I was born and raised in Kyoto, Japan. My serious artistic experience started at age eighteen when I began to study drawing and painting from a professional artist in Kyoto. I received a B.A. in English Literature from Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto, Japan. After receiving a second B.A. in Art History at the University of Oregon, I then received an M.F.A. in Painting from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
Currently, I am a self-employed artist after being a faculty member in art at Lane Community College in Eugene. I also was s a visiting instructor in the Kyoto Study Abroad Program which is offered through the Landscape Architecture Department at the University of Oregon. In 1996 I founded the Siena Art Program from the Department of Art at the University of Oregon and was the director of that program until 2005.
I have a deep connection to the country, Itay, where I have traveled, taught and painted for many years. I receive creative inspirations from this country, yet my artistic, cultural and emotional ties to Japan remains solid, and my current artistic inquiry has a lot to do with Japanese artistic and philosophical tradition. In addition to oil and watercolor paintings, I also use Sumi ink.