In 1980, Fine Woodworking magazine published an article that featured a recently completed desk by new-to-the-scene Wendy Maruyama titled Decoration vs. Desecration. The expressive new form used a millennia-old mortise and tenons method to join several wood planes. However, Maruyama filled the mortises with vibrant purple resin, shockingly contrasting with the honey tones of the naturally finished wood. Maruyama emblazoned the entire writing surface with a large “W” to sign the work. The publication and its readership panned the piece, describing Maruyama as on the “artistic fringe” and the work a “functional disaster” and “adolescent nonsense.” In today’s vernacular, Maruyama clapped back at the haters:

“I have chosen to use wood in a different context and find it exciting to use other materials with the wood. It is my freedom of choice to do what I feel satisfies my personal motivations to use my hands and make a piece of furniture. What I do to decorate my furniture is not any different from the early painted chests of the 1700s or the claw-and-ball feet of Chippendale chairs – it’s all a form of embellishment. My pieces function (both visually and as furniture) quite well for me, and that is my goal in my work.”

Maruyama’s nonconformity and defiant response would cement her position as a radical provocateur in the staid, conservative, and male-dominated world of studio furniture and woodworking.

Similarly, in the early 1980s, Tom Loeser began eschewing the norms of the first generation of fine art furniture makers. History would define that earlier generation by their allegiance to wood and by designs that emphasize the beauty of natural materials and forms. Instead, Loeser was drawn to the motivations behind Italy’s Memphis Group “not so much because I like the stuff, but because it opened up the field and made more things possible and accepted. It and other things have opened people’s minds about what furniture can be and do.” Thus, Loeser’s early work began to include dense geometric patterns and color on carved surfaces, a complete shift from the fine art furniture that had come before. In 1983, Loeser met Maruyama at the Appalachian Center for Crafts when she invited him for a residency. There, Maruyama inspired Loeser to use paint more casually. Following this advice, Loeser shifted toward a more exploratory and adventurous use of paint and color that would define his work through today.

Begun in Tennessee, the pair’s creative kinship continues across half a continent. Maruyama, in San Diego, California, and Loeser, in Madison, Wisconsin, collaborated throughout the making of Colorama to ensure an overall cohesiveness to the exhibition. While both revisit the transgressive color that defined their early careers, the artists’ present conditions influenced their points of view for the works included in the show. Maruyama’s technicolor wall-mounted cabinets explore femininity and health, shaped by the artist’s own experience of aging. Loeser’s painted and upholstered seating explores social dynamics, fostering collaboration and play between sitters at a time of much political and social divisiveness. After nearly 50 years of pushing their field forward, Colorama offers a look at what Maruyama and Loeser are interested in now. The exhibition also includes examples of earlier works of both artists to show the range of their career.

www.superhouse.us/exhibitions/tom-loese…

Since 1975, the American Craft Council has recognized artists, scholars, teachers, and advocates for their legacy of outstanding achievement in and dedication to the field of craft with the biannual ACC Awards. Two groups are responsible for giving out these awards.

The American Craft Council and its Board of Trustees give the Award of Distinction and the Aileen Osborn Webb Award for Philanthropy. ACC’s College of Fellows gives the remaining awards. During each awards year, a committee of past fellows —who are all artists or honorary fellows—decides who will be inducted next. This year, the committee inducted nine new ACC Fellows into the College of Fellows, awarded three previous inductees the Gold Medal for Consummate Craftsmanship, and celebrated two honorary fellows.

Regardless of upbringing, education, or entrenched societal disparities dealt with during their careers, the Fellows and Gold Medalists honored by the 2024 ACC Awards have delved deeply into their identities, proclivities, and creativity to produce astounding bodies of work that extend and enhance definitions of craft. Their work may be conceptual or functional; figurative, performative, or decorative. Their materials may be pins and string, wood and paint, metal and seashells, clay and glass, or discarded TV sets, fabric, and sequins. Along the way they also invested in themselves, continuously experimenting and innovating to reach this level of excellence, while also teaching and mentoring. Others honored in the 2024 ACC Awards have contributed deeply to the field of craft outside the studio, through writing, curating, and advocacy.

