Art Mediums: color pencil and graphite on paper

www.hibikimiyazaki.com

Born in NYC in 1974, Miyazaki spent most of her youth in rural Massachusetts with her parents and younger brother. Her father was a woodworker and craftsman; her mother illustrated children’s books. Her family initially provided her with an informal art education and encouraged her always to pursue her creative dreams. She drew compulsively from the age of three and never stopped. When she arrived in Portland, Oregon, in 1997, she began working at a family-owned headstone manufacturer creating personalized memorials and has kept that job to this day. Hibiki finds time to draw whenever she can. She currently lives and works in Portland with her husband Justin, her stepson Eliot, and their cat Pepper.

“There is something wonderfully and brutally elemental about drawing with a pencil on paper. You really can’t hide anywhere on the page, a drawing either holds up, or it doesn’t. There’s no “command+Z” undo with drawing on paper.  Even an eraser is not entirely subtractive. The smudginess and ghost traces left after erasing can be additive actions on the page, which I love.”

“I’ve struggled with the idea that, in America, getting “good” at an endeavor means you should make money at it. The natural trajectory for any undertaking is to become a capitalistic venture, in other words. Anything short of that is perceived as a hobby, not to be taken seriously. When the pandemic hit and all the wildly successful local businesses shuttered within weeks, I realized that this shameful situation I had in America with not making enough money was actually a superpower. I could go on indefinitely like this, caring about this art thing I had been obsessed with since childhood. My connection to it went so much deeper than money. The pandemic showed me just how strong my commitment to art is.”

“I prefer audiences to look at my drawings unprepared and bring whatever associations they have at the moment when they engage with the imagery. I want viewers to form a personal relationship with each piece, making up and owning whatever story occurs to them at the time. I approach new drawings with no preconceived notions about the direction the work will take. My goal is to find a place of poetic nonsense where the juxtaposition of symbols make “dream sense” and not necessarily linear or narrative sense. For this to occur, the process needs to be completely improvised.”