Recently, our magazine published an interview with Mark Hurtubise, former president and CEO of Inland Northwest Community Foundation (currently Innovia). The interview informed our readers on how some charitable foundations give donor money to hate groups. Alarming, right?

Recently, Hurtubise shared a link to an article by Jenny Stephens, a freelance journalist (see below). According to Stephens, Microsoft donates money through its online reward program, allowing users of their services, including the search engine Bing, to accrue money to be given to the charities of their choice, including identified hate groups. The users themselves don’t have to contribute a cent.

It is getting more and more difficult for well-intentioned donors to know how their money is actually being spent by groups who purport to be benevolent.

It is a free country, thank goodness. This means that hate groups are allowed to exist, and those who wish to give them money are allowed to do that, so long as they do not commit any crimes. The point is, if donors do not know how their money is being used, then they aren’t exercising true freedom.

The article lists a number of groups readers can research. Aji rejects any form of discrimination on the basis of sex, religion, ethnicity, race, nation of origin, any of the groups protected by U.S. law. We stand with the Southern Poverty Law Poverty Center and other organizations that work to protect the constitutional freedoms and rights of all Americans, not just our own.

We appreciate Mark Hurtubise in sharing this article with our readers so that you may make truly informed choices .
Thank you, Mark, and thank you also to Jenny Stephens for making this information available to all.
​
Hate groups don’t sleep, so those hoping to curb the inequity and violence they foment can’t sleep, either. Hate groups don’t just herald their own rights. They work tirelessly to deny others their constitutional rights, believing their own personal beliefs and values, including in some cases outright bigotry, should be inflicted on everyone else.
That is not our idea of democracy. And so we share this article, hoping that 2023 will be a year of tolerance and respect, empathy and compassion around the globe but especially here in the U.S., a nation founded on those very values.

buckscountybeacon.com/2022/12/microsoft-benevity-include-extremist-and-hate-groups-in-charity-rewards-program/?fbclid=IwAR3Ee4FRhZDQ-Bio8xT9zY-6Pr8YpbfdH6X7HlHGI8QWPv6wAWbeQtqtt7M

by John Allen

Vanessa Manzano is, first and foremost, a singer; however, she is not defined and restricted by the noun singer. As a writer of prose, poetry, and lyrics, she is passionate and sensitive to the human condition. She is introspective and a keen observer of the natural world. She is a searcher in ways that go beyond easy explanation; this informs her musical choices. I came upon her music through a song she composed and recorded with her husband, the multi-instrumentalist Jorge Herrera. Together they are recording an album titled “Fuerte y Claro” (“Loud and Clear”), a collection of songs that can best be described as Latin music: salsa, rumba, bolero, and more. In this interview, I am focusing on Vanessa Manzano the solo artist. When I came upon her YouTube channel, I was captivated by her composition “Mi Vera.” This wide-ranging, profoundly personal conversation is centered on “Mi Vera,” and “Volvé” as well as “Luna Tucumana,” a song made famous by one of her musical role models, Mercedes Sosa. These three songs get at the heart and soul of Vanessa Manzano.           

Read the full interview in issue 17 and enjoy the below clips of Vanessa! 

In our Spring 2022 issue, Mark Hurtubise tackled the troubling issue of foundations funding hate. Since publication, new information is encouraging in the fight against funding hate.

The Council on Foundations is "encouraging foundations to take steps to ensure that they are not funding hate." This is a great resource for people working within in foundations, as well as anyone wanting a deeper dive into the subject matter. Read their entire statement, as well as access the white paper here: https://cof.org/content/values-aligned-philanthropy-community-foundations.

To read a statement from the Council on Foundations on Aligning Values & Practice, as well as access additional resources, go here: https://cof.org/program-initiative/values-aligned-philanthropy.

Working together, raising our voices and talking about this subject can make a difference. We encourage our readers to become more educated on this topic and to support initiatives that end funding hate groups.

Thanks to Mark Hurtubise for sharing his knowledge, passion and expertise on this topic.

