeped into the fibers like life itself. Four carved seal characters emerged: “Examine Myself Thrice Daily.” Like a red lotus rising from water.
“First reflect on oneself, then you can reach others,” she lifted her gaze with a clear smile. “Bookmarks are a way to fold the great Way into the palm of one’s hand.” Then followed: Contemplating the Way with a Clear Heart, Self-Contentment, Fragrance Spreads Afar, Writing to Convey Emotion, Bearing Lofty Aspirations among the Clouds, Zen, Enlightenment. Seven heart-seals bloomed in succession.
The tassels swayed gently, like the Northern Dipper stars glowing on a miniature sea chart.
As I was admiring them, she suddenly turned to me, her eyes glimmering:
“These seven were just finished—please take them. Yesterday I read your column ‘Examine Myself Thrice Daily,’ and felt deep resonance. These Northern Dipper Seven Seals are my small response to your writing journey. Perhaps, in your future articles, they may light a small glow.”
Her voice was soft, yet like cinnabar itself, it left a precise imprint upon my heart.
She then took out her phone to show me a letter: “This is from Will Nemesh, Mayor of Waverley and Chair of the Multicultural Advisory Committee. I’ve been welcomed as the only Chinese representative on the committee. Yesterday was our first meeting. Next time, I will bring the Seals of the Soul bookmarks, inviting everyone to write their ‘original words of intention’ in their own language on the back. Together we will leave this imprint of the heart.”
In that instant, my emotions surged. These bookmarks are far more than mere objects—Seals of the Soul is a miniature epic of civilization: seals as heart-oaths, flowing years as eternal witness. To me, it is the Northern Dipper’s light shining directly on the literary spirit.
Chapter One: The Northern Dipper Seven Seals — A Star Map of Civilization
“Each bookmark is a living cell of civilization.” She placed a soft Shoushan stone seal of Self-Contentment into my palm. Its carved ridges rose like mountain ranges. “To touch these grooves is to touch the pulsing heartbeat of the ancients.”
Around the studio, The Analects, Zhuangzi, and Tao Te Ching in bilingual editions rested quietly beside Dreamtime Stories sketchbooks. She opened her notebook to a chart: on the left, the seal script character Enlightenment; on the right, Aboriginal dot-and-line patterns. Below, her note:
“Let ‘Enlightenment’ first be a speck of dust, then a winding path, finally a bridge of passage.”
Her bookmarks are designed as keys of dialogue:
At tea gatherings, exhibitions, classrooms, and forums, multilingual notes would sprout naturally at the margins like vines.
Examine Myself Thrice Daily joins youth mental health projects, becoming a lighthouse of introspection.
Mindful Seeing enters community meditation classes, opening the eye of awareness.
Fragrance Spreads Afar journeys from Sydney to the cosmos.
Harmony and Coexistence stand side by side in anti-prejudice education, a silent yet powerful visual maxim.
“True coexistence should be like Zhou Dunyi’s lotus,” she said, “roots deep in the soil, fragrance generously shared with the southern sun.” Her words fell like pearls onto a jade plate; I quietly tucked them between notebook pages, as if storing away an eternal fragrance.
Chapter Two: Breaking Boundaries Guided by the Seven Seals
I continued examining the Seals of the Soul bookmarks, and Jingmin Ren’s years of artistic journey unfolded in my mind like a slide show:
Seal One — “Mindful Seeing”: A New Realm of Church Oil Paintings
“In 2009, light first ‘seized’ me,” she said, handing over a yellowed photograph — the shadows of Hyde Park trees swaying, her easel facing the expanse of sky. A Catholic school principal paused, gazing at her sketch: “Could you use the beauty of your colors to interpret the divine light of creation?”
Thus, eight abstract panels were hung along the corridor between the church and the school — no images of prophets or saints, only streams of light, cracks in the clouds, and ripples at dawn, swirling like cosmic nebulae in deep blue, full of life and energy, highlighting the sacredness of Genesis and the grandeur of life’s awakening.