This year, the American Craft Council is also excited to announce a new grant from the Maxwell/Hanrahan Foundation, which will fund cash awards of $5,000 each for the nine 2024 ACC Fellows and $20,000 each for the three 2024 Gold Medal for Consummate Craftsmanship recipients. This funding comes in addition to longstanding support we have received from the Windgate Foundation for general operating costs for this awards program. ACC is grateful to both organizations for their generous support.

craftcouncil.org/articles/acc-awards-20…
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July 27, 2024 to January 5, 2025

Fig Garden, Duncan, and Hallowell Galleries
Curator: Michele Ellis Pracy, FAM Executive Director and Chief Curator

The Fresno Art Museum’s auxiliary member group, The Council of 100, is delighted to announce American sculptor Wendy Maruyama as their Distinguished Woman Artist for 2024. She is the 34th artist to be given this annual award. Based in San Diego, California, Maruyama is recognized nationally and internationally for her master work in wood furniture and wildlife portraits and for her social commentary. Her solo exhibition at the Fresno Art Museum opens in July 2024 and is an overview of her work over the years. Curated by Michele Ellis Pracy, Fresno Art Museum Executive Director and Chief Curator, this exhibition of Maruyama’s work will be presented in the Vestibule, Fig Garden, Duncan, and Hallowell Galleries from July 2024 through January 2025.

Artist and educator Wendy Maruyama (b. 1952) has been making innovative woodwork for over 40 years. Selections for this solo show include examples of her traditional studio craft: utilitarian and fanciful furniture pieces produced over time; wall reliefs of her pieced, life-size elephant heads; and room-size paper installations. Her social commentary explores the themes of feminism, her Japanese-American heritage, and her personal family history. Maruyama is a master woodworker and a contentious appreciator of history. Her artworks reflect her complexity as a human being, as a second-generation Japanese American, and as a contemporary artist who is female in this country and in this century.

Maruyama recently retired from teaching at San Diego State University and now works full-time in her studio. She has had solo exhibitions in New York City, Savannah, Scottsdale, San Francisco, and elsewhere nationally. Maruyama has also exhibited in Tokyo, Seoul, and London. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Philadelphia Museum of Art; the Dallas Museum of Art; the Oakland Museum of California; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; and the Mingei International Museum in San Diego.

Maruyama is the recipient of several prestigious awards including several NEA arts grants, a Fulbright research grant, and the Japan/US Fellowship.

Sponsored in part by the Fresno Art Museum's Council of 100
Presenting Sponsor: A Friend of the Museum
www.fresnoartmuseum.org/exhibitions/upc…

Every two years, one or more Fellows are recognized as Gold Medalists, an award for a lifetime of achievement. It is the highest award given by the Council. Gold Medal awardees represent the extraordinary among a field of elite craftspeople. The significance cannot be overstated, and the value of material related to the individuals has proportional importance to the preservation and scholarship of American craft. Awardees are nominated by the College of Fellows and selected by the ACC Awards Committee.

www.craftcouncil.org/programs/acc-award…

Welcome to our first podcast of the 2023 season of Why Make? This episode is part one of our in depth conversation with the artist Wendy Maruyama. Wendy Maruyama is a furniture maker, sculptor and retired educator who resides in San Diego, California. Wendy’s work has tackled a wide scope topics, from traditional furniture forms, to exploring her Japanese heritage and the imprisonment of Japanese Americans during WW2, to the issue of endangered animals.

As we discuss in the podcast, at 28:03 of Part 1, Wendy was born with significant hearing loss and cerebral palsy and at her request, to aid our listeners, we have included a full transcript of our conversation for this episode below. It can also be found in the episode notes on Apple podcasts

Please join us and take a listen to our wide ranging discussion with one of the more amazing artists in the woodworking field

Wendy Maruyama comes full circle in her 48-year history with Penland School of Crafts: she first attended a workshop in woodworking with Bill Keyser in 1976 there. She taught her first workshop in 1981, and continued to teach there over a span of 30 years. Now she serves on their board of trustees - "it's a true pleasure to be able to give back to this school who has nurtured me first as a student and then as an educator."

|http://www.penland.org/about/board-of-trustees/

Furniture designer & maker, artist, and educator Wendy Maruyama is a legend in her field. Born with Cerebral Palsy, deaf, and growing up 3rd generation Japanese-American she discovered an interest in woodworking as a teenager and by early adulthood was one of the first two women to get an MFA in Furniture Design from RIT. Throughout her nearly 50-year career, Wendy has been extremely influential in the world of studio and artistic furniture. She’s also a badass feminist, and funny as all hell.

www.cleverpodcast.com/blog/ep-128-wendy…

www.craftinamerica.org. Wendy Maruyama, furniture maker and educator, delves into matters of ethnicity, gender and world issues in her studio in San Diego, CA. Born an American of Japanese heritage, Maruyama satisfied her artistic passions by becoming an important furniture maker in a field dominated by men and in the process, overcame challenges related to her deafness and disability. Her recent series titled "WildLife Project" was inspired by the wrongful slaughter of African elephants and rhinoceroses.

