Esther Shimazu is an American sculptor who was born in

Honolulu, Hawaii Honolulu (; ) is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Hawaii, which is in the Pacific Ocean. It is an unincorporated county seat of the consolidated City and County of Honolulu, situated along the southeast coast of the island o ...

in 1957. Her grandparents were immigrant laborers from Japan. She attended the

University of Hawaii at Manoa A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

before transferring to the

University of Massachusetts The University of Massachusetts is the five-campus public university system and the only public research system in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The university system includes five campuses (Amherst, Boston, Dartmouth, Lowell, and a medica ...

in Amherst, where she received a Bachelor of Fine Art in 1980 and a Master of Fine Art in 1982. She is best known for her

stoneware Stoneware is a rather broad term for pottery or other ceramics fired at a relatively high temperature. A modern technical definition is a Vitrification#Ceramics, vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refracto ...

sculptures of bald, nude chunky Asian women constructed with hand building techniques. They are colored with

slips Slips (or SLIPS) may refer to: *Slips (oil drilling) *SLIPS (Slippery Liquid Infused Porous Surfaces) *SLIPS (company) *SLIPS (Sri Lanka Interbank Payment System) *Slip (cricket), often used in the plural form *The Slips, a UK electronic music duo ...

and oxides, bisque-fired, hand-sanded, and colored further with rubbed-in and airbrushed oxides. Then they are fired to cone 5-6 oxidation and sanded one last time. She received a Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation Purchase Award, 2001, and an Individual Artist Fellowship Award from the

Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts The Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts was established by the Hawaii State Legislature in 1965 to "promote, perpetuate, preserve, and encourage culture and the arts, history and the humanities as central to the quality of life of the ...

, 1995. In 2020, Shimazu participated in a Zoom webinar offered by the John Natsoulas Center for the Arts called "Learn how to build a dog" where she interacted with viewers while constructing a ceramic dog. Shimazu's work was included in the 2021 Hawai‘i Craftsmen Annual Statewide Exhibition at the Downtown Art Center.

References

* * Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, ''The Contemporary Museum Biennial of Hawaii Artists I'', Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, 1993, pp. 14–15. * Hartwell, Patricia L. (editor), ''Retrospective 1967-1987'',

, Honolulu, Hawaii, 1987, p. 96 * Morse, Marcia and Allison Wong, ''10 Years: The Contemporary Museum at First Hawaiian Center'', The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu, 2006, , p. 102 * * Yoshihara, Lisa A., ''Collective Visions, 1967-1997, An Exhibition Celebrating the 30th Anniversary of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, Art in Public Places Program, Presented at the

Honolulu Academy of Arts The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single col ...

, September 3-October 12, 1997'', Honolulu, State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, 1997, p. 82.

Footnotes

1957 births Living people American women sculptors Artists from Honolulu American artists of Japanese descent American women ceramists 20th-century ceramists 21st-century ceramists Ceramists from Hawaii 20th-century American sculptors 20th-century American women artists 21st-century American women artists {{Sculptor-stub