House of Falling Objects
(for Ukraine and everything and everyone now fallen all around us)
 
Sing me a song without a note of sadness—
      -from Fa una Canzona by Orazio Vecchi (1550-1605)
 
Ego sum. I am. I am a cheerful person
but still I’ll sing you a sad song
of stacks of things that tumble in the hallways,
of decades sleeping all along the walls
 
where they dream their sundry dreams of railroad trestles,
and the streams that run below them
holding steelhead and the salmon we have wrestled,
both those fish landed and the ones we lost.
 
And for the cost of one more nut brown ale, I will
regale you with an epic tale
of times that were and were not mine, and reinvent
myself a youth, and none of it the truth.
 
If you want that, you’d best not frequent these saloons
lined up on Main street, end to end.
No one needs a mirror, but we all need a friend.
And me, I need a place to be without
 
the detritus of used up, boxed up calendars
tottering like leaning towers
in my front room, ready to fall and pin me there.
Less risk in this tavern— top shelf whiskey
 
in shining rows behind a fine old walnut bar.
If you build a wooden structure,
let’s say a bridge along the railway, or a house,
but don’t maintain it once it’s done against
 
the ravages of rain and snow and time also,
it will just fall down by and by
and if it stands brand new today but in Ukraine,
it could be in pieces by tomorrow.
 
Yesterday I saw some news film of their sorrow--
a tarp spread on the ground, four men
loading it with rubble. Then each one took a corner,
hauled it off, dumped it and went back for more.
 
Ego sum. I am. I am a cheerful person,
obliged to sing you a sad song,
and maybe soon I’ll try to sing you something new--
a bright green tune, not indigo, not blue.

by Anne

I have been visually impaired since early childhood, first with with glasses as thick as portholes.  I was lucky to not be called ‘four-eyes,’ but just ‘owl, owl,’ as well as ostracized from the regular activities of childhood and adolescence.  I then progressed to hard lenses which barely corrected my vision, but I learned to adjust and simply live with it.
 
Over the years, I learned to function independently in all senses of the word — even driving — to a point of superficial oblivion, because I was indeed living on borrowed time as it were.  Then, in my mid-40s in the mid-1990s, I was abruptly and irremediably classified as “legally blind.” That term in itself is rather brutal, especially for those who are not fully blind. It means, in administrative parlance, anybody who has a visual impairment above a certain level of incapacity or impediment, and includes both fully blind folks and those still with a spectrum of visual capacity.
 
It was a punch in the stomach, petrified, a bad dream, a wrong assessment — I could not sort out my feelings.  And when I came to my senses, I realized that there was no way to backtrack, nowhere to hide, and no way to deny it anymore.
 
The almost total freedom I had carved began to crumble from the very foundation.  I was now confronted with what I had been evading all along, just yanked back by sporadic retinal hemorrhages that were now impeding my vision more at each stab.  Each time I was simply sweeping the time bomb to oblivion and resuming my personal normality But this time, I felt like an escapee trapped in a dead end.  So now what?!  Where to turn? What to do?  Even though I had been resourceful all of my life by necessity, this time I was lost — really on my own, in the middle of nowhere and suspended in a strange reality that had finally caught up with me.
 
For a while, I stumbled around, in and out of possibilities.  At the time, I had access to very few resources by nature of being alone and brand new to my classification as “disabled.”  I had to find my way in this new category of existence, and specific resources were scarce in those days due to lack of exposure and outreach.  In my search, I eventually landed upon the Braille Institute.
 
At first, I thought this was a mistake. Again, I wasn’t blind, but it seemed this dedicated place was for the blind only, their title over the building entrance “Braille Institute For The Blind” confirming it. Clearly, I was on the wrong track.  Wasn’t there anything for the non-blind, rather extremely poor vision folks?  I was yet in another dead end and stranded back in bare land for my kind.
 
After some demystification from them that the Institute was for fully blind as well as visually impaired, they noted that I was not the first to point out this problem, beyond semantics, of reality and inclusion, and they assured me they were about to change the title. I was told in order to receive services, I had to register as a student and complete a core of mandatory courses, before moving on to optional offerings.
 
After a series of forms, documents and verifications, I became a Braille Institute student for one year and a half, and got a picture ID card that read: “Braille Institute — Student — Legally Blind”. At the end of this period, I was evaluated to return to mainstream life, the other category being either permanent Braille Institute pupil or returned home. When I completed my last class, “Rights and Resources,” I received an assessment of my capabilities and wishes for the future.  I was led to Los Angeles City College (LACC), where I would further prepare to go back to independent life through vocational studies.
 
