Amy Coval
I have worked with oil paints, pastels, colored pencil, and experimented with watercolor and sumie. “Peace” (2019) was done in colored pencil and inspired by the roses in my garden because roses make me think of peace, love and tranquility. My favorite medium has been colored pencil because it allows for more control and greater detailing. However, after taking Masa Lee’s watercolor class, I am learning to appreciate the effects of a softer, more flowing, abstract style of painting that can only be achieved with a watercolor medium.
Irene Furukawa
What I like about the Fall Season is the CALM and the WARM COLORS: oranges, reds, yellows, and browns.
This is the first year that I have ventured forth in taking a painting class. My teacher, Mr. Masa Lee, has been great in helping me release some of my fears, apprehensions, and intimidations about painting. Being able to paint with a new freedom is a wonderful feeling for me.
I am a beginning "artist" at 78. I guess you could say Grandma Moses is my mentor. I believe she was in her 90's when she began to paint.
I am very grateful to Gardena JCI and Masa Lee for facilitating this painting experience. It has enhanced and enlivened my life.
Parrish Nelson Hirasaki
Parrish Nelson Hirasaki paints in watercolor and oil. Her work is realistic and includes portraits, animals, skies and seascapes.
Parrish is on the board of the South Bay Watercolor Society and has served on the Board of the National Watercolor Society. She is a Signature Member of the National Society of Artists and a Patron Member of the Portrait Society of America. She has won awards in numerous art shows including “Best of Show” awards in the national Aquarius competition and in the 2017 South Bay Watercolor Society Member Show.
She and her husband, John, are members of the Venice Japanese Community Center where they have taken sumi-e painting classes. They retired to California in 2013 after careers as engineers in Houston in aerospace and energy.
Mike Ishikawa
Mike Ishikawa is an Architect by profession. During his vacations, he sketched with his pen and ink. Filling many sketch books with interesting places he visited with his wife Miki, the sketches, becoming a postcard of his travels. During the Covid 2020 lockdown, he compiled all his sketches, from 15 sketchbooks, into a book, “Sketching and travelogue with pen and markers”. It is a 187 page book with stories of each sketch and tips on sketching on your own vacations.
Semi-retirement allowed some time to think about a new interest, which led to pastel painting in early 2009. He loves using pastels, the vibrant colors are unlimited, being a skier, hiker, traveler and fisherman, painting the outdoor landscape has been one of his passions.
He uses bold bright colors, strong strokes, shades, shadows, and varied textures to create an image that is similar to the actual image, but with more interest and a “painterly” (non-photographic) quality to the painting. He paints as a hobby and his favorite subjects are seascapes, old fishing boats, mountains, deserts and images of old towns and villages. One of his favorite ways to paint is “plien-air”. He is a member of the Southern California Pastel Society, Laguna Plein Air Painters, Pastel Society of the West Coast and Pacific Art Guild of Palos Verdes.
In 2017, Mike’s painting of a “Farmhouse in the Owen Valley” was selected by the Pastel Journal, as 100 of the best pastel paintings, out of 2700 national submittals. He has won awards at several other art exhibitions, including 1st place, Rejoice in Art, Palos Verdes Art Center, 1st place in Plein Air Festival of Los Angeles, U-Art National Pastel Competition, 1st-Laguna Civic Art and the Pastel Society of Southern California.
Kiku Mori
I am Nisei and grew up in Boyle Heights. During World War II, my family and I were in the Tule Lake & Heart Mountain internment camps. At UCLA, I studied commercial art and worked in advertising agencies in Los Angeles and New York. It’s in NYC, where I met my husband and we were married for over 50 years. When we lived in the Bay Area for a short time, I illustrated a textbook about Japan. I’ve been a long time Torrance resident and was part of a South Bay art group for many years. I have 2 children and 2 grandchildren.
Carmen Hisako Nakada
I’m Carmen Hisako Nakada, Peruvian Nisei, now living in California.
After retiring from a textile company, I visited a Batik exhibition. This caught my eye and I started taking Batik classes under Mrs. Masae Saga in Gardena.
The different techniques used and the way you can play with colors make it very interesting to see the effect on fabrics, especially silk.
Dean Okamura
Dean Okamura is the grandson of Genkichi and Terumi Matsuda. John Matsuda is Dean's uncle and our best source for family history. Dean resides in Torrance, California.
