Akemi
Furukawa from one of Japan’s devastated areas
An exhibition of glasswork beads by
Kamaishi City’s Akemi Furukawa (51), entitled “Glasswork Beads Glittering in the Early
Summer Sun,” will be open at the Nonohanasha Café in Nagayama, Shidzukuishi until
the 11th of June. The exhibition holds around 100 works, from
flowers buried in transparent glass to ceramic glass painted with Japanese
designs; a miniature world inside delicate and vivid glass beads.
Last year’s tsunami destroyed Furukawa’s
home in Unosumai Town, washing away the all the tools and works she had kept in
her workshop. While considering what she should and could do, she kept
thinking, “I just don’t want to give up glasswork.”
Seiko Shirasaki, a friend of Furukawa’s who
also holds works in the exhibition, invited Furukawa to move to Niigata
prefecture, which she did in September of last year. With a compressor and
burner provided by the teacher who taught her glassworking, she was finally
able to get back into the mood to create.
The beads Furukawa makes are comprised of
tiny parts which she manufactures by hand from colored glass, the flowers
represented in each bead finely worked down to the last vein of each leaf. The
glass she uses is delicate and can crack if heated too quickly; the small parts
inside the beads can melt if too much heat is applied. On the other hand, if
the heating temperature is too low, the compounds in the material will not bond
and the beads will remain opaque.
“It’s work that can’t be re-done. You have
to concentrate hard the entire time.” The
glasswork creations require absolute concentration, but to Furukawa, the time
she spends glassworking is priceless. Nowadays, she works part-time, taking up
glassworking on her days off. “I’m able to calm down and forget about things
while I work,” she says. Glasswork bead-making has become Furukawa’s emotional
sustenance.
Her next ambition is to create a series of
works with fruits, leaves and winter scenes as motifs. “I want to make works
that give a sense of excitement to adults, like the excitement felt by children
looking at grape beads and heart-shaped necklaces at festivals,” she says.
（Morioka Times 6/5/2012）