IDENTITY: Artists explore issues of gender, race, culture and place, offering true expressions of their experience in this world. Featuring potter Diego Romero, photographer Cara Romero, furniture maker Wendy Maruyama, and sculptor Cristina Córdova. PBS premiere December 27, 2019 (check local listings).

Opens October 4 through January 4, 2015

Organized by the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston, Massachusetts, the Museum of Craft and Design is the final stop of this traveling exhibition funded by the Windgate Foundation.

Wendy Maruyama: Executive Order 9066 includes three integrated parts: the Tag Project, Executive Order 9066 and a selection of historical artifacts.

The Tag Project consists of 120,000 replicas of the paper identification tags that Japanese American internees were forced to wear when they were being relocated. The tags are grouped into ten sculptural bundles and suspended from the ceiling, each bundle represents one of the camps. They evoke a powerful sense of the humiliation endured by the internees and the sheer numbers of those displaced.

Executive Order 9066 involves a series of wall-mounted cabinets and sculptures referencing themes common in the interment camps. Maruyama’s pieces integrate photo transfers based on the documentary photographs of Dorothea Lange and Toyo Miyatake in conjunction with materials such as barbed wire, tarpaper and domestic objects.

Maruyama’s addition of actual objects owned or made by the internees brings an intensely personal awareness to the impact of Executive Order 9066. Included objects range from actual suitcases used by families during their relocation to an array of items made from available materials in the camps.

Organized by The Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, MA

Exhibit design: Ted Cohen

The Museum of Craft and Design’s exhibitions and programs are generously supported by the Windgate Charitable Foundation and Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.

A new edition of Mickey MacIntosh will be released this year and the first of the 2011 edition will debut at this year's San Diego Contemporary Art Fair at the Bay Front Hilton Hotel September 2-4, 2011. For more information, go to http://artsandiego-fair.com/email_publicity/july_highlights_email.html

Fuller Craft Museum is proud to present its first exhibition exclusively devoted to studio furniture from the Museum's permanent collection. This exhibition showcases a growing collection of works from emerging and master furniture artists.

Highlights from the Permanent Collection
February 13 — April 18, 2010

A selection of the works from Fuller Craft Museum's permanent collection will be on display in the M. Tarlow Gallery. Works on display include special emphasis on ceramics and wood.

Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Massachusetts

Curated by Fo Wilson, The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Contemporary Craft steps beyond the boundaries that currently exist among technology, art, and craft. The artists in this exhibition use new technologies in tandem with traditional craft materials – clay, glass, wood, metal and fiber – to forge new artistic directions.

Digital video and audio, computerized design, and other technologies are viewed as new materials to be exploited, manipulated and co-opted to enrich artistic expression. The New Materiality: Digital Dialogues at the Boundaries of Craft examines this phenomenon and its impact on the world of contemporary craft.

Sponsored by George Washington Toma and WGBH.

http://www.fullercraft.org/exhibitions.html

My latest work is on view from March 18 - 21 2010 at the Architecture Digest Home Show in NYC as part of the Historical Woods of America Exhibition.

The Historical Woods of America is an organization that tracks trees from significant historical sites across the country and saves the wood to be used for furniture, sculpture and turned objects.

My piece, "Fractured", addresses the fragmentation of the Japanese American community during WWII and the effects of Executive Order 9066. The wood I used came from elm that was excavated from Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, and one of the founding fathers and principle author of the Declaration of Independence.

www.archdigesthomeshow.com/show-informa…
www.historicalwoods.com/

In conjunction with the exhibition, "Art of Gaman", Wendy Maruyama and Mira Nakashima will be lecturing on April 10 and 11, 2010. The Tag Project will take place at the Renwick on April 11 at 2 PM.

www.jra.org/Get%20Involved/Maruyama.html

My work will be part of an exhibition entitled "Material Matters: Works by the Allied Craftsmen of San Diego". The exhibition will be open until July 10, 2010.

www.artcenter.org/museum/exhibitions/

"Executive Order 9066" Solo Exhibition

Wendy Maruyama's solo exhibition at the Richard and Dolly Maas Gallery at SUNY Purchase will open on January 12, 2009. The reception will be held on January 29th, with an opening lecture entitled "Japanese Roots, American Soil" by Mira Nakashima, furniture designer, and daughter of George Nakashima.

