STATEWIDE – Toshiko Takaezu is one of the most important ceramicists in America. Toshiko Takaezu: Portrait of an Artist is a half-hour documentary that shows the dramatic landscapes and simple pleasures that influence and inform the work of this highly original artist. This encore presentation of Toshiko Takaezu: Portrait of an Artist airs on Friday, March 23 at 8:30 pm, with a rebroadcast on Wednesday, March 28 at 11:30 pm. The program received a New York Emmy for best original music. State of the Arts marks twenty-five years on NJN this season. The series has earned 25 Regional Emmy Awards, including a 2006 Mid-Atlantic Emmy and a 2005 New York Emmy.
Of Japanese descent and Hawaiian birth, Takaezu lives a life that some describe as “zen.” Through compelling images of her work and interviews that verge on a philosophy of life, this documentary reveals the influences that have shaped her signature style. In the 1950s, Takaezu was at the forefront of the movement that took crafts into the world of fine arts. She is represented in museums world-wide, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her influence has also been felt as a teacher. For 25 years she was the head of the ceramic department at Princeton University.
In the early 2000s, not letting up her pace at all, Takaezu made what many people consider her best—and biggest—work ever. Her bronze bells have been commissioned to commemorate occasions such as, most recently, a 9/11 memorial at Princeton University. Toshiko Takaezu: Portrait of an Artist puts the teabowls, bronze bells and 12 foot ceramic forests of this prolific and diverse potter into the context of her life: teaching, cooking, unstacking her kiln. The viewer travels from the surreal volcanic landscapes of the artist’s native Hawaii to the fall harvest bounty in her rural New Jersey garden in Quakertown where she has her studio.
State of the Arts, the award-winning, half-hour arts magazine, airs every Friday at 8:30 pm, followed by an encore presentation each Wednesday at 11:30 pm.
The current episode of State of the Arts can be viewed online at www.njn.net. Individual stories will be available to view following their broadcast by visiting the program online at State of the Arts.
Funding for State of the Arts is provided by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts and the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation. The series producer is Susan Wallner and the executive producer is Nila Aronow.
NJN is available on all New Jersey cable systems, satellite systems, and Time Warner Cable channel 750 in NYC.
State of the Arts is also available via video streaming at njn.net after the original broadcast.
Additionally, the program is repeated on NJN’s JerseyVision available on Comcast Digital Cable in New Jersey.
(Check http://www.njn.net/digital/schedule.html for detailed listings.)
NJN – Uniquely New Jersey
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