Mayumi was born and raised in a small rural town in Japan. Since childhood, she loved making things with her own hands. She learned to use her grandmother’s sawing machine when she was only six years old. Soon after, she started to crochet. As a child she liked drawing and painting, as well. She loved art and wanted to study it but didn’t have a chance to do so until she came to the U.S.
Before coming to the United States, Mayumi was very busy as a physical education teacher. Exhausted, she decided to take a long holiday and to refresh herself. In 1998, Mayumi came to the United States to study English and became an ESL student at the University of Minnesota.
She recalls, “While I was studying English, I unexpectedly found that I could study art here. I started taking art classes, as many as I could, besides the ESL classes and later I became an undergrad student majoring art. My energy and passion for art exploded since it had been suppressed for a long time. It was like water breaking a dam.”
Mayumi returned to Japan for a short time, but came back again to the United States to pursue her dream to become an artist. In 2006, she graduated from the University of Minnesota with an MFA degree in sculpture. Since then she has had a very active professional career including a solo exhibition at the Minneapolis Institute of Art and a residency at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art in Omaha, Nebraska. Now she is showing her work nationally and internationally.
Her recent work is focused on mortality in eternity and eternity in mortality. She is exploring themes such as repeated generations, ancestry, and a circle of life. She is trying to find the meaning of ephemeral life. Through her work, she is hoping that the viewers have a moment to think about their own lives, and motivate them to consider what they want to or need to do to lead a fulfilling life.
It has been a long journey for her to reach this point but she feels she finally came back to the right track. Now Mayumi is living in Minneapolis, MN: the beautiful and artistic city, with spiritual satisfaction and gratitude as a professional artist.
