Japanese artist Kay Sekimachi’s has created inspiring
ethereal bowls made from the skeletons of maple. She is most famous for her
labor-intensive loom works. She creates these sylvan masterpieces by adding
Kozo paper, watercolor and Krylon coating to the leaves, giving them solid
form. Sekimachi eventually graduated at the California College of Arts and
Crafts in Oakland from 1946 to 1949. Kay Sekimachi’s life has been defined by
perseverance. Despite being born in California in 1926, she was held at the
Topaz Relocation Center in Delta, UT, with other Japanese Americans during
World War II.
She says when I saw the students working in the
weaving room, the next day I decide to spend all of my savings to buy a
loom, even though she didn’t know anything about weaving. She has written several
books on crafts, some of which were co-authored with her husband, Bob
Stocksdale. The couple will be having an exhibition at the Bellevue Arts Museum
from July 3 to October 18 in Washington. The exhibition will show the works of
two of the most revered artists in American craft history. The couple married
in 1972.