For that next step as an adult student, I found myself back in the spin of the unknowns, especially after being cocooned attending classes for over a year.  I had to contact a social worker from some social agency. I forget her name but I will always remember her and her dog.
 
By this point, I had postponed the full realization of losing my sight even more to the point of no longer being able to work, and I was now boiling with a latent but growing pot of frustration and anger.
 
With phone number and name in hand, I called and had my first conversation with my social worker.  Truly, she was the first person I could talk to about my smothering reality.  And I did just that.  During our first connection, I ventilated all of my awful, terrible, poor me, dead end situation feelings.
 
Finally, I had someone to talk to who was listening intently and carefully — so much so, I felt as though I was talking to myself. I was literally overflowing with emotions to the point of drowning, a pressure-cooker spewing suppressed, repressed, and compacted layers of current and decades old fears, anger, sadness and, for the first time, vulnerability and hopelessness.  I repeated to her several times “I am between two worlds, still seeing but not enough to be safe and independent,” or so I thought. “And, I am not even fully blind, so I could go with the logic and systemic procedures of being blind.”
 
She listened to my outpouring of frustration for as long as I needed. Then, she responded with the casual and poised tone of voice of a true professional.
 
“I am blind — yes — since birth, and even if I don’t know the difference or your particular conflict, I can hear and understand your frustration.”
 
In my newfound world of visual impairment, I wished I could have disappeared in a small hole with my feelings of being awkward, stupid, and ashamed.  In honest ignorance, from general assumption of the days, I thought I was talking to a fully sighted person.  I stayed absolutely mute, unable to say any apology or even mumble the slightest syllable. 
 
Toward the end of this long, 45-minute telephone consultation, she asked what I wanted to learn at LACC. I told her Microsoft Word and the internet. In the mid 90s, “Word” was the new upcoming word-processing software.  I already knew the previous software, but Word was different and supplanting the first.  The internet, of course, was the up-and-coming computerized communication system.
 
“I’m planning to work as a translator from home, using a personal computer,” which I did not yet have, along with any technical knowledge, but after a quick assessment of my options to sustain myself, at least partially, working from home with this an almost unknown technology was the only solution. And I would see what develops from there.
 
My social worker scheduled an in-person appointment to meet at the LACC disabled students’ office to register me for technology classes.  By luck, the college was located on the same block as Braille.  I later learned that it was one of the rare colleges — if not the only one at the time — to have a full-fledged “Disabled Students Office” and offering programs in social and disability graduate studies.
 
The day of the appointment, I found the Disabled Students Office. sequestered off in a corner by a secondary, remote entrance, it was in fact a trailer among an endless squad of dormant trailers, positioned precariously on uneven, decrepit ground in a sub-zone far from the center of the college’s campus.
 
There, in front of the office stood a small crowd of students, or would-be students, of all ages.  Most were dressed in unremarkable sneakers and t-shirts, either alone or in the company of two or three other peers.  Most were smoking, walking, or idly leaning against the shingle cabin, enveloped in clouds of swirling smoke, lost in other worlds.
 
The sheer weight of the whole scenery, punctuated by the overcast day, felt surreal to me.  I had stopped smoking back in the mid-80s, and a decade later, I still could not stand the smell of a cigarette.  Yet, I’m not a person to let my emotions plumb me.  I quickly spotted and focused on the entrance door and lunged inside, catching in my mind the largest sign on the door showing a “No Smoking” logo.
 
Inside, the “Disabled Student’s Office” installed in this prefabricated small 2-room construction, was holding one large public room with a long counter, and a tiny kitchen. There was a packed crowd of sorts with chairs, wheelchairs, canes, dogs, walkers, crutches, etc. There was a single toilet for all concerned or interested.  I detached myself from all possibilities of using it, grateful that I had — like always — taken the necessary precautions before leaving for an unknown destination and duration.
 
Fortunately, no smoking was allowed inside.  Yet the heated interior was just as unbearable as a smoking parlor -- stuffy with next to no ventilation. I had the feeling of being on a makeshift rescue raft in the middle of nowhere.
 
