Shodo

Hiroko Okata

Hiroko Okata was a shodo artist and founder of the Montreal School of Japanese Calligraphy. Born in Yamaguchi prefecture in Japan, Okata studied calligraphy as a child, but became serious about the art only after she graduated from university with a psychology degree, and the death of her mother. She studied at the school run […]

Yoshimaru Abe

Yoshimaru Abe was an entertainer, artist, haiku poet, garden designer. Born in 1914 in Fukuoka, Japan, Abe immigrated to Canada in 1927 to join his parents in Port Hammond, BC. There he worked for the local lumber mill while also working on the family strawberry farm. With other Japanese community members, he engaged in shibai […]

Tomoko Kodama

Tomoko Kodama was a sumi-e painter born in Tokyo. She first discovered her love of art in high school, and went on to study nihonga painting in university. She received a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1957. Kodama immigrated to Canada with her husband, Hideomi Kodama, in 1962. They were planning on staying only […]

Miyo Tominaga

Miyo Tominaga is a tanka poet. She was born on August 6, 1918 in Nagano Prefecture and studied tanka and shodo in Japan. She moved to Quebec in 1987 and was the instructor of a tanka study group in Montreal in the 1990s and a long-time member of the ASUKA tanka group now dissolved. She […]

Peter Wakayama

Peter Hiroshi Wakayama is a retired architect born in Pt. Hammond, B.C. on August 28 1936. During the war, Wakayama was interned with family at Hasting Park, Vancouver, B.C., and in the interior of B.C. at Tashme, Roseberry, and New Denver. After the war, the family moved east to Chatham, Ontario where Wakayama went to […]

Gloria Kagawa

Gloria Kagawa is an established printmaker, painter, and mixed media artist whose works have earned her several awards and are included in a number of public, private, and corporate collections. Gloria has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Gloria grew up in Denver, Colorado, during the 1950s […]