Wendy Maruyama
This sandbox is in the article namespace. Either move this page into your userspace, or remove the {{User sandbox}} template. Wendy Maruyama (born 1952) is an artist, furniture maker, and educator from California. She was influential in the early period of post-modern artistic furniture. She challenged the masculine environments within the field of woodworking. Her work uses humor, social commentary, sculptural forms, and color to challenge the accepted notions of furniture. Conceptually her work deals with social practices such as her Japanese-American heritage, feminism, and wildlife endangerment in Africa.[1]
Maruyama served as the head of the Furniture Design department at San Diego State University for 35 years. [1]
Background
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Maruyama studied woodworking at San Diego State University, where she received her BA in 1975. She then studied woodworking at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. She transferred to Boston University's Program in Artistry from 1976-1978, where she studied under Alphonse Mattia and Jere Osgood. In 1980, she was one of the first women, and the first deaf student to complete an MFA at the Rochester Institute of Technology's School for American Crafts in New York.[1][2]
Career
Educator
Maruyama taught at the Appalachian Center for Crafts in Smithville, Tennessee from 1980-1985, and served as head of the woodworking and furniture design program from 82-85. She then went on to work as the head of woodworking and furniture design at California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California from 1985-1989. After that she was the head of woodworking and furniture design at San Diego State University from 1989-2014.[1]
Early in her career, Maruyama taught at the California State University in Northridge, California in 1970. From 1970 up to present day, she has taught workshops at craft schools including Penland School of Crafts in Penland, North Carolina, and Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Village, Colorado. Although she has officially retired, Maruyama continues to serve as a mentor for her former students, and is set to teach a workshop at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in the summer of 2017.[1]
Artist
Her earliest works in the 1970's were very typical of the style during that time, including visible cabinetmaking skills, compound bent lamination, celebration of complex wood grains and types. Along with Rosanne Somerson and Gail Fredell, Maruyama was one of the first women to break into the field of Studio Furniture. These women responded to the marginalization felt by a male-dominated field by making work that used complex joinery, bent lamination, and technical processes in order to satisfy that imposed criteria.[3] Maruyama felt restricted by this type of highly technical furniture, and set out to make more expressive works during her time at RIT. [1]
Believing in the art of furniture making, Maruyama stated "I see furniture as a archetypal object that can also be expressive of the times. Furniture is capable of setting a certain mood and reflecting common ideals in our lives." [1]
Maruyama is a prolific maker. In her early career she was producing 15-20 pieces of furniture each year. She continued to produce about 6-8 pieces every year while of teaching full-time and maintaining other responsibilities. [2]
The 1980's was an era of experimentation with forms and aesthetics, using colored surfaces, angular forms, and several mediums. Later in the 80's, Maruyama entered what she describes as a "white period", of "post-nuclear primitive", as an opposition to nuclear testing. These works consisted of pale, white furniture that she imaged would exist after a nuclear Holocaust.[1]
Her 1982 piece, Mickey Mackintosh Chair, humorously plays homage to the cartoon character Mickey Mouse, but also speaks to the renown Scottish designers Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh. Maruyama's chair visually alludes to the iconic tall-backed Mackintosh Chair by the twentieth-century duo. [1]
Her work is included in permanent collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Dallas Art Museum, Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, AUS; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA; Museum of Craft and Design, New York, NY; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC; Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA; Mingei International Museum, San Diego, CA; and the Oakland Museum of Art, Oakland, CA. [4]
WildLife Project
Tag Project
Maruyama served as a board member of the Furniture Society.
Awards and Distinctions
- National Endowment for the Arts Grant
- California Civil Liberties Public Education Grant, 2010, several National Endowment for the Arts Grants for Visual Artists, the Japan/US Fellowship, and a Fulbright Research Grant to work in the UK. [5]
Exhibitions
Wendy Maruyama has held solo exhibitions in New York City; San Francisco; Scottsdale, Arizona; Indianapolis, Indiana; Savannah Georgia; and Easthampton, New York. She has also exhibited in Tokyo, Seoul and London. [4]
Her exhibitions include:
2012 - "Wendy Maruyama: Executive Order 9066", The Society of Arts and Crafts, Boston, MA.
2009 - "Executive Order 9066", Richard and Dolly Maas Gallery, SUNY Purchase, NY.
2005 - "Men in Kimonos", Pritam and Eames Gallery, East Hampton, NY.
2003 - "Turning Japanese", Pritam and Eames Gallery, East Hampton, NY.
2002 - "The Inside Story", Herron School of Art, Indianapolis, IN.
2000 - "In the Eye of the Beholder", Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA.
1999 - Solo Exhibition, John Elder Gallery, New York, NY.
1998 - "Wendy Maruyama: New Work", Joanne Rapp Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ.
1997 - "Hako", NUNO Inc., Japan.
1995 - "Wendy Maruyama: Simple Pleasures and Indulgences", Peter Joseph Gallery, New York, NY.
1990 - Solo Exhibition, Snyderman Gallery, New York, NY.
1989 "Craft Today USA"[1]
1984 "Material Evidence"[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Cooke, Jr, Edward S. , Gerald W.R.Ward, and Kelly H. L'Ecuyer (2003). The Maker's Hand: American Studio Furniture, 1940-1990. Boston, Massachusetts: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. p. 130. ISBN 0878466630.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ a b Kruppenbacher, Frank A. (Spring–Summer 2003). "Wendy Maruyama". Focus - National Technical Institute for the Deaf - Rochester Institute of Technology.
- ^ Cooke Jr,, Edward S. (2000). Women furniture makers : from decorative designers to studio makers. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300087349.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link) - ^ a b "Wendy Maruyama | The Furniture Society". furnsoc.org. Retrieved 2017-03-06.
- ^ "Wendy Maruyama | School of Art + Design". art.sdsu.edu. Retrieved 2017-03-06.
Further Reading
- Craft in America -Wendy Maruyama
- Design Sponge - Wendy Maruyama
- TedX - Wendy Maruyama on the TAG Project
- Knight Foundation - Wendy Maruyama
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