I locked on to a long counter, and by some miracle, blazed my way to the front, was sent to another spot where, seated on the other side, I finally met my social worker.  After a cordial greeting, she gently asked me:
“Please don’t get offended, but I’m asking this to everyone, especially my clients, so I can get a better feel for each person.  May I touch your face, lightly with my fingers?  It helps me to get better acquainted.” I agreed. The rest of my encounter with her is a large blank as I was still overwhelmed by my morning first part experience, and I just concentrated on going through the administrative motion as quickly as possible to simply-- leave.
 
When we finished our meeting, I assumed my social worker had other students appointments.  I proceeded out of the office and was barely off the ramp and onto the college grounds, when the entrance door banged open.  She was hurrying out, only a few seconds behind me.
 
She wore an elegant dress with an equally elegant coat, unbuttoned despite the cold day.  She was medium in size and overweight, with small feet pressed into dressy pumps with low, stiletto heels.
 
I stood in silence, trying to figure out how she had managed to get her coat on, pick up her briefcase and umbrella, as well as bring her guide dog, maneuver around the corner, and slalom through the crowd in what seemed like all of an instant.  She must have flown over, like Mary Poppins.  And in that moment, I also realized she was younger than me.
 
“Oh, I thought you were there for the day for other students” I remarked when she stopped near me pausing to regroup. Using the sound of my voice as a guide, she positioned herself in front of me and engaged in a conversation.
 
“I had just another student before you today.  Now, I need to get to a meeting across town, and I’m already running late.”
She gesticulated wildly; it seemed she was trying to organize herself.  Before I could comment, she added, “A corporate meeting, with the brass.  This is why I’m all dressed up today, you know…corporate outfit and all.”  I caught the connection.  She was referring to the long office experience from my resume.
 
“Ah, you have another job?” I asked.  It seemed this was more of a private business position rather than public social work.
 
“Yes, but it’s only part-time”, she replied now fumbling with her briefcase. “Now, we have to run to catch our cab waiting for us on the other side of campus. I usually have the same driver, he knows me, but still… We’re running late and he might not wait too much longer,” Her tone still light and jovial, her face bright, a version of a happy-go-lucky.
 
I was thoroughly puzzled. “Run?  You mean? —“
 
Before I could finish, knowing it sounded odd, she continued, “Yes, running.  We’ve trained my dog and I and he knows what to do.”  She paused.  “The only thing is we trained in sneakers…never with dressy heels.  This will be a first!”  She laughed, reveling in experimenting with the unknown, a daredevil echo in her voice.
 
“You don’t have your sneakers in a bag or something?”

“On no, I’m already carrying enough, and this is not the kind of meeting where you can carry a bag with your shoes in it.”
 
My head was still churning through the eclectic and downright strange happenings of this half day when, after a rushed goodbye, she commanded her dog by name and ordered him: “RUN!”
 
And, off she went still wrestling with her flapping, open coat, arms in all directions, a closed umbrella in one hand, the briefcase and long dog leach in the other. She was half bent forward, not running but flying across the college concrete ground in a plump silhouette with small feet in unstable heeled shoes.  I would not have dared even walking in those shoes alone, even with my residual vision.
 
I froze, body and gaze pointing forward, not daring to turn my head.  I mentally closed my eyes but refrained from closing my ears as it would have looked weird.
 
I was waiting for a catastrophic sound. After a few seconds I threw a quick slant pick in her direction. She was already 30 yards away, and going. For few seconds I cringed with the thought she could step on a small stone, twist her ankle, fall--badly.
 
Again, I turned away from her, thinking if I kept watching her it might bring her bad luck.  After a long silence (and no catastrophic sounds), I ventured a glance back in her direction and instead say the immense and empty gray ground.  She had disappeared, absorbed into the horizon.  Just like quicksilver, she — my Mary Poppins social worker — had vanished just as she had appeared in my life.
 
I never knew if she had wanted to show me that not everything was lost or impossible, or if her dramatic departure was simply circumstantial.  Again, I was left utterly stunned and baffled.  Yet, this time, I was impressed and somewhat amused as well.  A whiff of lightness lifted my entire being. 
 
Deliberately or not, she had given me an invaluable lesson: there is always a ‘beyond’ if you put your mind to it and focus on how you can change yourself, if you adjust your mental eyes.  This had been a motto that had guided me for much of my life but had been sucker punched out of me two years prior.
 
