MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts Program
I live in San Francisco. As an undergraduate at an alternative college (Antioch College) the joke among students was that after graduation, there are only two places to live – San Francisco or Berkeley. What draws me to the Bay Area is the cosmopolitan and innovative life style including art, ecology, technology, and a generous tolerance for eccentricity. As I was returning on a plane from Vermont, I overheard a student tell a first-time visitor, “You’ll love San Francisco. It’s the kind of place where you can wear a clown suit and mismatched shoes, and no one will criticize you. Friends probably will say, ‘I like the way you’re expressing yourself today.’”
My home is located at the base of San Bruno Mountain. Since the Summer 2007 residency, my research involves the history and ecology of this area that is considered to be one of the seventeen unique and endangered environments in the world and home to three rare butterflies. When the Ohlone people lived here it was an Eden teeming with wildlife living in a riparian environment. Only a few hundred years after the Spanish conquest, it is now an area where only drought-resistant native plants survive.
Recently I planted native species in my garden such as California fuchsia, monkey flower, and lupine to make it more hospitable to butterflies, humming birds, and bees. It is also a staging ground where I create situations to observe natural phenomena in an art project called Jakata Tales. Seven statues of unfired clay Buddhas were covered with guacamole, flax seeds, honey cake, beef, chicken, ham, and salmon. Ants and flies immediately began crawling over the statues. Nocturnal creatures gnawed and mauled the Buddhas, leaving their marks on the clay bodies. These phenomena were documented with photographs.
A recent, completed series is Nuclear Culture that includes ceramics, installation, landscape design, photography, and digital art. The series questions the ethics of bombing civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki; nuclear testing in the Nevada Desert which spread fall out throughout America; and the displacement of Bikini Islanders when their islands became the site for further tests. A dialogue I initiated with American Friends Service Committee (a Quaker group) led to a four-person art exhibit on nuclear issues with lectures and performances by artists and the community. Last spring the Hiroshima Peace Institute invited me to Hiroshima to present my work at a workshop with artists, historians, and scientists. Selected work from this series is located at http://www.planeteria.net/home/jmhiramoto.
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Educational Background: MFA, Ceramics, San Francisco State University; BA, Literature, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio.
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Judy Hiramoto, MFA