Lorean Weng
Lorean Weng’s art captures the soft, free flowing spirit of Zen. Harmony of colors and shapes are balanced by beautiful brushstrokes in her artwork. Lorean started her art journey over 20 years ago learning Chinese Brush Painting. She then continued to explore acrylics and oils and watercolors studying under various teachers. She enjoys painting and creating artwork on various surfaces including traditional rice paper, glassware, and canvas.
Part of her art journey is giving back to others and spreading beauty in the world which led her to start teaching. She teaches at art conventions, various community organizations, and offers live online classes, paint parties and seminars. Class sign up info is available on www.loreanw.com or email loreanwdesigns@gmail.com. Her art creations are available for purchase at her SapphireLori Etsy store.
I have worked with oil paints, pastels, colored pencil, and experimented with watercolor and sumie. “Peace” (2019) was done in colored pencil and inspired by the roses in my garden because roses make me think of peace, love and tranquility. My favorite medium has been colored pencil because it allows for more control and greater detailing. However, after taking Masa Lee’s watercolor class, I am learning to appreciate the effects of a softer, more flowing, abstract style of painting that can only be achieved with a watercolor medium.
Irene Furukawa
What I like about the Fall Season is the CALM and the WARM COLORS: oranges, reds, yellows, and browns.
This is the first year that I have ventured forth in taking a painting class. My teacher, Mr. Masa Lee, has been great in helping me release some of my fears, apprehensions, and intimidations about painting. Being able to paint with a new freedom is a wonderful feeling for me.
I am a beginning "artist" at 78. I guess you could say Grandma Moses is my mentor. I believe she was in her 90's when she began to paint.
I am very grateful to Gardena JCI and Masa Lee for facilitating this painting experience. It has enhanced and enlivened my life.
Parrish Nelson Hirasaki
Parrish Nelson Hirasaki paints in watercolor and oil. Her work is realistic and includes portraits, animals, skies and seascapes.
Parrish is on the board of the South Bay Watercolor Society and has served on the Board of the National Watercolor Society. She is a Signature Member of the National Society of Artists and a Patron Member of the Portrait Society of America. She has won awards in numerous art shows including “Best of Show” awards in the national Aquarius competition and in the 2017 South Bay Watercolor Society Member Show.
She and her husband, John, are members of the Venice Japanese Community Center where they have taken sumi-e painting classes. They retired to California in 2013 after careers as engineers in Houston in aerospace and energy.
Mike Ishikawa
Mike Ishikawa is an Architect by profession. During his vacations, he sketched with his pen and ink. Filling many sketch books with interesting places he visited with his wife Miki, the sketches, becoming a postcard of his travels. During the Covid 2020 lockdown, he compiled all his sketches, from 15 sketchbooks, into a book, “Sketching and travelogue with pen and markers”. It is a 187 page book with stories of each sketch and tips on sketching on your own vacations.
Semi-retirement allowed some time to think about a new interest, which led to pastel painting in early 2009. He loves using pastels, the vibrant colors are unlimited, being a skier, hiker, traveler and fisherman, painting the outdoor landscape has been one of his passions.
He uses bold bright colors, strong strokes, shades, shadows, and varied textures to create an image that is similar to the actual image, but with more interest and a “painterly” (non-photographic) quality to the painting. He paints as a hobby and his favorite subjects are seascapes, old fishing boats, mountains, deserts and images of old towns and villages. One of his favorite ways to paint is “plien-air”. He is a member of the Southern California Pastel Society, Laguna Plein Air Painters, Pastel Society of the West Coast and Pacific Art Guild of Palos Verdes.
In 2017, Mike’s painting of a “Farmhouse in the Owen Valley” was selected by the Pastel Journal, as 100 of the best pastel paintings, out of 2700 national submittals. He has won awards at several other art exhibitions, including 1st place, Rejoice in Art, Palos Verdes Art Center, 1st place in Plein Air Festival of Los Angeles, U-Art National Pastel Competition, 1st-Laguna Civic Art and the Pastel Society of Southern California.
Kiku Mori
I am Nisei and grew up in Boyle Heights. During World War II, my family and I were in the Tule Lake & Heart Mountain internment camps. At UCLA, I studied commercial art and worked in advertising agencies in Los Angeles and New York. It’s in NYC, where I met my husband and we were married for over 50 years. When we lived in the Bay Area for a short time, I illustrated a textbook about Japan. I’ve been a long time Torrance resident and was part of a South Bay art group for many years. I have 2 children and 2 grandchildren.
Carmen Hisako Nakada
I’m Carmen Hisako Nakada, Peruvian Nisei, now living in California.
