Page 29 - Dark Matter Issue5 Part II

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Wendy Maruyama has been making innovative

work for 40 years. While her early work

combined ideologies of feminism and traditional

craft objects, her newer work moves beyond the

boundaries of traditional studio craft and into the

realm of social practice. Born in La Junta,

Colorado, to second-generation Japanese

American parents, since 1994, she has been

creating works inspired by the memory of her

childhood growing up as a Japanese-American,

her interpretation of her ethnic heritage, and her

observations of the Japanese culture, looking in

from the outside. Her latest work, The wildLIFE

Project, focuses on the endangerment of elephants, a cause that is very personal to her.

An educator for 35 years, Maruyama has recently retired from teaching at San Diego

State University, and previously has taught at Appalachian Center for Crafts, California

College of Arts. She has exhibited her work nationally, with solo shows in New York City,

San Francisco, Scottsdale, Indianapolis, Savannah, and Easthampton. She has

exhibited internationally in Tokyo, Seoul and London. Her work can also be found in both

national and international permanent museum collections, including the Victoria and

Albert Museum, London; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Queen Victoria Museum and Art

Gallery, Launceston, Australia; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Philadelphia Museum of

Art; Museum of Art and Design, New York; and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los

Angeles.