I never saw her or spoke with her again.  Yet, I often think of her, and she will forever be my Mary Poppins Social Worker.  And, when I reminisce on that encounter, sometimes I crack open laughing, and sometimes tears are not too far.  Don’t know why.  Maybe one day.

Interview by Erin O’Neill Armendarez

From the start, Aji’s art reviewers were intrigued by the unique, compelling creations of Kaya Davis.  How, they wondered, could she fashion anything so tiny?  Thanks to staff from Ability Now and to Davis herself, their questions were answered.

It’s clear that Davis is deeply focused on her craft, and on reaching a wider audience that will appreciate her work.  Her drive is an inspiration.  She has followed her own imagination and intuition into a pursuit that can only grow as she devises her own miniature tools and aspires to learn animation one day.  Are you wondering whether your own wild idea could ever become a reality?  Ask Kaya Davis. She has an answer for you.

EOA: Please share some basic background information about yourself with our readers. 
KD: My name is Kaya. I am 28 years old, have autism, and am an artist from California. I grew up in Berkeley with my parents, as an only child who was adopted at birth. My hobbies are drawing, knitting, and origami, and I do it on a very tiny scale.  I am a cat lover and I collect my drawings of dolls, specifically Barbie and Blythe dolls.

EOA: How and when did you discover your artistic talent? 
KD: I have always loved to draw. I’ve also always preferred smaller toys, such as Polly Pocket and Barbie, over bigger toys like American Girl dolls. There were often times that I found myself wanting clothes and accessories for my dolls that I couldn’t buy in the store. As many children do, I would use art to express myself, but as I got older, I discovered that I could make a career from my skill of drawing people and crocheting or knitting the doll clothes and accessories I had always wished I could buy. That was when I was about 14 years old and knitting and crocheting miniatures has been a passion of mine ever since. Throughout high school, I improved my knitting, crocheting, and doing origami skills, and when I turned 21 I found that I wanted to focus only on miniatures.  

EOA: What first attracted you to miniature forms?
KD: I have always seen my dolls as real people, not as dolls at all. I’ve also always been interested in fairytales about fairies and other mythical creatures, as well as the spiritual world. I would sit and draw the fairies, their tiny houses, and the tiny worlds I was imagining in my head. Once I started drawing and painting on a small scale, I realized that was my preference because of the control it gave me over my fine motor skills. The more I drew, the more interest people showed in buying my work, so I figured, why not make money doing something that I love?

EOA: How did you find Ability Now, and how has the program supported your art and your business?
KD: I found the program through a referral from Regional Center of the East Bay, a non-profit agency under contract with California to coordinate supports and services for people with developmental disabilities like me. Because I have autism, I tend to have art ideas all over the place. Before attending Ability Now’s Small Business Development Center, I was struggling with how to turn my passion for tiny art into a business. I couldn’t have gotten to where I am today if it wasn’t for Ability Now’s Small Business Development Center. The staff at Ability Now have helped me focus on my goals and given me structure. 

EOA: Who are your mentors?
KD: Andre Wilson, the Small Business Manager, and Alva Gardner, the Small Business Vocational Coordinator, and all the small business staff at Ability Now have been mentors and supported me along the way. However, my iconic role model as an artist is Walt Disney. I’m very fascinated by animation and making a drawing come to life with a series of images, and am interested in learning animation in the future.

EOA: Please describe your process as an artist, from idea to finished piece. 
KD: This varies depending on what I’m making. I often take walks to get inspiration. Then I usually think about what I want to make and sometimes how. While I’m walking, I visualize how I want the finished piece to look. Then I will sit down and draw or paint. Because of the small scale of my work, I often also make some of my own art supplies including tiny watercolor pads, paint palettes, and knitting needles. When I sit down to draw or paint a miniature, I try to complete the whole thing in one sitting. 

EOA: Of all of your accomplishments, of which are you most proud, and why? 
KD: Learning how to work on a tiny scale. Mastering my skills, I would say, because without being able to do that, I wouldn’t have my business or passion. 

EOA: What are your short-term and long-term goals? 
KD: My short-term goal is to make more work in a shorter period of time. Long term, I would like to be well known for my art – to me, this would mean having lots of followers on my business Instagram and YouTube. 

