Monthly Archives: September 2017

Article on the late architect Taro Akutagawa for Tucson Modernism Week

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The Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation has researched and published an online article about Japanese American Taro Akutagawa, who designed several buildings and gardens in Tucson, Arizona, including the Catalina Foothills Apartments.

Taro Akutagawa, courtesy of Akutagawa family, c. 1940

Link (with photos) to the article here:  http://preservetucson.org/stories/taro-akutagawa-1917-2002/.  This article will be in the 2017 Tucson Modernism Week guide (pages 22 to 27)  and a small garden designed by him will be on a tour (tba) .

Excerpt from the article:

“The Japanese-American landscape designer Taro Akutagawa (1917 – 2002) was born in Los Angeles California. Educated in Japan, he returned to California shortly before the beginning of World War to join his family’s successful small farming business. His career was cut short on February 19, 1942 when President Franklin Roosevelt signed executive order 9066 which forced all Americans of Japanese ancestry, regardless of loyalty or citizenship, to leave their lives on the West Coast and enter internment camps. Owing to his Japanese education Akutagawa was one of the first in his community to be detained and interned, and one of the last to be released.

In spite of the fact that his internment was a flagrant violation of his civil liberties, Akutagawa came to believe that the time he spent in the desert internment camp of Poston, Arizona, advanced his education in life and helped him to develop his leadership skills.”  (Read more in the article)

More info on the October 7 to 15, 2017 Tucson Modernism Week:  www.tucsonmodernismweek.com. 

Yume Japanese Garden’s schedule for Fall/Winter 2017

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JAPANESE CULTURE FLOWERS
 AS YUME JAPANESE GARDENS OF TUCSON REOPENS OCTOBER 1
“Yume Japanese Gardens, the first and only authentic Japanese gardens in Tucson, will reopen for their fifth Fall/Winter season Sunday, October 1, with a roster of exhibits, workshops, and events that provide visitors with a distinctive window on Japan.
Museum exhibits include “Between Folds: Classical Origami,” a presentation of traditional folded Japanese paper forms from October 1 to December 31, as well as “Mingei: Old Japan at Hand,” a new permanent display of vintage hand-crafted folk art objects produced by ordinary Japanese and used in their daily routines.
A series of workshops in Ikebana – traditional Japanese flower arranging and techniques – extends throughout the Fall/Winter season and is complemented by an Ikebana Festival November 21-26. This bi-annual event is one of the most popular at the Gardens and will feature 50 Japanese floral arrangements from five different schools, arrayed throughout the grounds, the museum and the gallery.
Other events include an artist reception on October 8 at the inauguration of “Enlightened Heart,” an exhibition and sale until December 1 of wooden sculptures and tablets on which Phoenix Ikebana master and ceramicist Ping Wei has used wood-burning tools to engrave Asian calligraphy and other designs.
October 28 will bring a tea ceremony, a hallowed spiritual and artistic ritual performed by a tea master in traditional kimono. “Enchanted Evenings,” November 10-12, will open the Gardens after dark for strolls by candle- and lantern-light, to the accompaniment of traditional Japanese melodies.
Non-profit Yume Japanese Gardens of Tucson opened in January 2013 and showcases five examples of traditional Japanese landscaping. Besides educational and cultural activities, it offers a “Stroll for Well-Being” program of research-supported therapeutic guided garden walks. For details on its benefits, visit www.yumegardens.org.”
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Gardens hours are 9:30 am to 4:30 pm Tuesday through Saturday, October 1 to May 7, at 2130 N. Alvernon Way, one block south of the Tucson Botanical Gardens. For more about activities at Yume, email yume.gardens@gmail.com, visit www.yumegardens.org, or call (520) 303-3945.

 

Kozo Miyoshi: Middle of the Road public lecture on September 17 at UA Center for Creative Photography

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Image Credit: Kōzō Miyoshi “Holbrook, Arizona” 1995 © Kōzō MiyoshiCollection Center for Creative Photography

“On Sunday, September 17 (4 to 5:30 p.m.), the Center will present a public artist’s talk by Japanese photographer Kōzō Miyoshi, in conjunction with Longer Ways to Go: Photographs of the American Road, an exhibition of photographs from the Center’s collection currently on view in the Norton Family Photography Gallery at Phoenix Art Museum. During the 1990s, while he was an artist-in-residence at the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson, Miyoshi traversed what remains of Route 66, the “Main Street of America,” creating placid, meticulously composed images with an 8 x 10 view camera. Miyoshi chose the title “Middle of the Road” to refer to his habit of standing dead-center in the road to make a photograph with his tripod-mounted camera, a gesture that reveals signs of past use in the form of tire marks, seams, and cracked pavement, while reminding us that, at least at the moment Miyoshi took the picture, no one was coming. Made soon after Route 66 was removed from the federal highway system, when local preservation efforts were just getting under way, Miyoshi’s images form a compelling document of the landmark’s transition from highway to scenic byway, from America to Americana.
Member’s Print Viewing & Reception From 2-4 pm the Center will host a Member’s only Print Viewing & Reception in collaboration with the Kōzō Miyoshi public presentation. ***
Kōzō Miyoshi is a Japanese photographer whose work is in the collections of The Art Museum, Princeton University; The Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona; The George Eastman Museum; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo; Hallmark Collection, Kansas City, Missouri; Nihon University, Tokyo; and Tokyo Photographic Art Museum. The Center for Creative Photography published Far East and Southwest: The Photography of Kōzō Miyoshi in 1994. In the Road, a collection of Miyoshi’s photographs of Route 66, was published by Nazraeli Press in 1999. In 2011, Miyoshi released Northeast Earthquake Disaster Tsunami 2011, a portfolio of photographs of the aftermath of the 2011 quake and tsunami that devastated Japan’s northeast coast and caused the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. A selection of photographs from the portfolio was included in In the Wake: Japanese Photographers Respond to 3/11, a 2015 exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.”

http://www.creativephotography.org/exhibitions-events/events/kozo-miyoshi-middle-road-public-lecture. Center for Creative Photography is at 1030 N Olive Rd. (south of Speedway, east of Park Avenue) on UA Campus

Yu Yu Shiratori art party on September 2

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Sept. 2nd, from 7 to 10 p.m. at How Sweet it Was Vintage shop, 424 E. 6th Street, Tucson

“How in which the ways to describe the talent that is Yu Yu Shiratori?
Seeping with originality and humble to a fault, she burns true blue. Everything she takes on has an irreplicable, creative edge and is executed with impressive craftsmanship. If you are lucky enough to own something she has made, you can testify to the fact that approximately one million people will demand to know where they can get one, too. This show will feature her latest jewelry designs, screen prints and embroideries. On a bonus note: we flexed some connects and managed to acquire the masterpiece of a wedding suit she hand-embroidered (on loan from the Pat Foley personal collection) for the show. Refreshments, shopping and friends as always. Yu Yu Shiratori’s artwork and jewelry will be on display and for purchase in the shop through the month of September. We can’t wait to Art Party with Yu Yu and you!”

https://www.facebook.com/events/1565738473487557/?acontext=%7B%22ref%22%3A%22106%22%2C%22action_history%22%3A%22null%22%7D