TOSHIKO TAKAEZU (1922 - ) Toshiko Takaezu brings to her art both the influence of her Eastern heritage and her Western upbringing. Her closed pots with their exquisite surface decoration range in size from palm sized to over five feet tall and from thin and sensuous to round and puffy. They have both a serenity and a mystery, and their organic forms speak of her close ties to nature. Takaezu is also noted for her long teaching career and the artists she has mentored. In addition to being widely collected and exhibited, her work has brought her recognition which includes Living Treasure of Hawaii, a Gold Medal Award of the American Craft Council, and several honorary doctorate degrees. Now in her 80’s she continues to work both in her studio and her garden, a work of art in itself. ARTIST’S STATEMENT – TOSHIKO TAKAEZU “In my life I see no difference between making pots, cooking and growing vegetables. They are all so related. However, there is a need for me to work in clay. It is so gratifying, and I get so much joy from it, and it gives me many answers for my life. One of the best things about clay is that I can be completely free and honest with it. And clay responds to me. The clay is alive and responsive to every touch and feeling. When I make it into a form, it is still alive, and even when it is dry, it is still breathing! I can feel the response in my hands, and I don’t have to force the clay. The whole process is an interplay between the clay and myself, and often the clay has much to say.”1 1. Quoted in “Lecture Platform BioBox, Toshiko Takaezu.” http://www.ciweb.org/Lectures/takaezu.html RESUME – TOSHIKO TAKAEZU 1922 Born, Pepeekeo, Hawaii 1948-1951 University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 1951-1954 Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI 1952 McInerny Foundation Grant 1954 Lillian Haas Prize, Michigan Artist Craftsmen Show 1954-1956 Instructor, Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI 1954-1955 Professor, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 1955-1964 Instructor and Head of Ceramic Department, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cleveland, OH 1958 Potter Mellon Award, Cincinnati, OH Founder’s Society Purchase Prize, Michigan Artist Craftsmen Show 1958-1959 Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu, HI 1962 Pemco Award, Syracuse, NY Women’s Art Club Award, Cleveland, OH Founder’s Society Award, Michigan Artists Craftsmen Show 1964 Tiffany Foundation Grant 1967-1992 Professor, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 1975 Fellow, American Craft Council, New York, NY 1980 National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship 1983 Dickinson Arts Award, Dickinson College, Carlisle, PA 1986 New Jersey Governor’s Award 1987 Honorary PhD, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, OR Living Treasure Award, Honolulu, HI 1992 Honorary Doctorate of Fine Art, Moore College of Art, Philadelphia, PA Howard Behrman Award, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 1992- Present Studio Artist, Quakertown, NJ 1993 Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI 1994 New Jersey Pride Award Gold Medal, American Craft Council, New York, NY Human Treasure Award, University of North Carolina, Wilmington, NC 1996 Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 1997 Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts, Cedar Crest College, Allentown, PA 2004 Women’s Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show Award for Distinguished Achievement in American Craft BIOGRAPHY – TOSHIKO TAKAEZU Toshiko Takaezu was born in Pepeekeo, Hawaii, the sixth of 11 children of Japanese immigrants. Her parents had come to the island to work in the sugar cane fields. Takaezu’s first experience with clay was in a commercial studio; she enrolled at the University of Hawaii in 1948 to continue her interest, studying with Claude Horan, and also studying weaving and design. She was attracted to the work of Finnish ceramist Maija Grotell, and in 1951 enrolled in Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI, in order to study with her, bringing a supply of Hawaii’s black volcanic sand to use in her work. Grotell became a mentor as well as a teacher, and during her three years there Takaezu felt she had found her path. In addition, Grotell passed on to her students her belief that ceramics was an art form that could be the equal of painting or sculpture, an idea just beginning to take hold. Following graduation from Cranbrook in 1954, Takaezu began her teaching career, teaching at Cranbrook (1954-1956) and the University of Wisconsin-Madison (1954- 1955). In 1955 Takaezu traveled to Japan for eight months to immerse herself in her Japanese