News Archives - 2009

Snowflakes into art

Makoto Abe was fascinated last fall as her host mother began cutting folded papers, transforming them into intricate, lacy snowflakes. It was a craft activity the mother did with her children, which she thought Abe would also enjoy.

For Abe, an award-winning Japanese printmaker, it was a new art form. She came to the U.S. in September and spent the fall semester in English-language classes while living with the family. In January she began taking painting, sculpture, and ceramics classes at Augsburg.

A native of Ibaraki, Japan, Abe is a graduate student at Musashino University in Tokyo. "Art culture there is different; I have to be more focused on printmaking only," Abe explains. "Here I can choose what I study." Her Augsburg classes have been valuable, helping her explore and gain confidence in other art forms.

One of the projects Abe chose to do this spring involved 300 of those cut snowflakes she learned to make, each one colored and different from the next. With art professor robert tom's help, she created an installation that hung in Lindell Library—12 cascading rows of colored snowflakes tied to yarn, some folded as flower petals.

"Snow Crystal" is meant to combine the beauty of individual snowflakes with the longing for flowers that cannot be seen in the snow. "I wanted to connect the snowflake culture and my Japanese colors and printing process ... for my host mother," says Abe.

While in the U.S., Abe has received acclaim for her prints. In the San Diego Art Institute's 50th International Exhibition, her print Far Back won a Merit Gift Award. She was also selected for the 20th Print and Drawing Exhibition at the College of Notre Dame in Maryland

Makoto Abe's show, "Seeing is Believing," will run from May 5–12 in the Christensen Center Student Art Gallery and will feature 20 or so pieces from her classes and from "Snow Crystal." At her artist reception on Wednesday, May 6, from 5:30–7:30 p.m., she will demonstrate traditional Japanese woodblock printing.