At the unveiling ceremony, the priest recited from Genesis: “And God saw that it was good.” She replied, “Faith is the solitary courage that lets sunlight pierce through the canvas.”
“At that moment, I realized: light is never the sole language of a single text; it is a universal code of civilization,” she added. “Later, an island nation’s officer translated my words into a proverb: ‘The waves eternally remember the shape of light.’ It touched me deeply.”
Seal Two — “Self-Realization”: A Thousand Dawns and the Dao Heart
At Bronte Beach, frost-tinted dawns and sun-kissed waves sparked an almost ascetic pilgrimage — over a thousand sunrises, each a dialogue between her and the light. “On the 531st morning, I realized that true adaptation is to become a vessel for light,” she reflected. These dedicated dawns became the photographic collection Sydney Morning, while her abstract oil painting Life’s Water transformed waves and energy into expressive brushstrokes, capturing a state of meditative immersion.
Seal Three — “Scent Beyond Distance”: Empathy Across Cultures
Her works have reached cities worldwide — from Hawaii to Times Square, New York; Hong Kong to London and Las Vegas. Across oil painting, calligraphy, and mixed media, her themes span Sydney Morning, Flow of Light, Wandering in Freedom, Zhuangzi’s Three Realms, and Cosmos Museum. Each piece serves as a vessel of energy, blending Eastern philosophy with global perspectives to share light, hope, and resonance with audiences everywhere.
Seal Four — “Expressing Emotion Through Writing”: When Brush Meets Acrylic
At the Flow of Light opening, she wrote the imperial-style “World’s Greatest Blessing” in red cinnabar, gifting hundreds of characters to the audience. The fusion of traditional brushwork with acrylic rhythmically animates her calligraphy within a contemporary painting context. Interactive moments allow viewers to feel the brush’s pulse, turning the “misuse” of tools into a key for cultural dialogue: “Cultural codes emerge not from rules, but from breaking the cocoon,” she writes.
Seal Five — “Aspiring to Lofty Heights”: Classical Seals in the Digital Realm
Her Cosmos Museum series returns to Times Square, New York, with works such as Interplay of Reality and Void and Heart Embracing the Universe, merging oil painting, calligraphy, and AI. These pieces orchestrate a dialogue between Eastern philosophy and contemporary technology, exploring the interplay of the virtual and the real, heart and cosmos.
Seal Six — “Zen”: Philosophical Seal
This seal represents future exploration. She envisions art as a space for inner dialogue, where observing light and line inspires reflection and serenity. Perhaps one day, a “Philosophical Seal Pillar” will carry people’s words of intention, mutually witnessing and affirming.
Seal Seven — “Enlightenment”: Seal of Coexistence
This seal symbolizes the path yet to be reached. She imagines classrooms where symbols from different cultures — Chinese characters, dot paintings, lines, and color blocks — coexist side by side. Children may discover that text and image are kindred forms, and in that moment, art transcends boundaries, becoming a living texture of cultural coexistence.
Chapter Three: First Steps Among the Stars of Civic Engagement
“An artist’s mission is not only to ‘express,’ but to ‘empower,’” she said calmly. Through the Multicultural Advisory Committee, she hopes to extend art’s light into every community space—building bridges of dialogue. Each participation, each interaction, is her small annotation on cultural coexistence—like the Seven Seals, small yet shining through the years.
Chapter Four: Cinnabar Universe and the Digital Galaxy
The process of creating a seal, from classic phrase selection to stamping, annotation, digitization, and community return, becomes a “cross-text Genesis,” fusing calligraphy, painting, seal-carving, voice, and blockchain into a third language.
“What is that third language?” I asked.
She gazed into the boundless light: “It is the heart's comprehension—it is the resonance of souls.
