ART 28 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY FEBRUARY 5-11, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com When 120,000 Japanese Americans and immigrants were released from imprisonment by the U.S. government in 1945, a group of Monterey County residents—among them Edward Weston, John Steinbeck and Robinson Jeffers—signed a document called the Monterey Petition: A Democratic Way of Life for All, welcoming them home. This very document is on display as part of the Celebrating California Art: Artistic Alliance in Monterey, 1942– 1946, exhibit. It runs through April 26 and is one of three winter exhibits at the Monterey Museum of Art that relate to the Japanese experience in the United States, celebrating local artists and heroic stands. But that’s just an appetizer. The museum not only brought a national-level exhibit—the best in Japanese American art, in Pictures of Belonging: Miki Hayakawa, Hisako Hibi, and Miné Okubo—to downtown Monterey, but also rightfully celebrates the life and work of Monterey County artist Pam Murakami, who until recently lived in Prunedale and spent decades teaching ceramics at Hartnell College in Salinas. “She was amazing in the classroom,” says Gary Smith, exhibit curator and Murakami’s longtime colleague at Hartnell. Reaching back in his memory about 40 years, he recalls, “When I would walk into her classroom, the students were absolutely focused.” Murakami had their total attention. She could capture a room of 35 students through her sporadic, quiet commands. Born and raised in Hawaii, Murakami explored her Japanese roots in her art, venturing into the bewildering and magical world of Japanese mythology and folklore. The creatures and spirits from that world live on the ceramist’s sculptures—plates, pitchers and vessels. An example is Ashinagatenaga, a pair of yōkai from folklore, known for one creature with extremely long legs (Ashinaga) and another with exceptionally long arms (Tenaga). They embody the lesson of teamwork. But that’s just a scratch of the surface. Murakami was a prolific and multifaceted artist, interested in social commentary. A feminist series plays with images of both Wonder Woman and the hula girl icon from the 1950s. The exhibit gathers pieces as unexpected as toasters or even cans of Spam—a rather nostalgic motif, reminiscent of the demand for the often despised meat in the Hawaii she knew as a child. The bulk of the work at the exhibit is drawn from Murakami’s personal collection, or from her immediate family. Those pieces show the artist as her most authentic self. “She would take fireplace wood ash, add a few chemicals and develop this glaze,” Smith says, describing Murakami’s technique with the admiration of a fellow ceramist. “Her glaze kind of runs and pools, and it’s extremely hard to control. And she just takes a pencil and starts to draw. She told me, ‘This stuff just comes out of my head.’” In 2025, the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum gathered together works of the best American women artists of Japanese descent before World War II. Now this exhibit, Pictures of Belonging, organized by the Japanese American National Museum, can be seen in Monterey through April 19. It’s the result of a 20-year journey by curator ShiPu Wang to gather these works that span 80 years. Artists Miki Hayakawa (18991953), Hisako Hibi (1907-1991) and Miné Okubo (1912-2001) were all Californians at some point of their lives. As an emerging modernist painter from the Bay Area, Hayakawa relocated to Santa Fe to avoid incarceration under Executive Order 9066, the infamous decision to round up Japanese Americans on the West Coast at the start of the war. In pieces such as “One Afternoon,” circa 1935, her bold lines are able to conjure space and air in the image. Born in Riverside, Okubo is best known for her 1946 collection of drawings, documenting her experiences in an internment camp. Titled Citizen 13660, the graphic novel chronicles details of the transportation, daily life, infrastructure and rules the prisoners had to follow. Just a year before the war, Okubo received her master in fine arts degree from UC Berkeley. After the war, the artist moved to New York, where she continued to paint while working as a freelance illustrator. One of her most moving paintings is perhaps “Wind and Dust” from 1943. The image shows a family huddled together in a desperate embrace. After her own imprisonment, San Francisco-raised painter and printmaker Hibi also left for New York, but later returned and continued to play with art styles—realism, abstractionism, expressionism. Hibi’s intensity, combined with Okubo’s colors and Hayakawa’s observant landscapes and portraits (“Portrait of a Negro,” 1926), are a special treat for the local community, where the Japanese American experience has long been part of Monterey County’s DNA. Also on display at MMA for the winter season is Landscape ReEnvisioned on the second floor, demonstrating possibilities in experimental landscape photography with works by six artists from Monterey County. Winter Season 2026 at Monterey Museum of Art, 559 Pacific St., Monterey. Open 11am-5pm ThursdaySunday. $15; free/students, military, MMA members, youth under age 18; EBT card-holders. Meet ShiPu Wang, curator of Pictures of Belonging, at 2-3:30pm on Friday, Feb. 6 at La Mirada, 720 Via Mirada, Monterey; $5-$20; sold out. Free admission 5-7pm Friday, Feb. 6 (First Friday), 11am-3pm Saturday, Feb. 7 (Family Fun Day) and 11am-5pm Sunday, Feb. 8. (831) 372-5477, montereyart. org. An American Keiken New exhibits at the Monterey Museum of Art are all about the Japanese-American experience. By Agata Popęda “This stuff just comes out of my head.” Local ceramicist Pam Murakami gets her due with the exhibit Spirits and Memory, which includes intricately images like 2012’s “Marriage of Kitsune and Tengu,” above. PAM MURAKAMI MINÉ OKUBO Miné Okubo’s “Boy, Goat, Fruit” is part of the Pictures of Belonging exhibit that opens on Feb. 5.
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