Six Star Magazine Six Star Magazine Fall 2017 | Page 20

LILLIAN MICHIKO BLAKEY
Lillian Michiko Blakey is sansei, a third-generation Canadian who was born
during wartime on a sugar-beet farm in Alberta. Her personal experiences of being
Japanese-Canadian, and those experiences of her parents, are explored through her
paintings and mixed media work. The war provided a difficult backdrop for Lillian
and her family; her journey was steep as she struggled with her Japanese identity.
In her evocative painting, On Being Michiko, she portrays a version of herself as
a young Asian woman peering from behind a hand-fan with the image of Marilyn
Monroe printed on it. The image is a plea (to society? to herself?) to be allowed to be
an Asian woman and Michiko (her Japanese name), and to not be expected to meet
an impossible standard.
C U LT U R E
“I grew up denying my cultural roots, my first language and my people,” she
explains. “It is only in recent years that I have tried to reconcile my dilemma by
depicting my family’s story in my art work. I owed it to my parents and grandparents
who had suffered so terribly for wanting a better life in Canada.”
MICHIKO
Lillian’s work can be found in the Nikkei National Museum as well as in other
public and private collections. She is also a past president of the Ontario Society
of Artists.
YVONNE WAKABAYASHI
Based on the west coast, Yvonne
Wakabayashi uses the traditional
Japanese skill of shibori, a way of
wrapping and dying silk to create
intricate textures and patterns in silk
that result in delicate and organic
sculptural forms. Conceptual in nature,
her artwork also links directly to her
Japanese Canadian identity and her
parents’ experiences with internment.
“I feel so included to be part of a
wonderful textile community, but I
prefer to be better remembered as a
teacher,” she explains. “My energy
and passion has always been as an
educator. The making of art for me
has been the result of trying to be
just that.”
The silk she uses for some of her
works comes from a family-run silk
mill in Gunma prefecture in Japan.
Her works evoke delicate underwater
creatures that “imprint memory on
the fabric [while] the textile surface
remembers the dye; [this way,] I
record the values and sense of self that
have been bestowed on me.”
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