heritage. In addition to meeting renowned Japanese ceramic artists Shoji Hamada and Rosanjin Kitaoji, she lived in a Zen Buddhist Monastery and studied aspects of the Japanese culture such as the tea ceremony. At the end of her stay she believed she had found what she had been searching for, that it was not the Eastern pottery itself but the entire art and culture of the East that mattered to her, in particular the integration of art and life. Upon returning to the U.S. she accepted a position at the Cleveland Institute of Art in Ohio (1955-1964), taking a year (1958-1959) to return to Hawaii to teach at the Honolulu Academy of Art in fulfillment of her McInerny Foundation grant. On a trip through New Jersey in the early 1960s she fell in love with the area of rural Hunterdon County. Determined to set up a studio there, she took a leave of absence from the Cleveland Institute of Art and bought a house in Clinton, NJ. A series of grants allowed her to take a few years to establish her home and studio, and when nearby Princeton University offered her a position in 1967 she accepted, and has remained there ever since, moving to her present home and studio in Quakertown, northwest of Princeton, in 1975. Takaezu taught at Princeton until her retirement in 1992 and was honored by the university with an honorary doctorate in 1996. In her teaching Takaezu emulated her own mentors in encouraging her students to find their own voice and style. Today she is still in touch with some of her former students and works with annual apprentices at her NJ studio. Like many, Takaezu’s early work in ceramics was functional – teapots, vases, bowls – and she worked primarily on the wheel. During the 1960’s her work began to evolve. With the “moonscape” series her spherical forms became more organic, emphasizing their roundness and fullness. Her signature closed shapes were appearing, the openings getting smaller, although still recalling their functional beginnings with a tiny opening at the top. As her work continued to evolve the pots became sealed and also increased in size. Now, they were containers in a different sense; instead of holding things, they hold air, space. “The most important part of a piece is the dark, black air space that you can’t see. Just as inside each person is also the key to humanity.”1 They also hold other things too, as Takaezu made it a practice to enclose small clay pellets and inscribed poems in her pieces. There they remain hidden unless the piece is moved and you hear the soft “ping” of the shard or it breaks, and the poem is revealed. In addition to spheres other shapes, reminiscent of nature appeared – “tree trunks,” “torsos,” – all suggestive of the curves found in nature. To promote even drying she suspended some of her larger forms in hammocks and was so taken with the effect, the hammock became part of the piece. As her pieces grew, they became too unwieldy for the wheel, and she began incorporating hand building techniques to reach new heights. A larger studio and kiln encouraged her to experiment with pieces so large the tiny artist had to stand on scaffolding to shape the clay and to move around the piece glazing and decorating. “I like the idea of going around the piece and glazing – it’s almost like dancing.”2 The surface decoration is equally striking, and some of her friends have described Takaezu as a painter on clay. She pours, brushes, and drips the glazes, sometimes shiny, sometimes matte, often layered and marked. The influences of both East and West are present as is her strong tie to nature. As part of the generation that moved ceramics from a functional craft to a recognized art form, Takaezu has combined creative ability with creative spirit. “You are not an artist simply because you paint or sculpt or make pots that cannot be used. An artist is a poet in his or her own medium. And when an artist produces a good piece, that work has mystery, an unsaid quality; it is alive. There is also a nebulous feeling in the piece that cannot be pinpointed in words. That to me is good work.”3 Today, in her 80’s, Takaezu stays busy in her Quakertown studio and in her garden, a work of art in itself and a source of joy to her. In addition to her ceramic work, she has also been working in bronze, recently producing a series of bells which further explore the relationship of sculpture and sound. Among her many honors are several honorary doctorate degrees; the Gold Medal of the American Craft Council; named Living Treasure of Hawaii and Human Treasure of the University of North Carolina. She is still exhibiting her work, one of the more recent being “Echoes of the Earth – Ceramics by Toshiko Takaezu” at the Crocker Art Museum of Art, Sacramento, CA in 2007.