I received art training from many teachers while in Hawaii. The first one was Mimi Fujita, who recognized in me something differnt from the other high school students, and treated me special by providing chances to articulate myself visually when I hardly spoke words of English.
Another teacher is this guy in the photo above. John Wisnosky, my painting teacher at University of Hawaii. He was a good teacher who could see suitable direction for each student.
"Don't do abstract. Figurative is your thing. Look into Andrew Wyeth, Edward Hopper, Ben Shahn..." he used to say to me. I did one painting of chess players in Waikiki in the Impressionist style. He liked it and had it hanged in his office for a long time. Following the direction, the last painting I did was super realistic one, which won a purchase award and became a permanent collection in a museum in Honolulu. The award gave me enough income to finance a trip to the Philippines, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and back to Japan.
I found just today that John had passed away at age of 66, in 2006. I've lost a good connection to Hawaii.
John's other link
Old paint box -
tubes hardened and
a few missing
No comments:
Post a Comment