Hi again.
I started working in clay when I was in college. I went to a small liberal arts school in Indiana called Earlham College. My parents are Japanese, but I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I always had this yearning for all things Japanese as far as I can remember. When I was in elementary school, our family would travel back to Japan for the summer. When it was time to go back to LA, I was always seriously depressed.
When I was looking around for college, I found Earlham and a small still voice in me said, “Go There.” Earlham was known for its strong Japanese Studies program, and I was very excited about majoring in it. I was enjoying everything I was learning. Politics, economy, history, sociology, and especially literature and religion. The second semester in my first year, I took a class called Japanese Arts. It was team taught by an amazing history professor and a very charming art professor. These guys really brought the material to life. I just loved everything about the class.
I found out that the art professor’s specialty was ceramics. The following term I enrolled in his intensive “May Term” course, as it was called, where I took just one ceramics class for about a month.
I kind of loved it.
I loved the smell. I loved the feel. I loved the studio. And I loved firing kilns.
I got hooked.
I changed my major to Art.