Reknown potter, Toshiko Takaezu, died in Honolulu on March 9, 2011 at the age of 88. Born on June 17, 1922, in Pepeekeo, Hawaii, the middle child of 11, her parents were Japanese immigrants from Okinawa.
She was strongly influenced by her study of Zen Buddhism, and regarded her ceramic work as an outgrowth of nature and seamlessly interconnected with the rest of her life. “I see no difference between making pots, cooking and growing vegetables,” she was fond of saying. Indeed, she often used her kilns to bake chicken in clay, and dry mushrooms, apples and zucchinis.
“You are not an artist simply because you paint or sculpt or make pots that cannot be used,” she said. “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.”
Full NY Times Obituary.
In 1975, Takaezu had a workshop at Kauai Community College which was organized by Wayne Miyata. Martha Elpern was one of the participants and has these fading photos in an album.