| Disability
Intellectually disabled
Statement
Kazumi was raised by her parents with an older brother. She enrolled in Shiga Prefectural Yokaichi Special Education School and went through Elementary, Middle, and High Schools there. While having a gentle personality, she wasn’t sure of her responses, often meaninglessly smiling or asking back the questions, and had difficulty in communicating with others.
After graduating from high school, Kazumi participated in Atelier Yamanami in 1985. Initially diagnosed to have grave intellectual disability, it was difficult for her even to perform light work allocated at Atelier Yamanami at that time. Not confident of her words and actions, she had a hard time to tell others what she wanted to do or to express her feeling and desire with words. Both she and people around her were struggling for a long time to decide what’s best for Kazumi.
One day, Kazumi fell in love with a man. She learned the joy to express her own feeling with clay, being encouraged and/or briefly commented by him. From this, she became more confident of herself little by little and was able to actively communicate with someone she loved and others in general through creating and presenting her own work.
At the beginning of her creation, she makes a foundation with clay. She then makes clay pellets roughly the size of grain of rice with her fingers and attaches them to the surface of foundation. It takes her roughly two months to cover the entire foundation with numerous pellets.
While Kazumi’s primary motivation is to gain the attention of the person she loves by creating his statues, her imagination has expanded lately and she now creates various virtual scenes featuring the person she loves (Masato) and herself.
Q & A with Kazumi Kamae
Q: You have created quite a few statues of “Masato.” Why are they all of Masato?
A: - Because I love Masato very much.
- Because I want Masato to see the completed work and talk with him.
- And because I want to go to another exhibition with Masato one day.
Q: Do you enjoy creating statues of “Masato?”
A: - Yes, I enjoy creating “Masato” very much.
- I have been making “Masato” all the time for about 10 years.
Q: Do you consider creating something other than “Masato?
A: - No I don’t. I will keep creating “Masato” for long.
About her works
Love is precious. The desire to capture the presence of loved ones has been an eternal endeavor in the arts. Kazumi Kamae is in love with “Masato,” her muse and sole model for her sculptures. Kneading affection into each fine grain of clay, she fills every inch of sculpture surface, leaving no empty space. The infinite grains undulate into waves of passionate love.
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