After retiring from a textile company, I visited a Batik exhibition. This caught my eye and I started taking Batik classes under Mrs. Masae Saga in Gardena.
The different techniques used and the way you can play with colors make it very interesting to see the effect on fabrics, especially silk.
Dean Okamura
Dean Okamura is the grandson of Genkichi and Terumi Matsuda. John Matsuda is Dean's uncle and our best source for family history. Dean resides in Torrance, California.
Lorean Weng
Lorean Weng’s art captures the soft, free flowing spirit of Zen. Harmony of colors and shapes are balanced by beautiful brushstrokes in her artwork. Lorean started her art journey over 20 years ago learning Chinese Brush Painting. She then continued to explore acrylics and oils and watercolors studying under various teachers. She enjoys painting and creating artwork on various surfaces including traditional rice paper, glassware, and canvas.
Part of her art journey is giving back to others and spreading beauty in the world which led her to start teaching. She teaches at art conventions, various community organizations, and offers live online classes, paint parties and seminars. Class sign up info is available on www.loreanw.com or email loreanwdesigns@gmail.com. Her art creations are available for purchase at her SapphireLori Etsy store.
POET BIOGRAPHIES
Lynda Crawford
Lynda V.E. Crawford has lived in the US longer than her childhood home Barbados yet both homes sway and punctuate her writing. She writes to sneak behind eyes, blow through ears, stretch voices like others dance words. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various journals and anthologies including The Caribbean Writer, The Galway Review, The Bookends Review and Exposition Review.
Ken Scott
Kenneth Irving Scott Jr. (Ken Scott) has always had a passion for spoken-word poetry. Since 1982, he has endeavored to capture that poetic fire in written words that would convey the burning, transformative essence of his ideas, whether political, social, romantic, erotic, philosophical, or deeply spiritual. In addition to obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, he continued to perform spoken-word poetry from the mid-1990s to this present day, with several of his poetic works published in print and online.
Lynda V.E. Crawford has lived in the US longer than her childhood home Barbados yet both homes sway and punctuate her writing. She writes to sneak behind eyes, blow through ears, stretch voices like others dance words. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in various journals and anthologies including The Caribbean Writer, The Galway Review, The Bookends Review and Exposition Review.
Ken Scott
Kenneth Irving Scott Jr. (Ken Scott) has always had a passion for spoken-word poetry. Since 1982, he has endeavored to capture that poetic fire in written words that would convey the burning, transformative essence of his ideas, whether political, social, romantic, erotic, philosophical, or deeply spiritual. In addition to obtaining a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science, he continued to perform spoken-word poetry from the mid-1990s to this present day, with several of his poetic works published in print and online.
GVJCI ART SHOW CURATOR ALVIN TAKAMORI
Born in Los Angeles, as the younger of two boys, to an accountant and a seamstress from Hawaii, I grew up in Gardena. The encouragement of a kindergarten teacher introduced me to painting, and I’ve been attracted to a creative life ever since.
An impulse to be practical led to a couple of years studying physics at Occidental College but, the need for a more creative outlet, led me to a compromise idea to study industrial design at CSU Long Beach. After college, I worked primarily as a craftsman, building and installing custom signs and displays. With the evolution of computer software, I transitioned to a career in graphic design.
During my career in commercial art, art for purely creative expression was shunted to the back burner as something to do someday, when I had more time. This occurred over twenty five years later.
As a volunteer at the Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Institute (GVJCI), I had worked with Mary Hatsuko Higuchi and Donald Hata. Somehow, based on their appreciation for my graphic designs, in 2014 they invited me to join the Henry Fukuhara Manzanar “Paint Out,”organized by Al Setton and Michele Pearson. It seemed like a good time for a new adventure.
I hadn’t picked up a brush to paint anything since college. I had some old acrylic paints from college that still seemed okay, but besides that I had no art supplies. After researching plein air painting, I knew I needed an easel, something to sit on, paints, brushes, a palette, and paper or canvases. The details concerning which paints, which brushes, which paper to use was a guessing game. Also, there was a new world of additional items like palette knives, sponges, tapes, mediums, masking fluid, spray bottles, etc. After a spending spree collecting whatever I could find on sale, I accumulated more than I needed and headed off to the Eastern Sierras. The first day of painting I met Ron Libbrecht, who puzzled over my use of acrylic paint straight from the tube. By the third day, I was mixing my paints on a palette and creating paintings that I was happy with. The many years that I had avoided painting, I had always feared that it would be too time consuming. By the end of the workshop, I had confidence that I could produce a painting in an afternoon. I’ve been painting ever since, also I had all these supplies I needed to use.