EOA: What advice do you have for novice artists and entrepreneurs hoping to attract interest in what they have to offer? 
KD: Find your passion and what sets you apart from everyone else. It’s important to market yourself in a way that makes you stand out. I still struggle with this, I must say, so just remember that it’s a process and takes time. Don’t give up on your passions and dreams – if something isn’t working, get advice from family, a mentor, or someone you look up to. Follow your passion and remember to always do what you love. 

Interview by Erin Schalk
​
Helen Fukuhara began her visual arts education at the Braille Institute in 1987. While being blind from birth, Fukuhara has pursued the fine arts in earnest, dedicating her university studies to music. Today, she remains a prolific and passionate artist who works in ceramic, mosaic, printmaking, and fiber arts.  In addition, her print Dancing Fingers was recently awarded an honorable mention in the American Printing House for the Blind’s (APH) annual art competition InSights. 

“I like the feel -- the tactile qualities -- of mixed media projects since I use my hands to see.  I also like how multimedia allows me to work independently.  When I’m in the process of making a piece, I can feel and experience the design fully as I create it section by section.  In my work, I also am open to letting things happen rather than sticking to one specific plan.  However, when I finish a piece, I feel somewhat sad because my entire surface is covered, and I cannot experience each part of the design as well.  So, I create again.  And again.” -Helen Fukuhara

Erin Schalk (ES): Please share with us how you came to be a visual artist: 
Helen Fukuhara (HF): I started at Braille Institute in Los Angeles during the end of September of 1987, when I moved from New York to California.  That’s when I started taking art classes because the art teachers at Braille made it comfortable for me to do art, since art is generally done with your hands.  Basically, it involved the colors and materials being explained to me in more detail. 

I also learned from Hailstones and Halibut Bones, which is a children’s book.  It takes colors and puts them into poetry so I have something concrete to relate to, for example, black is the color of licorice.  I like to associate art with music since I was a musician originally.  For example, I might think of the bright colors as piccolos in an orchestra. 
The lower notes would be the darker colors, and so on. I used to do sewing when I lived in New York, so naturally, I worked with fabrics in different colors and textures.  I was aware of colors, and I wrote the color combinations on a braille sheet to remember the combinations that go together. Sometimes if I am in the mood, I’ll make something unusual, which you can do in art!  

I love doing art.  I love the making of it rather than the completion because once it’s done it’s finished and hurrah.  But when you’re doing it, I think it’s more fun.  

ES: You studied music during your college days. How did your practice evolve into visual art?  Is there overlap? 
HF: I studied music at Hofstra University in Long Island, New York.  I didn’t have any idea that one day I would be moving to California and go to Braille Institute, nor did I know that Braille even had an art or music program.  
In time, I realized art and music work together in certain ways.  I read music history books, so I figured there must be art history books!  I began reading art history, took art history courses, and received six credits from Cal State Northridge. In art history, I had opportunities to do some art projects related to the class such as a beehive tomb [from the Bronze Age Mycenaean civilization].

If I’m working on an art piece, I’ve thought about how to make the piece connect to the sound of music. Some people can do that, but I find that’s difficult for me to do. When I try to make shapes, it’s never the same as what I’m visualizing in my mind. For example, when I saw the movie Chariots of Fire and they played the running music, I didn’t picture somebody running.  I don’t know what that feels like or what that looks like visually. I can’t compare music with art that way.  However, one thing I have done is take poems that people have written and put them to music.  

ES: What artists, contemporary or classic, influence you most and why?
HF: It’s an interesting question. I mainly go by era more than individuals, since I cannot see or touch the work or have it in my hand.  I prefer Renaissance and Baroque music,  so I tend to like art of that nature as well. The difference is I do know I could write in the style of Beethoven, or I could change a song to fit a composer.  
When it comes to art, things become a bit more complicated.  If somebody says, “Do a piece like DaVinci or like Picasso,” it can happen sometimes.  One time, I made a piece at my friend’s house, and she said, “That actually looks like a scene from Manzanar!”  I said, “What do you know?  It just happened!”  Likewise, if someone says a piece of mine looks like a Monet or similar, I wouldn’t know, and I’m quite surprised because I don’t have anything touchable to compare.

