How I got started.

I have started making clay models about 10 months ago. Before that I made functional ware like bowls and cups for two years. At that time, I had had so much stress from my work that I was not able to go to sleep. After dinner, while Mike watched TV, I started making tiny rabbit figures, just size of a thumb. Then gradually I started making larger models. I was hooked, and able to go to sleep easily after palying with clay.

One night, I was looking at the full moon, I remembered old Japanese story about the rabbit who lives on the moon, and makes rice cakes. This year is the year of the rabbit. I fact I was born in the year of the rabbit. I wondered what those friends who also share the birth year were doing recently. I felt a strong urge to make a spiritual rabbit living on the earth, but never forgets about the rabbit on the moon. Now looking back, I might have seen myself in the rabbit, as I have also lived in this foreign land for two decades. But when I go back to Japan, I am not 'real' Japanese any longer. My imagination expanded, and I felt the presence of the rabbit in my heart. 

The rest was easy. My hands were guided by my heart. I didn't know what it was going to look like, but I knew what it will be. This is the rabbit.

 

It was the beginning of all.

I made larger and smaller rabbits after this. In the meantime, I wanted to show all things I had made. So I decided to take a part in Artists' Open Houses.

In this new world of clay, I liked to explore possibilities. It was a sort of brain storming. I turned most of creatures living in my head into clay models. Some of them were old residents, but others only joined while I was making another models. Some changed themselves into another shapes while I was making. I also made many of them without any plans, just let clay guide me. After taking a shape, some of them surprised me, but others were like old friends, finally appeared in front of me.

New resident, 'Jane'