Amiko Matsuo
Organization Details
| Name | Amiko Matsuo |
| URL | not provided |
Organization Description
| Mission statement | “What is a Border?” This question became the starting point for developing a unit for art courses at South Seattle College. Student Fennie and I talked with artist/cartoonist Zeke Peña for an artist speaker series that I organize. Zeke’s work about the Rio Grande River, arbitrary borders, and the erasure of histories linked to our own local story about the Duwamish River. We followed the conversation with an activity where students created reportage-style sketches alongside a writer interviewing local river activist Paulina Lopez, who spoke to us about the resilience and community advocacy of the human residents of South Park most directly impacted by urban and legacy toxicity. We learned from Paulina that there is constant need to advocate for health justice, and that some of the most inspired and powerful voices are those of youth in South Seattle. In my work with students, we remember that the space we inhabit has its own unique resonance and unfolding stories. |
| Service(s) description | Matsuo has over a decade of teaching experience at CSU Channel Islands, Allan Hancock College, and South Seattle College where she taught all levels of ceramics and developed an international travel course to rural Japan, where students learned from Japanese artists and helped fire a noborigama wood kiln. She also has expertise in 3D digital fabrication and is a translator and scholar of ceramic history. Matsuo sees the ceramic studio as a kind of community, where people of different levels of experience and different ways of seeing the world work together and share knowledge and resources. It makes sense, then, to bring this community-building experience to the world beyond the college. Matsuo has supported college's participation in the Empty Bowls fundraising event in collaboration with The Food Bank of Santa Barbara County. In 2015, the event raised nearly $42,000 for those in need. Matsuo also shares an interest in connecting art and place. For Matsuo, this means experimenting with making glazes from local clays and ash from brushfires, and it also extends to international contexts. In 2015, Matsuo published Art Place Japan, a translation about an art festival that reconnects people to nature and contributes to the revitalization of a rural area in the mountains of Japan. Matsuo’s writing and art have explored how we might learn from particular Japanese ways of connecting agricultural and natural landscapes. At South Seattle College, Matsuo developed worked with a small group of instructors to develop an interdisciplinary arts series called Artist as Storyteller. It features BIPOC artists, performers, and activists who share and connect with students about what it means to be an artist in today's cultural climate. Matsuo brings a wide range of technical expertise to her classes, from traditional wheel-throwing and hand-building to decorative techniques from Japanese other global traditions. For Matsuo, beautiful ceramic art comes about through critical thinking, collaboration, and cultural exchange. Art grows out of communities, and art can in turn nourish communities. Art shows how traditions continue, and it can suggest how a place can welcome new ideas, new directions, and new people. |
| Program impact | not provided |
Community programs are organized into categories known as Community School Elements. All community programs associated with Amiko Matsuo are listed below and each program may be provided at 1 or more schools. You can use the 'Show Details' buttons to learn more about each program.
Academic Learning (1 program)
Programs that support and reinforce school-day academic instruction within any subject area - language arts, career and technical education, math, science/technology, visual and performing arts, physical education, health education, ethnic studies, social studies, and world languages - in alignment to the curriculum and academic goals for students and the district.