Lucy Arai is an artist, freelance instructor, and designer who has been practicing in her field now for more than 35 years.
OAKLEY, CA, February 07, 2019 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Marquis Who's Who, the world's premier publisher of biographical profiles, is proud to present Lucy Arai with the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement Award. An accomplished listee, Ms. Arai celebrates many years' experience in her professional network, and has been noted for achievements, leadership qualities, and the credentials and successes she has accrued in her field. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Ms. Arai is an artist, freelance instructor, and designer who has been practicing in her field now for more than 35 years. Upon earning her academic degrees, she began working as an assistant curator for the Cranbrook Art Academy Museum in Bloomfield, MI, in 1985. Just a few years later, she built a studio on her farmhouse just outside of Ann Arbor, MI, so that she could devote more of her time to her artwork. Soon thereafter, she relocated to California, where she again built a studio and began doing freelance work as a curator of archive and museum education projects. Best known for her non-traditional use of Sashiko in two- and three-dimensional artwork, Ms. Arai has been inspired by the many Japanese traditions passed down from the elderly to the young, as well as the western part of the world.
Throughout her career, Ms. Arai has become active with various projects for clients. Responsible for the development of a historical database for Wente Brothers Winery, she has also lectured on Sashiko, a form of decorative reinforcement stitching from Japan, and became involved in the Arts in Embassies Program (AIEP) in Brunei, Asia, in Bandar Seri Begawan on the island of Borneo, in Hong Kong, in Djibouti, Africa, and in Albania. She also spent time as an education development consultant at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, The Textile Museum (Washington, DC), and The Asian Art Museum (San Francisco), and has long been an independent designer for one-of-a-kind garments since 1994.
Featured in exhibitions across Tokyo, Germany and the United States, including Florida, Illinois and California, Ms. Arai has also designed and contributed to artists' biographies, slidebooks, and publications related to textiles as a fine art. She served as a presenter at the 11th International Shibori Symposium in Japan in 2018, was an artist-in-residence at the Holualoa Foundation of Arts and Culture in Hawaii in 2008, and a panelist for the Textile Society of American Symposium in 2006. Furthermore, she has lectured at Stanford University, Holy Names College and the American Academy of Religion and has contributed articles to various art magazines in her area of expertise, spirituality in art, mathematics, and the global relevance of craft traditions as beholders of cultures. Ms. Arai has volunteered as an instructor at Hawes and Jack London Schools in Redwood City, and Antioch, CA, and at Oyster Bilingual Elementary School in Washington, DC. She also served as an arranger for the California Wildflower Exhibition in Oakland, CA, garden designer and coordinator for Masuko A. Robinson Memorial Garden with the Dearborn Michigan Historical Museum, and instructor for the Sansei Legacy Project in Alameda, CA.
Ms. Arai is member of the Asian American Women Artists Association (AAWAA), the American Craft Council (ACC), the College Art Association (CAA), and the Textile Arts Council (TAC). She is also affiliated with the Asian Art Museum, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and the Smithsonian Institution.
The recipient of a Best-in-Show Award by the University of South Carolina in 1979, Ms. Arai received a graduate fellowship from the University of Michigan, a curatorial internship grant from the Cranbrook Academy Art Museum, and was a nominee of the Biennial Award by the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation in 2005. She has been showcased in approximately a dozen editions of Who's Who in America, Who's Who in the West, Who's Who in the World and Who's Who of American Women.
Born in Tokyo, Japan, Ms. Arai moved to her father's hometown in the United States the same year she was born. Growing up in Metro Detroit, including Highland Park and Dearborn, MI, she was surrounded by art as a child. Her uncle taught her the traditional Japanese stitching and her mother was an eighth-degree master of flower arranging in the Sogetsu School. At the age of fifteen, her parents sent her to live with her uncle in Tokyo for one year of study and to experientially learn about her mother's culture; she returned to the States to complete high school in 1974. Ms. Arai then attended college, first studying at Eastern Michigan University between 1974 and 1975 before earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts, cum laude, from the University of South Carolina in 1979, Master of Fine Arts in ceramics from the University of Michigan in 1983, and Graduate Certificate of Museum Practices from the University of Michigan in 1985. For more information, please visit www.lucyarai.com.
In recognition of outstanding contributions to her profession and the Marquis Who's Who community, Lucy Arai has been featured on the Albert Nelson Marquis Lifetime Achievement website. Please visit www.ltachievers.com for more information about this honor.
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