A remembrance trip to the Arizona Japanese American internment camp where my family lived during World War II evoked my own desire to assure that the stories of my parents' generation are not lost. Through oral history interviews and cyanotype pieces featuring Japanese calligraphy, I am creating a visual oral history of my community. I am inspired by the many stories of Japanese American photographers and artists who defied camp regulations that prohibited all cameras, to create art that showed the everyday realities of internment. It is these everyday realities that will help us all understand and relate to the stories emerging from our Japanese American community today.
	I took the traditional form of cyanotype photography from the mid 1800’s and adapted it by using light sensitive chemicals to paint large Japanese calligraphy characters on paper in complete darkness. I bring the paper into sunlight and expose it with images, text, plants and other found objects to tell my stories. A collaboration with Native American poet John Cauthorn resulted in the “Convergent Memory” series you see here. As a caregiver to patients with Alzheimer’s disease, John wrote beautiful poems about their individual journeys while sitting at their bedsides in the middle of the night. His words inspired the images you see here, which were created as a tribute to all those who serve as caregivers to others. An accompanying three dimensional installation invited visitors to write their own stories of care and caregiving on slips of translucent paper, which were suspended in the gallery beneath a swarm of floating origami butterflies. I hope to present these stories and images as a book someday. Enter Cyanotype Gallery