I can do abstract art more than abstract music.  With music, I’m used to rules. So, when I wrote music, I preferred writing music with rules, whereas music now can be more freeform, so you can do anything you want.
In regard to art, I like mosaics.  I’d also be fascinated to try more paper mache sculpture sometime in the future.

ES: You grew up in an artistically rich environment in New York City, and your father was acclaimed watercolorist Henry Fukuhara. How have these influences shaped you as an artist?
HF: My family was supportive of me, and my parents and family came to my concerts.   My dad was always fond of watching the conductor more than listening to the music! 

My father really became influential to me as a visual artist once I started taking art classes.  Before that, we would only talk about art once in a while, and I didn’t know I was going to be taking art at Braille Institute at all.  For a long time, I didn’t ever think about doing art myself.  Also, my father didn’t know how to teach me art then, so we didn’t discuss it much.  However, I went to his art workshops and demonstrations, and I found it interesting to listen to the art demonstrations if they would talk.  And some of the people at the workshops would ask questions.  I always enjoyed the questions.

I began taking art classes at Braille Institute because I knew you could do art with your hands. Things opened up and my father and I would discuss.  Sometimes my dad would be painting and have music playing.  I would ask him, “What kind of orchestral piece did you do today?” and he would laugh.  So I could understand, he would say, “Well, I have violins here, and I have trumpets there. This one is a mixed orchestra.”

As time went on, I really wanted to do an art show with my father.  First, he arranged for me to have a solo show.  Later on when he became totally blind and still painted, he finally agreed to have a show with me.  That was exciting!  
When we had our show together, I imagined a 50-50 setup.  But, my dad suggested I submit more pieces to the show and he would enter just a few.  He was a well-known artist by then, and he didn’t want to dominate, rather, he wanted my art to be the highlight of the show.  That really surprised me! 

Later on, my father became fully blind and still continued to paint.  He confided in me that he was more sure of himself as an artist even when he lost his vision, because he knew all that I was capable of as an artist.

ES: What are some of your favorite artistic media and why? 
HF: I like them all.  I like doing mosaics because you can use different shapes and different textures of pieces, and you can make your own tiles if you want. You can also incorporate found pieces to create an image.  I’ve done mosaics that are freeform and ones more like a realistic picture.  For example, I once made a mosaic artwork of my neighbor’s birds. He had a picture taken from a magazine so we had something to work from.  Someone helped me because I couldn’t cut out the feet since they were really tiny, but I was able to put them in place.  That was a challenge!

I also like paper mache.  You can mix materials into the paper mache to give it different textures.  For example, I’ve experimented with adding in sand and sequins.  Of course, you can put in a variety of paint colors as well.  I like that paper mache is light, versus clay which is heavy.  I also like basketry because you can add a range of materials like beads, whether they’re commercial or handmade.  You can have different patterns and shapes of baskets, as well as wide or narrow reeds.  Mosaic, paper mache, and basketry...I would say these art forms have been the most successful for me.

ES: You once said about your ceramic and mosaic combo works, “When I’m making a piece, I can experience the design as I create it section by section.” Tell us more.
HF: Some of the clay medallions or shapes were found or abandoned in the studio.  With the ceramic and mosaic pieces, they’re not in my head originally.  It’s a matter of what I have to work with, and then it’s placement and glazing.  So, I just do them as they come.  I may have nine ceramic circles of a certain size, and I begin to arrange them.  Once I can say that it feels like a nice arrangement, I begin fitting ceramic or glass mosaic tiles in between and so on.  

Sometimes I work in sections, and sometimes I don’t because I have the whole board to work with, unless it’s a particular section with a particular color of tiles.  Then, I might try to do a border first, then fill the inside.  

ES: What do you hope your audience will gain when they encounter your artwork?
HF: I leave it up to the eye of the beholder.  That’s why a lot of my work is untitled.  Viewers have to look for it.  When people ask me about my art, I don’t have a list of all the textures I used, where I placed them, or what colors they are.   
I think things change in people’s minds when they view my work.  Why did I use a certain color in a certain place?  Not seeing, I have no idea.  I just hope that when I’m able to see them - if I get my sight back while on Earth - that I would enjoy seeing as much as I enjoy doing them.

My father used to say to me, “Seeing is believing.”  And I would say in return, “Believing is seeing.”