Episode 10 - Hanako O'Leary
Welcome to Episode 10 of Sharpest Knives Podcast! This episode is the finale of Season 1 of this project and represents the culmination of a year’s worth of work. Thank you for listening and I hope you’ve enjoyed this first season!
Episode 10 is Maris’s conversation with ceramicist Hanako O’Leary.
Hanako has a busy 2020 coming up with exhibitions at King Street Station and Method Gallery in September 2020. But you have a couple opportunities to see her work before then. First, the first half of Hanako's work from her Izanami project will be on display at Edmonds College in February, and there will be an opening reception on February 21 for that exhibition.
Hanako will also have some of the masks from her 1200 Spirits collection on exhibit and available for purchase at Pottery Northwest for ClayFest Northwest which opens December 13th and runs until the 20th.
Last, if folks want to keep up with what Hanako is up to, make sure to follow her on instagram @HannyaGrrrl. She posts a lot of in process photos and video while she works
Hanako talks about how her institutional and real world arts education work together, her inspiration for her current izanami project including Hanako's additions to the story of the Shinto queen of the underworld Izanami, letting go and making space for new knowledge, and how her processes are rooted in gratitude and community.
Hanako O’Leary was born and raised by her Japanese mother and American father. She grew up roaming the suburbs of Chicago. Every year, for 2 months during the summer holiday, her mother would take her and her siblings back to their ancestral home in Hiroshima, Japan. These summers were spent learning how to cook, clean, and honor her ancestors from her four aunts, Nagako, Nobuko, Atsuko, and Masako. Hanako attended this annual pilgrimage until the year she turned 18 and these summer months would deeply influence her spiritual beliefs, artistic voice, and feminine ideals.
Spending most of her life on American soil, but always under a Japanese matriarchy, Hanako learned to bridge these identities through art, employing traditional Japanese imagery to narrate her current American story.
Hanako has received an extensive arts education within institutional walls and beyond. She exists through her hands. Thus she has had many a love affair with a range of tactile artistic mediums. She is currently building her ceramic series, Izanami, as a long term resident artist at Pottery Northwest.
Hanako works for Shunpike as a Program Coordinator for their Storefronts project.
(Bio from http://www.hannyagrrrl.com/bio)
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Sharpest Knives is partially supported by the Seattle Office of Arts and Culture.
