Photo courtesy of Mellon Gass

Glass is a medium that is most often associated with craft.However, for installation artist Miyuki Shinkai, glass blowing is a meditative art that allows her to explore her connections to both her native Japanese and adopted Canadian cultures.

Shinkai’s work is currently on display at North Vancouver’s District Foyer Gallery alongside the work of fellow artist Jeff Wilson.

An unexpected calling

Glass blowing was initially a hobby for Shinkai while she studied Social Administration at Georgia Southwestern State University. She ended up completing a minor in glass blowing and apprenticing at the Pilchuck Glass School in Washington where Dale Chihuly, one of the world’s most renowned glass blowing artists, became her mentor.

Chihuly and his school inspired Shinkai to take up glass blowing as a career and to regard it as a legitimate art form. Moreover, she adopted Chihuly’s focus in using glass in an architectural and atmospheric way that presents the audience with strong concepts.

“This revolutionary style in presentation seeded my interest in installation. Glass blowing limits the scale of the final product, so I like adding things [like] different materials to inflate it. I like things to be progressive,” she explains.

Shinkai uses wood, paper, and other materials in her installations and is committed to honouring the unique expressive qualities of each.

“I like the material to speak its own way, each gather its own fate. In a way, we have alchemist training. [We] can change sand to gold, which means that we always have to be true to the material,” she says.

Miyuki Shinkai in front of the New-Small & Sterling Studio Glass gallery on Granville Island, which sells her work | Photo courtesy of Miyuki Shinkai

Referring to her roots

Wave-Nami, one of the pieces on exhibit at the District Foyer Gallery, features blown-glass pieces combined with driftwood that Shinkai gathers at the beaches near her Sunshine Coast home. The work represents the artist’s ties to the Northwest Coast, its nature and culture, but it also exudes nostalgia for her own heritage because the glass is in the shape of floats that Japanese fishermen used to use.

“History and dialogue are also very intriguing sources of my inspiration. You talk to your materials, and they talk back to you,” she says.

Growing up in Japan in an era of increasing consumerism and western influence has imbued Shinkai with experimental instincts. She loves mixing materials and styles. In true Japanese fashion, she is equally fascinated with the simplicity and tranquility that emerges from nature, and with Manga pop art aesthetics.

Shinkai also projects the meditative aspects of Buddhism, one of the religions practiced in Japan, onto her work.

“Glass-making has so many meaningful messages [and] philosophical practices. [It shows] creation of life and completion and death,” she explains.

One of the pieces she is most proud of is the 2010 Kizuna project that was exhibited at the Nikkei National Japanese Canadian Museum in Burnaby. Shinkai’s contribution was a large painting overlooking twenty-four blown-glass bottles, each topped with a small glass Japanese fishing float and filled with various artifacts that honour the lives of her female ancestors and mentors.

In fact, she hopes to exhibit her work for the first time in Japan in the near future. When visiting her homeland after the devastating 2011 tsunami, Shinkai saw a general shift away from a focus on material well-being and towards a more spiritual and humanitarian perspective. This renewed her connection to the country.

Coastal inspiration

In Miyuki Shinkai’s Wave-Nami, glass and driftwood pay homage to nature and cultural nostalgia | Photo courtesy of Miyuki Shinkai

In addition to her Japanese cultural heritage, Shinkai finds creative fuel in the serene scenery of Gibsons where she lives with her family. Her three young children also provide her with inspiration, though balancing motherhood with a career can be challenging.

Shinkai runs Mellon Glass Studio with her artist husband Wayne Harjula. In addition to exhibitions and fairs, the Circle Craft Gallery and New-Small & Sterling Studio Glass on Granville Island, her studio is where she shares her work with the public. Visitors are welcome to view the studio’s workshop and showroom in order to get a taste of the delicate and multi-layered art form of glass blowing.

Shinkai’s work will also be on display at the District Foyer Gallery in North Vancouver until October 29th.

To get more information about Miyuki Shinkai and her work or to book a tour of Mellon Glass Studio, visit http://www.glassartcanada.ca/

public/artist/Miyuki.Shinkai#

portfolio and http://www.mellonglass.ca.

For information on her District Foyer Gallery Exhibit, visit

http://www.nvartscouncil.ca/exhibitions/district-foyer-gallery.