{"id":11913,"date":"2022-02-01T11:12:42","date_gmt":"2022-02-01T19:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=11913"},"modified":"2022-02-01T11:12:42","modified_gmt":"2022-02-01T19:12:42","slug":"elevated-reflections-of-life-artist-yumiko-glover-ma-17","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesliedinaberg.com\/wordpress\/?p=11913","title":{"rendered":"Elevated Reflections of Life \u2014\u00a0Artist Yumiko Glover MA ’17"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Elevated Reflections of Life, UC Santa Barbara Magazine, Fall\/Winter 2021.<\/p><\/div>\n

Born and raised in Hiroshima, Japan, cover artist Yumiko Glover<\/a> MA \u201817\u00a0<\/span><\/b>took a circuitous route to finally following her passion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I was applying for college in Japan I didn\u2019t have a mentor to support me,\u201d Glover recalls. \u201cI wanted to go to art school and of course, my parents worried that it was \u2018non job promising.\u2019 So, I gave up and I majored in something else.\u201d But the desire stuck with her. She took as many art classes as she could while working in the import-export business for more than a decade before returning to school to follow her dreams of becoming an artist. She completed a bachelor of fine arts degree at the University of Hawai\u2019i at M\u0101noa<\/a> in 2011 and then came to UC Santa Barbara<\/a> to complete her masters in fine arts in 2017.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI was not a good student in Japan in college because I was not really interested in the field. But when I went back to school, I was very serious,\u201d laughs Glover, who is now a visiting lecturer in the UC Santa Barbara Department of Art<\/a>, as well as a graphic designer and fine artist who has her work in collections at the Honolulu Museum of Art<\/a> and on view at LAX, among other venues.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Over the years her style has evolved, but current events continue to influence her art.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Her \u201cUnfold\u201d series was inspired by President Barack Obama<\/a>\u2019s visit to Hiroshima in 2016. The first sitting president to visit the city destroyed by an American atomic bomb during World War II, Obama brought origami paper cranes that he folded himself. \u201cCrane origami is a symbol for peace, wishing the best for others, and healing for challenging times,\u201d says Glover.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Working on the premise that with each fold they make in an origami crane, people are thinking about others\u2019 wellness or sending them good wishes, Glover drew geometric forms and combined them in different ways to create elements. \u201cI thought that matched well with what we are going through in the pandemic,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Her ongoing series \u201cTransience\u201d also fits in thematically. \u201cLiving through the pandemic completely shifted everybody\u2019s life, including myself, especially my perspective on approaching art,\u201d says Glover.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTransience comes from the Japanese term, mono no aware<\/i>, which means the transience of life that is the aesthetics of impermanence \u2014 nothing lasts forever but there is preciousness to it. I created new paintings during the pandemic; one inspired by the cherry blossom season. As you know the cherry blossom has an intense and precious life and death cycle, which is mirrored by the impermanence of our nature and material world that we took for granted for so long.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She continues, \u201cDuring the pandemic, as everything that we thought would last forever became uncertain and our perspectives about life, including the subjects for the magazine \u2014 education, economy, mental health, work and environment \u2014 everything has changed and also affected me and the way I think, so when I received the concept of the magazine design, I could apply those ideas that I was going through during the pandemic to the design.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"UC<\/a>

UC Santa Barbara Magazine, Winter 2021<\/p><\/div>\n

Originally published in the Fall\/Winter 2021 issue of UC Santa Barbara Magazine<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0Cover illustration by Yumiko Glover<\/a>. To see the story as it originally appeared click \u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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