Megumi Naitoh
Chair, Department of Art; Associate Professor of Art
M.F.A., Massachusetts College of Art; B.S., San Diego State University
Office hours: Walk-in hours: Wednesday 3:00-5:00 p.m.
By appointment only: Monday 1:00-5:00 p.m., Tuesday 5:00-6:00 p.m., Wednesday 1:30-3:00 p.m., Thursday 5:00-6:00 p.m.
Office: Administration Building, Room 530
Phone: (617) 264-7684
E-mail: naitoh@emmanuel.edu
Web site: http://www.meguminaitoh.com
Megumi Naitoh teaches in ceramics as well as 3D foundation courses. Megumi is actively engaged in the professional field exhibiting nationally and internationally. Her work has been in the collection of Ceramic Research Center, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ and Gauldagergaard, International Ceramic Research Center as well as private collectors in the US. Megumi has developed and created the ECAR (Emmanuel College Artist in Residence) program in 2010. She is currently the director of the program. This program offers educational opportunities to students, enriches the culture on campus, as well as supporting professional artists. She partnered with Mass. College of Art to develop Study Abroad program in Japanese ceramics to offer International experience to students. This program will be offered in Spring 2012
LOGIN COMMUNITY, virtual life, real life
Since 2001, I have been interested in Roman mosaics and their narrative depiction of daily life. I am intrigued by how the mosaics consisted of small pixel like squares that were structured in a non-grid, free form manner. I responded to the Roman mosaics by creating portraits with visible pixels. The tightly configured grid structure of the digital pixilated portraits is contrasted against the more free-formed Roman mosaic aesthetic. The portraits are abstracted and made indefinite by pixilation and present anonymity. The landscape format, size, and frames reference smart phones or computer monitors and suggest Internet communication and online activities.
My current work references mosaics and tile murals. My main interest in online activities continues to manifest in this series, exploring the relationship between technology and our lives. In 2007, I became concerned with Second Life, a 3D virtual world/login community. Second Life is created by its residents and inhabited by millions of users from around the globe who create many communities for entertainment, friendship, education, businesses, etc. Although users can express their identities by creating custom avatars, the environment is established to keep the residents' anonymity. Anonymous blogs, forums, and social sites are a new way of social interaction. They are quite unique to our contemporary lives. By creating two vantage points and presenting images from both the real and virtual worlds in one piece, the work expresses the integration of real life and virtual life, and how we quickly weave through these two worlds on a daily basis.
Courses Taught
- ART 2433 - 3D Form Study
- ART 2451 - Ceramics I
- ART 3451 - Ceramics II
- ART 4451 - Ceramics III
- ART 4417 - Senior Studio
Awards/Honors Received
- 2009 LEAP award finalist, The Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, PA
- 2008 International Residency Award, NCECA (National Council on Education for Ceramic Arts)
- 2007 Emerging Artist Award, NCECA
- 2005 Solo exhibition award, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA
- 2003 Massachusetts Cultural Grant
Significant Publications/Presentations/Panels
Publications
- "Artists put a modern face on mosaics" by Bill Van Siclen, May 5, 2010, Providence Journal
- "Mosaics: a contemporary approach", The Studio Potter magazine, vol.36, number 2, summer 08, p78-79, 2009
- "Confrontational Clay: The Artist as Social Critic" A&C Black London publisher, written by Judy Schwartz, Ph.D., 2008
- "Pixilated Pictures, Barbara Rizza Mellin explains the techniques of Megumi Naitoh's ceramic mosaics" Ceramics Technical magazine, Nov. 2007-April 2008 issue, p32-35
- "The State of Clay" by Barbara Mellin, Ceramics Art and Perception magazine, September to November 2007
- "The Ghost in the Machine, Show at Firehouse highlights human-computer relationship" by Anne Galloway, The Times Argus, July 13th, 2007
- "Clay On Display The State of Clay Exhibition at LACS" by Barbara Mellin, Lexington Colonial Times Magazine, April - May, P50-51, 2007
- Upfront, "Megumi Naitoh", Ceramics Monthly magazine, March issue, P26, 2007
- "Megumi Naitoh: Bitmapped" by Kristen Pounds, Art New England magazine, August-September issue, 2006
- "Digital Ceramics" by Edward J. Sozanski, Philadelphia Inquirer, March 4th, 2005
- "Juried National of Low-Fire Ceramics", UpFront, Ceramics Monthly magazine, October, 2001'
- "Things that go bump in the DeCordova", Boston Globe, September 30th, 2001
- "Megumi Naitoh", Upfront, Ceramics Monthly magazine, December, 2000
Presentation
- Slide lecture, Guldageraard, Skælskør, Denmark, 2009
- Global Explorations, panel moderator, NCECA conference, Tempe, AZ, 2009
- Emerging artist award lecture, NCECA conference, Louisville, KY, 2007
- Slide lecture, Fuller Craft Museum, 2007
- Slide lecture, Art New England Workshop at Bennington College, VT, 2003
