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Arlene Mickelson’s life work has been the courtship and artistic marriage of two
cultures. On Bainbridge Island, Washington, childhood visions began her destiny
with art during World War II. As a Caucasian, the large colonies of Native
American and Japanese cultures were off limits to her, but her curious and
creative mind could not be contained. She perceived similarities in the two
cultures: the same graceful split tails of their art – the same ancient legends
of mountains of foam. Mickelson dreamed dreams then of the work she does today.
Mickelson won her first art award in the third grade. Her father provided her
with paper and pen, clay and kiln. At sixteen, by special permission, she was
taking art classes at the University of Washington, followed by full time
enrollment two years later. Marriage and motherhood took time, but her work
continued. In nineteen seventy-six she had her first exhibition. For the next
eleven years she studied the legends that had fascinated her as a child, and
sketched, carved and sculpted her timeless dreams of the great northwest.
In 1988 Munenori Makino, Japan’s Ukiyo-e Master, saw Mickelson’s work. Makino
selected Mickelson, a Caucasian American woman, to be his only student; a bitter
pill for the Japanese art community. But for Mickelson and Makino it was as
though they had dreamed and worked together before. Their camaraderie was as
deep as the layered colors of Ukiyo-e. Their dreams were linked. He envisioned
giving the 700-year-old art of woodblock printing its own singing spirit, a
spirit to sing to the west. Makino and Mickelson were fulfilling artistic
destiny.
Mickelson’s work in several mediums is all award winning, each piece a
showstopper.
Her woodblock prints (each print an original) re-unite two cultures singing
their harmony in the layered liquid colors of an ancient time. These rare and
inspired works cannot be created or viewed in measured time. It is said, “A
Mickelson woodblock is carved into your heart as surely as it is in the cherry
wood.
Mickelson’s bronze sculptures are ancient and wise, bold and free each with its
own story. Owners of these incredible bronzes say that they command a position
and every viewer is compelled to listen to its place in the history and legends
of the far northwest. Many of her bronzes are commissioned and hold audiences in
high places. When she creates a bronze for gallery sale, it quickly finds a
prestigious stage in a private home.
Etchings, one of a kind flat works and pottery are other mediums that Mickelson
likes to work in when she takes a break from the high demand for her bronzes.
Every work of Mickelson’s is obviously the inspired culmination of a gifted
child’s dreams.
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