Meher McArthur

When Claremont-based fabric artist Sumi Foley was a child growing up in Osaka, Japan, she often spent the night at her grandmother’s house. Her Obā-san would bring out scraps of old kimono fabric and young Sumi enjoyed touching the silky cloth fragments and admiring their exquisite patterns. She soon learned from her grandmother how to sew and developed a love for this art form. Years later, when she was in her twenties, she stopped by her grandmother’s in time to catch her preparing to throw out piles of old kimonos in a plastic bag. She asked to have ...

One of the first sights a visitor to Los Angeles will see are the giant glowing pillars arranged around the city’s international airport. Eleven glass columns approach the airport along Century Blvd, ascending in height from 25 to 100 feet to mimic an airplane lifting into the sky. Fifteen more 100-foot shimmering colored pillars encircle the airport—an “electronic Stonehenge” that hints at the glitz and glamour to be found within the city.

With Project Gateway LAX, Japanese-born architect Ted Tokio Tanaka, aware that Los Angeles had very few architectural landmarks other than the Hollywood sign, sought to create ...

In Japan, flower-arranging, known as ikebana or “living flowers,” is one of the most refined and spiritual of art forms. With its roots in the ritual offerings of flowers to the Buddha, ikebana is not merely an attractive natural decoration. A successful arrangement can capture the spiritual harmony of Heaven, Earth, and humanity. By selecting particular flowers to represent the current season and occasion and arranging them in a well balanced form, an ikebana practitioner can transform an interior space into a place of reflection and spiritual awakening.

Los Angeles-based artist Shizuko Greenblatt trained in this art form for many ...

Snakes get a bad rap in the West. In Christianity, the snake symbolizes temptation and the fall from grace, and in Greek mythology, the most famous snakes are the ones growing from the evil gorgon Medusa’s head. Widely viewed in the West as slippery, sneaky and deadly creatures, they are denigrated rather than celebrated. In Asia, they enjoy much more respect. In India, because they shed their skin as they grow, snakes—or naga—represent rebirth and are worshipped by Hindus as divine beings. In the Buddhist tradition, a snake king is believed to have protected the Buddha from ...

Five Japanese courtesans, their kimono sliding unashamedly off their shoulders in the heat, look on in alarm at their companion who has collapsed on the floor. Beside them are stone and paper lanterns and at the far left, the Downtown Los Angeles skyline looms amidst fiery red graffiti that almost entirely covers the lavish gold ground of the 12-panel screen. The fallen courtesan finds some support from a wall of Gothic letters forming the words “Red Light.”

This iconic painting Red Light District (2005) graphically merges the subcultures of two vibrant cities—the licensed pleasure quarters of pre-modern Tokyo (then ...