A few weeks ago, I visited the artist Naoko Matsubara at her home in Oakville, where she has lived since the 1970s.
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she → visit → 1970s
The house, which she designed, is a majestic example of Japanese modernism, with its horizontal construction, low-set roofs and dark wood siding, set back in dense greenery.
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she → design → greenery
Matsubara, who is 89, is one of the world’s foremost practitioners of the woodcut print, in which a design is carved into a block of wood, ink is applied to the block, and paper is pressed onto it to transfer the image.
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paper → carve → image
In July, Naruhito, the Emperor of Japan, conferred the Order of the Rising Sun upon Matsubara, recognizing her effort to promote the relationship between Canada and Japan with her art.
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Naruhito → confer → art
Indeed, her work is held by leading institutions around the world, including the British Museum, the Smithsonian, the Albertina, and Tokyo’s National Museum of Modern Art.
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work → hold → Art
I sat with Matsubara in a white-walled living room lit bright by skylights and large windows.
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I → sit → skylights
Large, colourful abstract prints — many of them Matsubara’s own — hung around the room.
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many → hang → room
Nearby, a Corbusier chaise, exercise equipment and a grand piano gave the space the feel of a lived-in, multipurpose room.
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chaise → give → room
More than the light and colour, what dominated was the smell of katsura wood.
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dominated → dominate → wood
Matsubara brought us Japanese tea — “the real stuff,” she said with a laugh — and with humour and stylistic flair, told of how this daughter of a Shinto priest ended up an eminent artist living in Southern Ontario.
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daughter → bring → Ontario
Origin of an artist
Matsubara grew up in Kyoto during the Second World War.
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Matsubara → grow → War
Given its cultural treasures, the ancient city was one the Americans spared from bombing.
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Americans → give → bombing
But Matsubara remembered being in Nagoya as a child when the bombing raids started.
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raids → remember → child
The family evacuated to the deep country, passing trucks full of dead bodies.
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family → evacuate → bodies
“A B-29 (bomber) was the first thing I started to draw,” she said.
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she → start → ?
“When the bomb came down, it looked like fireworks to a child.”
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it → come → child
In 1957, she enrolled at the Kyoto Academy of Fine Art, where she was taught by the artist Felice Rix-Ueno, who studied at the University of Applied Arts Vienna under Josef Hoffmann.
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who → enrol → Hoffmann
Matsubara spoke about Rix-Ueno’s influence, especially her dictum to “respect the material” she worked with.
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she → speak → material
Rix-Ueno illustrated this by asking students to bring a piece of katsura wood to class, along with some children’s cutting tools.
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Ueno → illustrate → tools
She encouraged the students to work automatically, hacking away.
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She → encourage → students
She then taught them how to print the designs in oil ink with handmade Japanese washi paper.
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She → teach → paper
Then, Matsubara remembered, she told the class, “This is going to be your teacher.
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This → remember → class
This will direct you.
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This → direct → you
That line you could not make with pencil, nor a brush, nor anything.
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you → make → pencil
Only a knife in wood could make that.
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knife → make → that
However, this was not yet the moment that Matsubara decided to become a woodcut printmaker.
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Matsubara → decide → ?
Instead, she said, she was more lost as an artist than ever.
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she → say → artist
Rix-Ueno gave the promising but wayward student some advice: “Go abroad and look back and see what you really want to do.
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you → give → what
You will find it.”
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You → find → it
Matsubara eventually applied and was admitted to the MFA programs at Yale and Carnegie Mellon, choosing to attend the latter on a Fulbright scholarship.
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Matsubara → apply → scholarship
There, in Pittsburgh, she immersed herself in an artistic milieu, experimenting with a variety of materials and techniques.
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she → immerse → materials
Music as inspiration
One day in 1961, some other students invited Matsubara to a concert; she did not know the performer but decided to go anyway.
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she → invite → performer
The man on stage playing a sitar mesmerized Matsubara, who sensed some incantatory power in the music.
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who → play → music
His name, she read, was Ravi Shankar.
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she → read → ?
“The next day I went (to my instructor) and said, ‘I would like to make a woodcut of Ravi Shankar.
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I → go → Shankar
Can you get me some wood?’
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you → get → wood
I don’t know why I said that, but I wanted it.”
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I → know → it
Matsubara promptly got a piece of wood, which she cut down and started carving with two tools she had brought from Japan.
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she → get → Japan
“It was so hard, but I tried and tried.
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I → try → ?
Many weeks passed, and then I got ink and washi and printed it.
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I → pass → it
…and 21 more, not listed.
The Aporia
