Educator, artist Carol Yotsuda reps Kaua‘i at UH show

LIHU‘E — Sunday “Degrees of Distinction,” a University of Hawai‘i alumni invitational exhibition opened at the university’s art gallery where artist and educator, Carol Yotsuda represented Kaua‘i. The show features 24 artists and art historians educated at the Department of Art and Art History, University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, who were recognized for their contributions as artists, educators, designers, researchers and museum professionals. The show runs through Dec. 11.

Yotsuda is a familiar face at festivals, carnivals and all manner of events steering kids toward artful purpose. She’s been “bringing arts to the people and people to the arts,” for 30 years as an artist, educator, community advocate and executive director of the Garden Island Arts Council.

When asked to participate in June,  Yotsuda didn’t hesitate.

“I knew what I wanted to do was Chu-in,” she said.

Chu-in means intermediate shadow and refers to the 49-day period when the spirit of the deceased is in a state of limbo awaiting passage to the Pure Land of Amida Buddha.  

“It’s the time to mourn the loss of a person,” Yotsuda said. “My mom’s been gone 10 years and I needed to deal with her passing.”

Finally a venue large enough to hold the 49 statues Yotsuda envisioned building from clay: Seven rows of seven figures kneeling on a six-by-six foot platform. Over the battalion of 15-inch sculptures hang three 14-foot sheer panels of fabric on which she stitched dreams and scenes from childhood.

Since June Yotsuda has been working on the sculptures and banners.

“My mother raised me on old wives tales,” she said. “The three banners are of my mom’s old wives tales. The panels are me releasing all these memories. It was the most cathartic part of the project.”

Pointing to a wide work table consuming the center of her studio she said she’d sit until 4 a.m. at her sewing machine stitching scenes from childhood memories, dreams and nursery rhymes while listening to Japanese music her mother played for she and her siblings. Pulling memory through a needle, Yotsuda dictates without sketch or pattern scenes of children running hand-in-hand up a hill or a cow leaping through an open bedroom window.

“The three banners are me sending my mother’s stories away,” she said.

Yotsuda ceremoniously managed each detail of the work. Individual squares for the threaded narration were dyed shades of pastel then dipped in tea.

“The edges are rough. I don’t like that finished quilt look,” she said. “I want them to look ragged and old — unfinished.”

Adding to the apocalyptic vibe of the installation is the fire ravaged appearance pit-firing gives the earthen surface of the sculptures. Before being fired though, the surface of each figure received hours of hand burnishing. Yotsuda sat evenings with each figure buffing the clay surface to a sheen. Then each piece was sprayed with copper carbonate or wrapped in a copper carbonate soaked string. The copper leaves flashes of red on the clay body.

Each figure assumes the same posture — face gazing up.

“They are all the same, but being hand made they’re all different,” Yotsuda said.

Yotsuda has each of the figures with legs folded under bodies with bare feet visible from behind — the same way she recalls parishioners at her father’s church kneeling. She spent countless Sundays sitting at the back of the church.

“I was always looking at these little toes and giggling,” she said.

 Inside of each figure are 100 little balls of clay.

“They have to speak,” Yotsuda said. “Even clay figures have to say something, otherwise they’re mute.” With 100 balls of two different sizes rattling inside the hollow forms, and 49 sculptures, that’s 4,900 hand rolled balls.

Yotsuda said she doesn’t usually sell her work, but this time is making an exception.

“I am selling all of these,” she said. “This way I am not hanging on to any of it.”