Wendy Maruyama

Shadows from the Past: Sansei Artists and the American Concentration Camps

Website:

http://wendymaruyama.com 

Biography:

Wendy Maruyama is one of the first women to graduate with a Masters in furniture making from Rochester Institute of Technology. She has been a professor of woodworking and furniture design for over 30 years. Maruyama has exhibited her work nationally for over four decades with solo shows in New York City, San Francisco, Scottsdale, Indianapolis, Savannah and East Hampton. She has exhibited internationally in Tokyo, Seoul and London. Maruyama’s work can also be found in both national and international permanent museum collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas; Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Australia; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Museum of Art and Design, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton; Mingei International Museum, San Diego and the Oakland Museum of CA. Maruyama is a recipient of several prestigious awards, including the California Civil Liberties Public Education Grant, 2010; several National Endowment for the Arts Grants for Visual Artists; the Japan/US Fellowship; and a Fulbright Research Grant to work in the UK. Maruyama resides in San Diego, CA. 

Artist Statement:

I am an artist, furniture maker and educator. In recent years, I have transitioned from the making of traditional craft objects into the realm of social justice with a focus on Japanese incarceration. The Tag Project, one of my pieces in this exhibition, is composed of sculpture created from replicas of the paper identification tags that prisoners were made to wear and a selection of objects that were used or made by the people in the camps. I am a Sansei – my grandparents immigrated to the United States from Japan in the late 1800’s. My father’s side of the family immigrated through Seattle and eventually settled in Colorado, where they became farmers. My mother’s family settled in Terminal Island, CA where my grandfather owned a fishing boat and forced to move after President Roosevelt issued the Executive Order 9066, on February 19, 1942 which authorized the evacuation of all persons deemed a threat to national security from the West Coast to relocation centers further inland. However, instead of going into a camp, they chose to ‘self-evacuate’— I often refer to people who made this decision as ‘invisible incarcerees’ in that they suffered a different set of circumstances and discrimination on the ‘outside’. My mother’s family eventually made their way to Colorado. 

 

 
The Tag Project consists of 120,000 replicas of the paper identification tags that internees were forced to wear when they were being relocated. The tags are grouped into ten sculptural bundles and suspended from the ceiling, each bundle represents one of the camps. They evoke a powerful sense of the humiliation endured by the internees and the sheer numbers of those displaced. 

 

 

 

Land of the Free
Land of the Free, 2020 
From the Executive Order 9066 Series  
pine, ink, and branches, 6"h x 120"w x 6"d 
Photo Credit: David Harrison 

 


Executive Order 9066 Series (images 2-6) involves a series of wall-mounted cabinets and sculptures referencing themes common in the internment camps. Maruyama’s pieces integrate photo transfers based on the documentary photographs of Dorothea Lange and Toyo Miyatake in conjunction with materials such as barbed wire, tarpaper and domestic objects. Maruyama’s addition of actual objects owned or made by the internees brings an intensely personal awareness to the impact of Executive Order 9066.  Included objects range from actual suitcases used by families during their relocation to an array of items made from available materials in the camps. 

 

ZenMetsu

ZenMetsu

 
Zenmetsu, 2011
From the Executive Order 9066 Series  
ash, paper, glass, pottery shards, 7”h x 72.5”w x 6”d 

 

  
A Question of Loyalty, 2010 
From the Executive Order 9066 Series  
ash, image transfers, 45”w x 8”h x 6” 

 

 


Jichan, 2008   
From the Executive Order 9066 Series  
image transfers, encaustic, 48” x 48” x 3” 
(requires an electrical source) 

Dorothea Lange's photographs documenting the internment of the Japanese Americans in 1942 shows us ourselves in the throes of history, buffeted by forces we can't control and confronting stark realities. It is through her lens that we are able to revisit the experience.   

 



You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap, 2011  
From the Executive Order 9066 Series  
tar paper, video, 48” x 48” x 3”, video embedded 

 

A favorite past time of mine as a child was watching Saturday morning cartoons: Popeye and Looney Tunes were my favorites. I vividly remember the cartoons which I later realized were very anti-Japanese and racist - in 1955 they were still running these cartoons. One of them had a great little jingle which I remember singing along "You're a Sap Mr Jap" – it was also the first time that I recognized my ethnicity being depicted in a cartoon. This piece is covered with tarpaper, which was used in the construction of the camp barracks. The video monitor is situated at a child's height for viewing and plays a loop of three WWII cartoons depicting Japanese with buck teeth, very slanty eyes and big black glasses. 

 

You're a sap, Mr. Jap, you make a Yankee cranky  
You're a sap, Mr. Jap, Uncle Sammy's gonna spanky  
Wait and see before we're done  
The A, B, C and D will sink your rising sun*  
You're a sap, Mr. Jap, you don't know Uncle Sammy  
When he fights for his rights, you'll take it on the lammy  
For he'll wipe the Axis right off the map  
You're a sap, sap sap, Mr. Jap 

You're a sap, Mr. Jap, you make a Yankee cranky  
You're a sap, Mr. Jap, Uncle Sammy's gonna spanky  
Wait and see before we're done  
The A, B, C and D will sink your rising sun  
You're a sap, Mr. Jap, oh what a load to carry  
Don't you know, don't you know, you're committing hari-kari  
For we'll wipe the Axis right off the map  
You're a sap, sap, sap, Mr. Jap 

You're a sap, Mr. Jap, oh it makes a Yankee cranky  
You're a sap, Mr. Jap, Uncle Sam's gonna spanky  
Wait to see before we's done  
The A, B, C and D will sink your rising sun  
You're a sap, Mr. Jap, oh you don't know Uncle Sammy  
When he fights for his rights, you'll take it on the lammy  
For he'll wipe the Axis right off the map  
You're a sap, sap sap, Mr. Jap 

You're a sap, Mr. Jap, oh what a load to carry  
You're a sap, Mr. Jap, you're committing hari-kari  
For we'll wipe the Axis right off the map  
You're a sap, sap sap, Mr. Jap 

 
 

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