Interviews

1. Family that saved her belongings during World War II

2. Thriving art culture at camp

3. Leaving everything behind

4. On the process of making her leaf bowls

5. On the process of creating her Japanese paper bowls

6. From double weaving to microfilament “flat” hangings

7. Marriage to Bob Stocksdale

8. Moving to Cincinnati after Topaz

9. Learning how to weave

10. Mother also wove growing up

(b. 1926) Artist

On the process of creating her Japanese paper bowls

I love paper. Paper is beautiful, just in itself. I mean, you can almost hang a piece of paper on the wall. But I think it was Signe Mayfield who was a creator at what was then the Palo Alto Art Center. She suggested that I try making a paper bowl around one of Bob's bowls, and so that's what got us started… And so I tried using Bob's bowl as a mold, and working around it, thought it was successful, and then it actually, on the market, it became very successful. We had many orders for what we called marriage sets. Customers would want one of Bob's bowls with a paper bowl that goes over it… Usually they were of Japanese papers. I loved the papers with a lot of inclusions.

artists arts Bob Stocksdale bows paper crafts

Date: November 23, 2018

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Patricia Wakida

Contributed by: A Co-Production of the Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum and KCET

Interviewee Bio

Kay Sekimachi, born in 1926 in San Francisco, is an American fiber artist best known for her masterful, three-dimensional woven monofilament hangings as well as her intricate baskets and bowls. Born in San Francisco on September 30, 1926, Sekimachi was interned with her family at Tanforan Assembly Center in California and then the Topaz concentraton camp in Utah from 1942 to 1944. (June 2018)