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Having a double major in college of both art and literature has
provided the channels into which my life has run. There have been times
when the writer surges forward, as in the free-lance journalism for
everything from Mennonite church literature for children to art magazines
in German, the eighteen books of Japanese genre poetry, the four
translations of Japanese poetry, and then there were other periods when
art was the major focus in my life.
In the middle 60s, I had a ceramic studio in the small town of
Dinuba, between Fresno and Visalia, with my work sold in the Mirzelle
Galleries in Los Angeles and from my own storefront shop. During my years
living in Hamburg, Germany, when I was unable to do ceramics, I switched
to large weavings made of ropes found and purchased from the wharf. The
largest weaving was four stories high by sixty feet wide and was displayed
in Berlin one summer and in Hamburg the next. I was the first American
woman to be accepted in the Deutsche Kunstlerbund (German Artists
Association) and was a member of the Deutsche Textilgruppe (German Textile
Group) until it disbanded in the year 2000.
My husband Werner and I built a house on the ridge above Point
Arena in 1981, and we moved here permanently in 1987. Back in the states,
without a studio again, I focused on writing, publishing and teaching
haiku. Over the years I thought I had "grown too old to do ceramics" and
then one day I accidentally found Kaye Like?s studio while attending a
meeting at Brandybuck Ranch. Without question I knew it was time to return
to my roots in clay. I was surprised and overwhelmed by my joy at being
able to work in this medium again. After a year with her, learning the
many changes in ceramics during the last thirty years, I established my own
studio at our house on Iversen Road.
Here I have been able to spend the daily stint at the wheel to
make the large sculptural vessels, fountains and figures that have been
sleeping within me these many years. I use an electric wheel (what a
change
from the old kick wheel) and an electric kiln with a white raku/sculpture
stoneware clay. I still do not like the look of glaze on clay so my pots
are usually pit-fired or smoked , often done in our woodstove, or simply
fired to vitrification. If a piece needs a gloss, I will give it with a
polished beeswax finish. I enjoy softening the look of clay by adding
paper, fabric, wood, rope, water, and slip-cast figures known as dolls to
the vessel in some way.
In 2002, my piece in the Art in the Redwoods was given First Place
in Ceramics as well as the award "Best Work by a Local Artist" and I began
showing at Gualala Arts Center, The Dolphin and at Point Arena CityArt.
This year I am Gallery Director at Point Arena CityArt and the
book, Breasts of Snow: Tanka Poems of Fumiko Nakajoo, which I translated
with Hatsue Kawamura, will be published by the book division of The Japan
Times in Tokyo.
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