DAVID KURAOKA
was born in Kauai Hawaii in 1946. He is a graduate of San Jose State College (M.A.
1970-71) and is currently professor of art and head of ceramics at San Francisco State
University. Kuraoka maintains studios in both
San Francisco and Kauai. Recently his work
has been included in Collective Visions 1967-1997
at the Honolulu Academy of Arts (1997), Americans of
Japanese Ancestry in Multicultural Hawaii organized by the Japanese American National
Museum, Hawaii and touring to Washington DC and Japan (1999), the Schaefer International
Gallery at the Maui Arts and Cultural Center (2001), and Showcase 2 at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, San
Francisco (2001). Kuraokas work has
been collected by the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, The Contemporary
Museum in Honolulu, the College of San Mateo, the Rotterdam Modern Museum of Art, Utah
State University, and by Hilary Rodham Clinton for the White House.
Most of Kuraokas pitfired pieces have the form of a vessel although
they are completely sealed. He begins his
work on the wheel but then manipulates and burnishes the piece to erase its signs and find
the most desirable shape. Kuraoka has said
that he takes his time finding the form because he has so little control over what happens
to the surface of the piece during the pitfiring where the combination of wood ash, rock
salt, and copper carbonate give the work its mottled white, red, and black pattern. |
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