by Lynne Farr
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by Lynne Farr |
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Mayumi Oda has been interviewed so many times in her long and
successful career and she herself has written a number of appealingly
readable books about her life and art. What suggests another
article,
specifically one in HI Art Magazine about this celebrated artist, is
the influence of Hawaii Island on her life and work. |
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From her first one-woman show in 1969 at Harvard University, until
1992, she created a series of silkscreen prints of such lasting
beauty and social significance that they were collected by The
Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Library of Congress in
Washington, Princeton and Yale Universities, and The Honolulu
Academy of Arts, among other museums and universities worldwide. For
over twenty years, she depicted, in her uniquely whimsical way,
icons of nature and religion, often seen as male, as female instead.
Some of them she called Goddesses. |
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Her image of “Manjusri,” the traditionally male Buddhist bodhisattva
who exemplifies wisdom, as a female nude riding a unicycle, was
inspired, she recalls, by late 19th century art nouveau posters of
women in bloomers on bicycles - bicycles which gave them newfound
mobility and freedom. She took it to the limit, changing Manjusri’s
sex and usual mode of transportation (a lion), disrobing the
bodhisattva, and replacing the typical raised sword with a gently
flowing sutra scroll. No wonder her courageous conceptions have
charmed and inspired generations of women who see in them symbols of
their own liberation. |
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| In 1992 she co-founded the non-profit anti-nuclear organization “Inochi,” which means “life force,” funding it with sales of her popular art and contributions from artist friends and others. Part of the mission of Inochi was to halt the production, use, and transportation of plutonium, and to achieve a global shift to clean, renewable energy: two ways to end the threat of nuclear proliferation. The demands of travel, fundraising, and speech-making so devoured her time that she stopped painting. She did make some over-sized fiercely feminist hangings, echoing Tibetan thangkas, which were not for sale but were mounted in museums, adding to her reputation. She continued her activism through the end of the century but eventually the grind and the politics palled. |
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Her move to Hawaii Island in 2000 was a
conscious effort to change her own life energy. As a longtime zen
student at San Francisco Zen Center and an organic farmer at its
offshoot, Green Gulch Farm, she’d been in the green movement before
it was “The Green Movement.” She brought her extensive knowledge of
permaculture with her as she bought land, settled in Kealakakua, and
began the dawn-to-dusk work from which Ginger Hill, her organic farm
and retreat center, has emerged. There, she lives with nature, grows
and cooks real food, and nurtures those who come to learn from her. As she puts it, “I finally understood that being “anti”-something is not as powerful as being “pro.” |
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Happily for her waiting
audience, she also began again to draw and paint and make prints. In addition to the joys of working in her newly built art studio, overseeing her farm, holding retreats, the daily harvesting and cooking of a bountiful organic mid-day meal with and for family, workers, students, and visitors, Mayumi Oda practices hula, zen meditation, calligraphy, and Buddhist sutra copying as fulfilling parts of everyday life. Needless to say, she doesn’t sleep as many hours as most of us do. Fully engaged in this latest phase of her creativity, she’s not only a “pro,” she’s a master. |
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For more about Mayumi Oda,
visit
www.mayumioda.net. |
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