The exhibition will be comprised of new works created during Maruyama's residency, along with earlier work produced in the past year and a half. The works trace the artists' exploration of ethnicity and identity, and conclude with the Executive Order 9066 series, which addresses the internment of Japanese Americans in the US during World War II. 120,000 Japanese Americans were evacuated and removed from their homes along the West Coast, including Mira Nakashima and her family, and Maruyama's maternal family members. Maruyama's works were profoundly influenced not only by her family history but the images taken by Dorothea Lange, who was working for the US Government Service in documenting the internment process.

For more information, contact Dennis FitzGerald at dennis.fitzgerald@purchase.edu.

Wendy Maruyama has been selected to be an Artist in Residence at State University of New York, Purchase College. Her residency runs from September 4 - December 30, 2008. She is also teaching the "Master Class in Wood" there during this time.

Wendy Maruyama "Samplings" Workshop at Anderson Ranch Arts Center July 28 - August 8, 2008

www.andersonranch.org/workshops/courses…

Comic-Con

"King of the Monsters" and "Angry Asian Women" are both being featured at Comic-Con's Art Show on July 23,24 25, 26 2008, at the San Diego Convention Center. You can see both pieces as you enter the main hall, to your right. Say "hello" to Godzilla, Devilman Lady, and Silene if you visit my pieces!

The Furniture Society Honors Maruyama, Weed by Anissa Kapsales

From the Taunton Press Community Blog

blogs.taunton.com/woodworkinglife?entry…

Q&A with furniture designer Wendy Maruyama

By Lauren Heist

For more than 30 years, Wendy Maruyama has pushed the envelope of furniture design, creating pieces that combine Asian-inspired clean lines with an unusual artistic vision. And for more than 20 years, she’s been encouraging her furniture design students to do the same.

Maruyama received her undergraduate degree in artisanry from Boston University in 1978 and her Masters of Fine Arts from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1980. Shortly after receiving finishing school herself, Maruyama began teaching others about the art of woodworking and furniture design, first at the Appalachain Center for Crafts in Smithville, TN, from 1980 to 1985, then at the California College of Arts and Crafts from 1985 to 1989, and since 1989, at San Diego State University.

This June, the Furniture Society presented Maruyama with an Award of Distinction at their annual conference, honoring her lifetime achievement as a furniture designer and educator.

Here, Maruyama talks about how designing furniture and teaching furniture design are labors of love.

www.furniturestyle.com/Departments/Feat…

Mixing it up at the Mingei 'Forms in Wood and Fiber' showcases works in different media

By Robert L. Pincus
ART CRITIC - San Diego Union Trib

June 19, 2008

Tables, a teahouse and a few works of art....

“Forms in Wood and Fiber,” a second show at the Mingei curated by its director, Rob Sidner, provokes big questions. First among them: Why is one piece of furniture a work of art and another is simply a piece of nicely done craftsmanship? Second question: Why does art that tries really hard to be meaningful fall flat? All of those represented in the show have considerable skills in their medium. Many are members of a 38-year-old group known as California Fibers, whose members work in media as diverse as basketry, weaving and wood. Their output runs a gamut from bowls to figurative sculpture.

The best of the work on view doesn't worry about being art with a capital A. They simply wed form to ideas better than much of what's included. Wendy Maruyama, who heads the woodworking and furniture design program at SDSU, shows why she
is so highly regarded internationally with a piece like “Philip Cabinet” (1995). It is wall-mounted and finished in a burnished green. Inside, there's a box with a patterned door, like a secret compartment set within its elegantly finished shelves. The overarching effect is magnetic – mysteriously so.

Her full-scale “Teahouse” is compelling, too. It takes traditional design and adds hand-rendered panels within, which function like paintings set within its walls. Other examples in wood simply don't come close. Brett Allen Hesser's “Game Table” is immaculately assembled, with inlaid ivory, but the design is showy, featuring too many effects and styles competing for your attention.

In the arena of wall-works and sculptures, too many artists strain to whack you over the head with symbolism and tell you (in wall text) what they mean. One case: “Impulse” by Gail Fraser, a woven form loosely resembling a canoe, suspended from the ceiling. While well-made, the form is pretty pat and its metaphorical dimensions all too familiar. As she writes: “I think of myself in the form of a canoe or waterborne vessel on a journey through life.”