Chapter Five: From Northern Dipper’s Light to the River of Creation
Over more than a decade, her works have carved an unbroken trajectory like the Big Dipper across the sky:
Genesis murals in churches, where light transcends religion.
Sydney Morning photography, a thousand dawns chronicling beauty and awareness.
Water of Life, merging Daoist breath with ocean waves.
Public Fu blessings, sharing warmth with the community.
Flow of Light oils, encoding movement of energy and spirit.
Zhuangzi’s Three Realms calligraphy, translating ancient freedom into modern vision.
Cosmic Museum works, blending AI, calligraphy, and oil to create dialogues between philosophy and technology.
Her social roles, too, have expanded like stars: artist, educator, curator, community dream-weaver, and now policy participant. Yet her core remains: to grant people the sacred right of expression.
Chapter Six: A Glimpse of the Cosmic Museum
In the Cosmic Museum – Virtual and Real Interwoven and Cosmic Museum – Heart Embraces the Void, she forged a new milestone: blending AI-generated imagery, oil painting, and Chinese calligraphy. Each work becomes a gateway where museums are no longer bound by walls, but expanded into universal space.
Epilogue: Bookmarks Eternal, Heart-Seals Bright as the Dipper
As we parted, I thanked her for giving me the seven bookmarks. Remembering her response to my essay Examine Myself Thrice Daily, I mimicked her practiced gesture of dipping cinnabar and stamping seals. Already, in the margins of my notebook, the Seals of the Soul series shimmered in my heart.
“These Seven Seals of the Northern Dipper,” she said gently, “may they light your words always.”
At home, I opened the notebook. Seven tassels swayed softly, red impressions glowing warm. They shone like a small lamp, illuminating the hidden passages of literature, city, and soul.
Some presences transcend words, reaching humanity’s shared spiritual homeland. Jingmin Ren is that silent ferryman—Jing to observe the heavens, Min to build bridges—guiding us with her Seven Seals across the vastness, back to the source.
Closing Poem · Heart-Seal Dipper
You gather Peacock Blue and Cinnabar Red from Erhai,
Across the palette of voyaging seas.
Biblical narratives bleed into Eastern blankness,
A thousand dawns reborn through the lens,
Ocean waves breathing with Laozi and Zhuangzi.
Within the folds of sacred robes,
The dawn chorus of Yunnan finches bursts forth.
Now, with seven leisure seals as vessels—like the Northern Dipper’s hanging light,
Carrying The Analects across multicultural shores.
Echoes of Arabic, English, and Dharug entwine,
Braiding a rainbow bridge at the tassel’s end.
Stamp it, Jingmin Ren!
Let “The Gentleman Is Not a Vessel” enter new land’s textbooks,
Let “Examine Myself Thrice Daily” shine in council halls and on literary desks.
When the Southern Cross dawns once more,
The imprints on our hearts—
Every encounter, every written voyage—
Will be sealed as eternal constellations.
Commentator Wu Zhige
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Resource:
Famous Calligraphy and Painting Artists Art Network 【2025迎国庆●贺金秋】——特邀著名书画家任静敏（Ren Jingmin）-书画名家艺术网
Official Website of Chinese Artists【2025迎国庆●贺金秋】——特邀著名书画家任静敏（Ren Jingmin) 中国美术家网
Baidu 「2025迎国庆●贺金秋」——特邀著名书画家任静敏（Ren Jingmin）-百度
Toutiao【2025迎国庆●贺金秋】——特邀著名书画家任静敏（Ren Jingmin）- 今日头条
Tencent News 【2025迎国庆 贺金秋】——特邀著名书画家任静敏（Ren Jingmin）_腾讯新闻
NetEase News 【2025迎国庆●贺金秋】—特邀著名书画家任静敏（Ren Jingmin）_网易新闻
Urban Toutiao 【2025迎国庆●贺金秋】——特邀著名书画家任静敏（Ren Jingmin）-都市头条