During the workshop, I also met Bill Wassenberg, who invited me to the meetings of the South Bay Watercolor Society (SBWS). It opened my eyes to a new universe of local art groups. Meeting artists, watching demonstrations, attending workshops, seeing and participating in art shows has added a whole new dimension to my life. My paintings have won “Best of Show” at the 2018 SBWS Member Show and the 2021 Torrance Artists’ Guild Member Show. Now, I’m the newsletter editor for the SBWS and I help to organize this art show at the GVJCI. As for my art, I am attracted to water media. It’s a medium I feel comfortable with, having used it as a child. Regarding the subjects for my art, it’s whatever I’m interested in. However, I have a lot of interests. Beginning with that first workshop, which included a visit to the Manzanar concentration camp, the unjustified imprisonment of people of Japanese ancestry during World War II, has been a topic of several paintings. The people in my life, like my wife are also subjects for paintings. Like many artists, I also love nature and depict it in many paintings. But sometimes, I want to express something more abstract like an idea or a feeling. My art is like a Facebook page showing whatever I’m thinking about.
I’ve always been an amateur photographer and out of numerous images, I occasionally have one that I consider artistic. Also, I have used some of my images to inspire my paintings. Thanks to Mary and Don and that first workshop, now I know that I have art as a method of communicating and plan to use it for the rest of my life.
An impulse to be practical led to a couple of years studying physics at Occidental College but, the need for a more creative outlet, led me to a compromise idea to study industrial design at CSU Long Beach. After college, I worked primarily as a craftsman, building and installing custom signs and displays. With the evolution of computer software, I transitioned to a career in graphic design.
During my career in commercial art, art for purely creative expression was shunted to the back burner as something to do someday, when I had more time. This occurred over twenty five years later.
As a volunteer at the Gardena Valley Japanese Cultural Institute (GVJCI), I had worked with Mary Hatsuko Higuchi and Donald Hata. Somehow, based on their appreciation for my graphic designs, in 2014 they invited me to join the Henry Fukuhara Manzanar “Paint Out,”organized by Al Setton and Michele Pearson. It seemed like a good time for a new adventure.
I hadn’t picked up a brush to paint anything since college. I had some old acrylic paints from college that still seemed okay, but besides that I had no art supplies. After researching plein air painting, I knew I needed an easel, something to sit on, paints, brushes, a palette, and paper or canvases. The details concerning which paints, which brushes, which paper to use was a guessing game. Also, there was a new world of additional items like palette knives, sponges, tapes, mediums, masking fluid, spray bottles, etc. After a spending spree collecting whatever I could find on sale, I accumulated more than I needed and headed off to the Eastern Sierras. The first day of painting I met Ron Libbrecht, who puzzled over my use of acrylic paint straight from the tube. By the third day, I was mixing my paints on a palette and creating paintings that I was happy with. The many years that I had avoided painting, I had always feared that it would be too time consuming. By the end of the workshop, I had confidence that I could produce a painting in an afternoon. I’ve been painting ever since, also I had all these supplies I needed to use.
During the workshop, I also met Bill Wassenberg, who invited me to the meetings of the South Bay Watercolor Society (SBWS). It opened my eyes to a new universe of local art groups. Meeting artists, watching demonstrations, attending workshops, seeing and participating in art shows has added a whole new dimension to my life. My paintings have won “Best of Show” at the 2018 SBWS Member Show and the 2021 Torrance Artists’ Guild Member Show. Now, I’m the newsletter editor for the SBWS and I help to organize this art show at the GVJCI. As for my art, I am attracted to water media. It’s a medium I feel comfortable with, having used it as a child. Regarding the subjects for my art, it’s whatever I’m interested in. However, I have a lot of interests. Beginning with that first workshop, which included a visit to the Manzanar concentration camp, the unjustified imprisonment of people of Japanese ancestry during World War II, has been a topic of several paintings. The people in my life, like my wife are also subjects for paintings. Like many artists, I also love nature and depict it in many paintings. But sometimes, I want to express something more abstract like an idea or a feeling. My art is like a Facebook page showing whatever I’m thinking about.
I’ve always been an amateur photographer and out of numerous images, I occasionally have one that I consider artistic. Also, I have used some of my images to inspire my paintings. Thanks to Mary and Don and that first workshop, now I know that I have art as a method of communicating and plan to use it for the rest of my life.