Traditions: Ohio Heritage Fellows; 201; Yasue Sakaoka interview, part 3 of 5

Q:

YASUE: I found, this is called a grandmother’s art. And I found this one. And I experimented with it and I really grew on that one for some of my (inaudible) paper inspirations.

Q:

YASUE: I think it’s the geometricity of it. I was exposed to (inaudible) for his ideas, tetrahedrons, minimalism, more jewels. Many abstract ideas from the mid-twentieth century.

Q:

YASUE: I was going to teach. Yea, I taught here, I think I was in Athens for one year, yea. I was in a PhD program.

Q:

YASUE:

(inaudible) I also saw the introduced to fiber artists’ works from uh, also uh, about nineteen sixties, seventies they were doing some amazing work. And apparently, they had the ambition not to be called craftspeople, but they wanted to become creative artists. And I think it’s a very dear aspiration. And they have done wonderful things with that medium, which is not usually considered to be the sculpture material. And paper was right. Not very expensive. You can work big, you can pull them and store them in boxes. You should see my basement. They (inaudible).

Q:

YASUE: Well, I think this is an interesting thesis. You hear some more you want to look for big things. This is like your counterpart, I don’t know about that, but the—there are some artists who have done that like Fred Kiesler, you know, (inaudible) yea. Anyway, it’s exciting to work with a given space. I have worked with a height of ceilings... ten feet, some twenty. And because of the material, it’s possible to achieve that scale. And that can be very, very interesting to me, yea.

Q:

YASUE: Basically space... and some ideas. And when I work here, I work without thinking about a purpose. I just work with my habits and source of materials I have in my mind or physically.

Q:

YASUE: That’s a good question. Did you read my statement? Pam Hoke retired, curator at Dayton uh, Art Institute had surprised me. When I worked with her, with a design of the Japanese exhibit. Inside the Japanese space, this was, I think, the end of nineteen eighties, we became friends. Then she was looking at my works with uh, Dayton Visual Arts Center too, when it was in the... in the Biltmore Building? Yea. And she really surprised me. Oh, this is Shinto. It’s one of the religions, Japanese religion is very strange and it may not be religion, but it’s one of the things mentioned as one of the major Japanese religions, not always beliefs. And she really surprised me. And my background, my father’s side is Shinto priest.

Q:

YASUE: That means, ok, Shinto means their dress is white, most of it with the purification. That’s important. So, it’s not like a baptism, with the Christian church. But there’s a right of c- purification with splashing water for many of the rituals, celebrations. So it’s white, not red. Oh, they use red for the Japanese girls. The young priestess with red skirt and a white top, just for young women.