No one doubts the sincerity of her sculpture and words. But sincerity isn't always enough to yield persuasive art. Unfortunately, many of the objects in the show underscore this point.

Find this article at:
www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/200806…

Opening on June 8, 2008, FORMS IN WOOD AND FIBER – Southern California New Work, features the work of six distinguished San Diego wood artists and California Fibers, an exemplary group of artist craftsmen from Los Angeles, Orange and San Diego counties. Recognizing the rich diversity of excellent wood and fiber artist craftsmen in this region, the exhibition is conceived as a lively conversation among peers and between two artistic media. Both fresh perspectives on traditional forms and cutting-edge contemporary expressions will be included in works of superior design and craftsmanship.

Woodworkers in the exhibition are Professor Wendy Maruyama, internationally recognized Program Head of the Woodworking and Furniture Design Program at San Diego State University; Russ Filbeck, highly respected Associate Professor in the Cabinet and Furniture Technology Division at Palomar College in San Marcos; Patrick Edwards, renowned practitioner and teacher of traditional European marquetry (wood inlay); Del Cover, specialist in chair building with current work featuring architectural elements; Brett Hesser, youngest graduate of Leeds Design Workshops who concentrates on the application of fine wood veneers; and Dr. Gene Blickenstaff, admired for his innovative, translucent turned bowls of Norfolk Island Pine.

www.mingei.org/exhibitions/detail.php?E…

2008 Award of Distinction from the Furniture Society - Wendy Maruyama

Wendy Maruyama has influenced generations of makers both as a teacher and an artist. She is a 1978 graduate of the Boston University Program in Artisanry and received her Master of Fine Arts in 1980 from Rochester Institute of Technology. From 1985 to 1989 she was Head of the Woodworking and Furniture Design Program at California College of Arts and Crafts, and since 1989 has been a Professor in the Woodworking and Furniture Design Program at San Diego State University. Maruyama also taught at the Appalachian Center for Crafts, Smithville, TN from 1980 to 1985. Her work has been featured in exhibitions and collections nationwide for over 20 years, and reflects a tireless advocacy of furniture as a means of self expression.

furnituresociety.org/furn/index.php?pag…

Mickey Macintosh is now featured in "500 Chairs" by Lark Books.

see slide show of featured chairs: s283.photobucket.com/albums/kk309/RayLa…

to order yours NOW www.larkbooks.com/500

The Seat: Through Craft - April 1, 2008

The Seat: an exhibition of chairs by 14 artists, opens April 1st, 2008 at Gallery Ho, Seocho Dong 1538-4, Seocho Gu, Korea (137-872). Curated by Park Chulyeon, the exhibition is a survey of furniture with a focus on varied materials and approaches to the concept of "The Seat". The exhibition runs from April 1-14th, with lectures by Wendy Maruyama, Thomas Hucker and Gail Fredell on April 2nd at 2 PM at Kyungwon University.

See exhibition announcement in folder "exhibition announcements"

New West Coast Design - January 18-April 27, 2008

Two new works, both with video, will be exhibited at "New West Coast Design" at the San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design. The exhibition opens January 18, 2008 and closes March 30th.

I will also have a new "Kanzashi" piece in a satellite exhibition at Velvet DaVinci Gallery in San Francisco - this show is part of the "New West Coast Design" http://www.velvetdavinci.com/

NEW WEST COAST DESIGN

This exhibition will highlight a collection of the most exciting new designs for contemporary living currently emerging on the West Coast, including functional pieces for interiors, outdoor sports gear, and landscape design. The breadth of work to be displayed will emphasize multiplicity of materials and objects designed and fabricated by established and new artists in the field. Participating venues include: San Francisco Museum of Craft+Design, Velvet da Vinci, San Francisco Center for the Book, Museum of Craft and Folk Art, Bucheon Gallery and Art Works Downtown.

Co-curators: Ted Cohen and Kathleen Hanna
Exhibition Design: Ted Cohen

January 18, 2008 through April 27, 2008

Mid-Career Retrospective" exhibition at the Fullerton College Gallery - January 22-February 22 2008

boxoffice.fullcoll.edu/event_detail_c.a…

Inspired by China - October 28, 2006 to March 30, 2008

"Vanity", the first major work with an embedded video, is now traveling in the exhibition, "Inspired by China". For more information on the exhibition and its founding institution, the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem MA, go to

www.pem.org/ibc/

Craft In America - PBS Series + Exhibition

My chair, Mickey Macintosh, is traveling in this exhibition. For more information on the exhibition itself, go to www.craftinamerica.org