Kazumi Cranney
Kazumi Cranney has been a resident of Berkeley,
California for over 30 years and has been
working in watercolor and other media during
this time.
She arrived in the U.S. in 1972
and, in addition
to her previous studies in Japan,
studied
art at California State University,
Hayward
and the University of California
at Berkeley.
For any graduate in Fine Arts it takes time
to find one's place in the art world, but,
being a foreigner, she especially struggled
with this question. Gradually she came to
realize how important her Japanese background
was to her, even if it did not fit neatly
into the American art culture. She began
to develop her work along traditional Japanese
lines rather than in the Western tradition
that she studied in college.
She found her way through haiga.
She composed
haiku poems and expressed them
in Japanese
calligraphy and simple watercolor
paintings,
that is, haiga. She has made
presentations
or demonstrations of haiga to
such groups
as the American Association of
University
Women, the Japanese Information
Center of
the Japan Consulate General in
San Francisco,
and other local groups and art
galleries.
Her work has been displayed at various locales
in the Bay Area including the Japan Cultural
Community Center and Gallery Voyage in San
Francisco, the Berkeley Art Center, and the
San Ramon Community Center. Last August two
of her haiga were selected by the Berkeley
Art Center for their National Juried Exhibition.
She is an artist member of the Berkeley Art
Center and of the National League of American
Pen Women. NLAPW is a professional organization
for women artists and writers headquartered
in Washington, D.C.
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