I’ve always had a dream of making a living creating things with my hands. After finishing high school and considering various other mediums like pottery, textile, dyeing, and silverwork, I was still undecided. Then one day, I visited a community art class and saw people making glass beads. I was immediately interested, tried it myself, and was hooked on working with glass…that was in 1975. Besides making beads, I have also experimented with other glass techniques — glass blowing, stain glass, glass fusing, pate de verre, lamp working with Borosilicate glass, etc, in search of the technique which was best suited for me. I enjoyed all of these, but fell in love with lampworking. After all these years I still feel that lamp working allows for an intimate relationship with the glass right there in front of me, in my own studio, by myself. Back then there were no glass art schools in Japan, so with a group of friends that I had met at the community classes, we explored and exchanged various techniques on how to work glass. This was my main source of knowledge. To this day after all these years we still meet when I visit Japan and talk about glass… I wanted to make jewelry with my beads so I also learned how to work silver. In Japan I participated in various group and solo exhibitions. I sold some of my work at the Kitazawa glass museum in Nagano. In 1992, I went to the Pilchuk Glass School in Stanwood, Washington for a summer class with glass artist James Minson. I also attended a class at the Niijima glass art school in Tokyo with Lucio Bubbaco. I took a neon art class in Los Angeles. These classes gave me many wonderful opportunities to try different glass techniques. In the last few years I gave workshops in Ottawa, Vancouver and Red Deer College in Alberta. I have also enjoyed writing and selling my own tutorials, which is also a sort of teaching. I see myself continuing to make beads and develop my art, as glass still offers me limitless possibilities for creating. Everyday, I work in my small atelier in our house. After more than 45 years I still enjoy creating with glass as much as I did in the beginning.

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