daruma in bloom
Have you got your ticket yet to the event of the season? The Nikkei National Museum is busily preparing for BLOOM, our sixth annual silent art auction and fundraiser on Saturday, May 24, 2014. This is the museum’s main fundraiser, to support our exhibits, and educational & cultural programs. We hope you will join us for a fun and artful evening in our beautiful Ellipse Lobby, including tasty appetizers by Butter on the Endive and Open Sesame, a cash bar and local entertainment. Tickets are only $25 ($20 for NNMCC members).
This year we will feature daruma dolls – and over 100 wonderful local artists have agreed to create a customized daruma that can be auctioned for the Centre. Daruma, a popular talisman of good luck in Japan, traces back to the origin of Zen in the 5th century. These simple tumbling dolls are armless, legless, and are made out of papier maché with a weighted bottom to always stand upright even if pushed down, symbolic of perseverance and fortitude. Classic daruma are eyeless and are considered to be good luck in achieving goals. One eye is painted in upon setting the goal, and the second eye is painted in once the goal has been accomplished.
The art daruma will be on display in the Nikkei National Museum gallery from May 10 – 24, and images of these amazing artworks will also be posted online. Check them out in person, or online. If you can’t attend the party, you are welcome to submit a proxy bid.
Nikkei National Museum’s mandate is to preserve and promote Japanese Canadian history, arts and culture through vibrant programs and exhibits that connect generations and inspire diverse audiences. With your help, we will continue:
•To present thought-provoking exhibits that look at past history and contemporary art.
•To share Nikkei history and Japanese cultural traditions with over 1000 school students each year through our educational programs.
•To assist hundreds of researchers to access our important collections of historic artifacts and archives relating to Japanese Canadian history and art.
With over a hundred daruma in the BLOOM show, you are sure to find one that will appeal to you! We are so impressed with the creativity of our artists. Works range from traditional figures to whimsical animal figures, abstract geometric expressions, and exploding blasts of colour. Here is a small sampling of the range of styles and imagination.
UTZKU
by Teodora Zamfirescu
pen and ink
These dramatic black and white graphics, with just a touch of red, represent the struggle through hardship and the hope and possibility of breakthrough. Teodora Zamfirescu’s most recent work focuses on drawing and video. She was born in Transylvania and has lived in four countries across Europe and North America. She works as a Visual Art educator and trained at UBC and SFU. You may view her work at www.teodoraz.net
GOOD LUCK GOALS
by Alison Woodward
acrylic and gouache
With a muted grey and gold palette in an illustrative style, the owl is a symbol of wisdom relating to the culture surrounding the daruma. Alison Woodward is an illustrator and tattoo apprentice working in Vancouver BC.
DARUMA
by Cindy Fang
acrylic
This cute daruma incorporates plants and animals with the flag of Canada. Born in Taiwan, Cindy Fang later studied the service industry in university in Kobe, Japan. After graduating, she moved to Canada and now lives in Burnaby. A few years ago, she became interested in visual art and started studying at the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts – in different media such as watercolours, acrylics, pastels and ceramics.
FALL SEVEN TIMES
by Lotus Miyashita
acrylic, mixed media
Lotus Miyashita, involved in the visual arts for most of her life, has come a long way since her childhood in East Vancouver. She eventually found her way exiting from Emily Carr College of Art & Design, clutching a diploma and giggled all the way home with plans for changing the world with pretty pictures. Her cards and other artwork are often featured in the museum shop.
by Raymond Nakamura
acrylic, paper
What would you get if a Daruma and Furby had a baby?
Raymond Nakmura is a writer, educator, and artist when he is not helping his daughter with her homework or walking his dog.
by Cindy Mochizuki
acrylic, wood (cedar)
Cindy Mochizuki is an interdisciplinary artist with a practice that moves across several forms including drawing, animation, multi-media installation, collaborations, performance and community-engaged projects. Her works often explore the space between the fictional and the documentary; integrating archival sources and interviews as a common thread within the process of her work.
www.cindymochizuki.com
ODARUMA KORARUMA
by Hitomi Fukui
acrylic, washi, wood
This whimsical figure adds a second daruma to help bring about two wishes.
Hitomi Fukui was born in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan in 1986. In 2010, she graduated from Tama Art University with a major in oil painting. She recently participated in an artist residency in Australia and is now enjoying time in Vancouver.
BLUSH
by Zoe Garred
watercolour, pencil and gold leaf
Zoe Garred is a Vancouver based designer. Working primarily with natural materials, Zoe’s passion lies in creating objects that are simple, useful and timeless. Zoe has exhibited all over the world including at the ICFF NYC, 100% Design Tokyo and Designweek in London. She holds degrees in industrial design from Emily Carr University and in painting from the University of Calgary.
MANIFEST PROSPERITY
by Claire Sower
acrylic, mixed media
Incorporating the traditional colours of red and gold – for luck and fortune – my “Manifest Prosperity” daruma represents the blooming of good things – the manifestation of Dharma. As an artist I am drawn to the way in which light and colour marry to form and shape, fire our imaginations and inspire our emotions. I believe that the act of looking at a piece of art should inspire. I love whimsical combinations of light and colour that inspire happiness and joy and flowers, to me, do just that.
A HUNDRED EYED DARUMA
by Tomoyo Ihaya
gouache, acrylic, Japanese paper
Tomoyo Ihaya was born in Mie, Japan and has been a resident of Canada since 2000. Her primary medium is printmaking, drawing and installation work. She pursued curatorial studies at Rikkyo University and fine arts at Mount Allison, Emily Carr and Capilano College. In 2002 she obtained an MFA from the University of Alberta. Her curiosity of other cultures and a strong belief that art and one’s life should be intertwined has lead her to travel and produced art work through international artist-in-residency programs in India, Mexico, Thailand, the United States (Utah) and Canada (Edmonton).
DARUMA
Many of us are familiar with the brilliant red and eyeless papier-mâché dolls called daruma. Frequently seen at banks, stores, restaurants and in our own homes – particularly at New Year’s – the daruma doll is a symbol of good luck, persistence and determination. Perhaps less familiar is that daruma is the Japanese manifestation of a 5th century AD wandering sage named Bodhidharma who originated in India. Having wandered from India to China, it is said he traversed the Yangtze River balanced upon a single reed and came to Shaolin Temple where he sat in a cave in meditation for nine years. In an effort not to succumb to sleep, it is said he cut off his eyelids and flung them to the ground which would account for the eyeless dolls with which we are now familiar. After so many years of meditating, mythology further states that his legs and arms – atrophied from so little use – withered up and fell off, thus resembling the tumbler dolls we have today.
Whether or not these accounts are true, what is a fact is that Daruma – the founder of Zen Buddhism in Japan – has been revered for centuries and played many roles. As early as the 16th century daruma were used to protect children from smallpox because the red colour was thought to ward off the disease; meanwhile, Edo period woodblock prints show many examples of citizens building yuki daruma (snowmen) in the telltale rounded shape. Today daruma come in many colors and sizes and are an icon of good fortune in marriage, business and the like. By painting in one eye, and making a wish, daruma ensures our prosperity for another year.
