Tomorrow I’m traveling for the second tine this summer, going to New Mexico with Anne Collins Goodyear to do more archival research on Chuzo Tamotzu and the exchange. While we’re there, we’ll visit Albuquerque and Santa Fe to dig through files in the University of New Mexico as well as the New Mexico Museum of Art. We also have the pleasure of meeting with the Arts Education Coordinator of Santa Fe on Wednesday, which is a particular treat because that is the position Susan B. Anderson, one of the original directors of the exchange, occupied in 1953.

Its really cool to me that I will be in the place that Chuzo lived and worked in for so many years, and that I’ll get to uncover more about what this exchange and our research means to the people of New Mexico today. I didn’t really think about the point of view of modern New Mexicans until this last week, but it seems that some people are becoming more interested as they hear about the project. I hope that the more people I get to tell about our exhibit of these drawings in the spring, the more people get excited to learn more about Chuzo and his work.

I feel like I’ve uncovered so much this summer, but I still think that there is more to be done. The exhibition of these drawings in the Bowdoin Museum of Art this spring will be an important milestone, but I hope that that isn’t the end. I feel like there’s a lot more to dig into, and maybe this trip will help inspire people to do just that!

July 19^th—Over the last two days I had the opportunity to visit Washington D.C. with Anne and do archival research in the Archives of American Art. While there I went through ten microfilm reels, the first time I had ever interacted with microfilm, and scanned almost 300 pages of useful information on Chuzo Tamotzu, his life, and the exchange. While in D.C. I did also get to see the National Portrait Gallery, where Anne used to work, and I saw some really interesting portraits I didn’t knew existed! Particularly the portraits on the first floor were very intriguing to me, and I loved this one of Frederick Douglass. I had no idea he was so dashing!

For the rest of the week I see myself organizing and compiling the information I gathered from the microfilms in D.C. into what will and won’t be useful for the rest of the project. The summer is nearing its end, but it seems like we’re just getting started on getting to know Tamotzu and his life!

Now that the opening of the big summer show is over, things are returning to normal here at the museum. Everyone is busy as always, but things seem a little more relaxed and everyone is still basking in the glow of the successful opening. On my end, its more of the same for me today. I have to keep working on all the materials Michael and I need to be approved for human subjects research, and I have a meeting with I.T. this afternoon to talk about the blog! (this blog!) Its been an adventure trying to get a blog off the ground this summer, but now that This Is a Portrait is up people have more time to help me get a polished site going. Lets hope I have a finalized site to share soon!

Today is the opening of This Is a Portrait! Its so exciting to see everything in the museum come together for this show. Yesterday I was lucky enough to follow along on a tour given by the three curators of this show, Anne Goodyear, Kathleen Merrill Campagnolo, and Johnathan Frederick Walz, and it was so cool to get the inside scoop on how this show has come together and what it means to the people who made it happen. Walking through the gallery and getting to see what its like to have all that work come together for everyone at the museum was incredibly inspiring, and made me so excited for the exhibit of these children’s drawings next spring.

Aside from doing everything the museum will let me to help out with the opening, I’ve been working on creating the necessary paperwork Michael and I will need for interviewing later this summer. I hadn’t realized, but we need to make our own consent forms in both Japanese and English, which is an interesting challenge! I hope I’m able to make something that’s clear and informational for anyone who reads it.

The beautiful view from The Bowdoin College Library!

Today is an absolutely beautiful day in Maine! Its so nice in fact that I couldn’t bring myself to work in the museum offices today, and so I’m in the library sitting beside a nice big window.

​This week is going to be really busy at the museum, because this weekend the big summer show, This Is a Portrait If I Say So, goes up. Everybody is hurrying to get ready for the weekend, but I mostly get to keep working on this project, which is really nice. I like that I get to stay focused!

Chai with a dash of cream to get me going!

Today I’m going to finish up the Human Subjects Research training everyone working on this project must complete before we can interview anyone. Its full of valuable information, but it can be kind of hard to stay focused on the long articles I have to read before each quiz. Here’s hoping that the sunlight and my cup of tea will help me power through! ​

I just got out of a meeting with Anne and Michael, and I’m very excited to look forward to what new avenues this project will take over the next few weeks! Michael leaves Bowdoin tonight, but I’m excited about all the new information he will encounter and send back to us when he gets to Japan. I can’t wait to delve deeper into the nitty gritty of how these schools communicated with the child artists, and how, now grown, they feel about the way they were influenced or treated after the war. There are so many new things to uncover, and I think they’ll make the beginning organizational stages so worth it!

For the last three days I’ve done a training for ArcGIS, a mapping software that could be very useful for tracking the movements of the paintings and people involved with this project. Its pretty complicated software, but it has a lot of options and potential, especially with interactive use on the website I’ve started working on. Michael is leaving this Friday, so from here I’m going to start getting in contact with potential interviewees and coming up with interview questions.

This week I moved into my apartment on campus, met with the rest of the museum staff for this summer, and began to research by delving into Chuzo Tamotsu’s life story. I primarily focused on online resources and the information the Bowdoin Museum of Art has stored with the children’s paintings as those are the only resources at my fingertips here in Maine. I pieced together a pretty comprehensive biography of Tamotsu’s life, began searching online for the now grown American child artists, and started in on IRB training so I can work with human subjects later this summer. All in all things are getting rolling, and more and more of the research is coming together!