ART REVIEW
Artist captures childhood memories in 'little nightmares'

By Victoria Gail-White

"In Motion," raku, a blue-green teapot by Jerome Heck, won first place in the contemporary category of the Raku Ho'olaule'a. Heck won the top honor in the same category four times previously. Richard Ambo • The Honolulu Advertiser 'little nightmares' 10-4 pm Tuesdays-Fridays 10-6 pm Saturdays Through July 12 bibelot gallery 1130 Koko Head Ave., Suite 2 738-0368 'at home with records+' 11-5pm Wednesdays-Thursdays, 11-7pm Fridays-Saturdays Through July 12 workspace, 3624 Wai'alae Ave., Suite 201 732-2300 Raku Ho'olaule'a 2002 11-6 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays Through July 5 The ARTS at Marks Garage, 1159 Nu'uanu Ave. 596-8128

Her recent show, "little nightmares," is composed of 70 pieces of low-fire ceramics that emerge allegorically from her childhood memories.

"I made the nightmares to cheer myself up," says Izumi.

These recollections were connected to frequent asthma attacks and visits to the emergency room late at night with her dad.

"My father joked that I needed a gas mask to filter out all the things that I was allergic to," Izumi says. Her father has since died, but Izumi's appreciation of how he took care of her has not.

During Izumi's frequent hospital visits, she read a lot. Words fill jars, and letters are stamped into her series of clay gas masks. Inside one jar, attached by a rubber tube to one of the larger gas masks, is Izumi's old inhaler. Apart from the gas masks, the other masks in the show represent suffocation, tunnel vision, the plague and stories from fairy tales (e.g. "The Twelve Dancing Princesses").

Harpies, flying "cockerels," Chinese grave figures, superheroes, dressed story-book animals, "stitched" clay cats, dogs, and "wired" tick ponies (so named because their bellies look like swollen ticks) "are all little stories, and some of the stories aren't very pretty," says Izumi.

These personal, slightly twisted tidbits of her reminiscences punctuate the shelves of the gallery.

"I don't think of them as being twisted," says Izumi. " Art should be fun, and it should be for everybody. I don't want anybody to be an outsider."

She has a healthy, dark and sensitive sense of humor.

"All my cats were throwaways," says Izumi. "People don't usually appreciate things that are not attractive. I want people to look at things differently. It seems that it is more important to take care of our things — rather than other people. Sometimes, we are not as careful as we should be with each other."

"I'm an art nobody," says Izumi. However, her willingness and ability to reveal her unique, creative visions have put her squarely where she hadn't perceived herself earlier in life — as a member of the "in" crowd. She is now an art somebody.

The exhibit "at home with records+" represents different bodies of Duncan Dempster's work: zinc-plate etchings, light boxes and a sound piece.

The "records" are represented by eight circular-themed etchings that "came out of an interest in the physical quality of vinyl records," says Dempster, who is at home working in different media.

"I started thinking about my hand and my whole body as a recording device. So, when I draw, it records my shaky hand. These little waves are a biological indicator of human activity."

For Dempster, the idea of home is interpreted in many ways. He was inspired to use certain elements of his home as subject matter, and he created little monuments from everyday life. For instance, the design in "Neighborhood Storage Unit" is actually the street map of Dempster's neighborhood, biographical details turned into art.

The "Apartment Life Changer Unit" comes with interchangeable scenes and colors to fit your mood. They slip into the side openings of the clear plastic light box. Dempster's habit of putting honey in his tea every morning is interpreted by his use of the honeycomb shape in "Honey Pixels," a set of six brightly colored light boxes that can be sequenced and placed in different configurations.

Influenced by the clean and functional furniture designs of Charles Eames, Dempster's pieces are meticulously crafted and framed in blonde wood.

The "Home Music Unit" is a sound piece with a "Speaker Pet" covered in fur. Dempster made the "Home Music" CD that it plays by manipulating sounds from skipping records and musical elements on his computer.

"Analog sound is a physical representation of nature, it is actual and present and real," says Dempster, "as opposed to digital sound." He has a collection of vinyl records and record covers.

An artist walk-through is scheduled for 1 p.m. July 6 at workspace.

For 26 years, the Hawai'i Craftsmen group has produced the Raku Ho'olaule'a, at which artists and amateurs gather to fire raku pots and celebrate pottery.

The juried results from this year's pottery extravaganza are presently on exhibit at The ARTS at Marks Garage.

The weekend raku firing event takes place at Kualoa Regional Park each year. This year, 300 campers, including 180 potters from around the Islands, brought their bisqued and glazed ceramics to the park to fire in raku and pit-fire kilns. Many families camped out and joined firing teams with such names as Korsaki Chickens, Krack Pots, Burnouts and C-Rats. The group leaders from each team met 10 months ago to plan the event.

Among affiliated activities is a tea bowl workshop at the East-West Center tea house, a slide lecture, a wet clay demonstration and the juried exhibition at The ARTS at Marks Garage.

In her artist statement, Emma Luna, the juror and visiting artist from Davis, Calif., wrote that this event was "one of my greatest experiences as a raku artist." Her exquisite pears and pea pods are featured in the exhibit.

Luna selected the best work in three categories: contemporary, floating sculpture and minors (work by those 17 and under).

Yoshibumi Ogawa of the Urasenke Foundation, a worldwide organization dedicated to the Japanese tea tradition, selected the winners in the traditional category.

Four hundred years ago, raku bowls were created for tea ceremonies because they so closely corresponded to the laws of nature outlined in the Zen principles that are synonymous with the art of tea. This year's first-place winner in the traditional category was Mary Yonemura for "Aoi."

Luna selected Micah Thrasher's "Pele's Tea Bowl" for first place in the minors category, and Lorena Jones for the floating sculpture Judge's Choice. For the fifth time, Jerome Heck won first in the contemporary category. His textural, blue-green teapot, "In Motion," illustrates the mastery he has achieved in his 22 years of work.

"I got attracted to raku because of the excitement of the firing," says Heck. "You don't know what you are going to get out of the glazes, exactly. The camaraderie is great; most of the potters on the island are there."

Potters fired their pieces until 3 a.m. in kilns with temperatures ranging from 1600 to 1900 degrees. Pit fires and reduction barrels with seaweed, salt, sawdust and other elements inside were used to add flares of color and character to the finished pots.

Reasonably priced vases, spirit houses, teapots and cups, animals and relief figures are glazed with metallic copper and gunmetal colors, teal, cream, black, burgundy and orange. Sake cups, donated by members, are a fund-raising effort for Hawai'i Craftsmen. They remain on sale and they're a steal atÊtwo for $5.

In this exhibit, the sense of connection and family is palpable. The names of parents and their progeny appear on the labels atop different pedestals.

"We've watched kids grow up out there," says Kim Coffee-Isaak, executive director of Hawai'i Craftsmen. Some minors from last year will be featured in a book due out in July, "Ceramics for Children."