Category: Voices from our members

As I begin writing, my desk is covered with orders for the 2021 CWAJ 64th Print Show catalogue. For 10 years, I have distributed the catalogues and products in the U.S.  You can take a woman out of Tokyo, but you can’t always take her away from CWAJ! In 1984, I arrived in Japan for the third time. I spent my junior year on a Waseda University exchange program where I met my husband, returned to Tokyo for graduate work, and finally settled in New York. We hoped to get back and were thrilled when his assignment came through. I had not had a clue as to what I would find,

Of the 75 or so Overseas Members listed at the back of the CWAJ Directory, there are many who have contributed significantly to the Print Show, in Tokyo, beyond, and much further afield. Some of these individuals (Patty Collins, Marilyn Gosling and Lindy Kerr) have already been highlighted in the monthly spotlight on Overseas Members – and others will soon make an appearance (Laurel Dove, Joanne Fallon and Pat McDonald-Scott). This month we have asked a handful of the many others who have been involved to write a little about their experiences while in Tokyo, and their continuing interest in Japanese print art and the Print Show. All of us

Tell me about yourself… My name is Morag Thomson and I was born in Scotland some 80 years ago. As a child, my main aim in life was to become a Primary School teacher. This I achieved, and I graduated from Dundee College of Education in 1961. My husband and I were married in 1963; then began a life of travel, neither of us knowing we would only return to live in Scotland 38 years later. We have two sons, both born in Switzerland. The elder studied for a year in ICU in Tokyo. He is married to a Japanese girl and they in turn have two sons, one of

Tell me about yourself… I and my husband, Max, have been living for the last 15 years in our home city, Sydney, Australia, and delighted that the management of COVID19 has been so successful here.  As I write this, I am reminded of the old adage “Pride comes before a fall”, and we all know by now that COVID has a way of striking back again and again.  Our children and grandchildren live in London, so they have not had such a happy time. Neither have our friends in Japan and we are always thinking of you and hoping for a miracle for the Tokyo Olympics. After leaving Japan in

Tell me about yourself… I have felt a bit like a privileged hermit in the past few years, hidden away in a new house I have helped to both design and build. This simple timber house is surrounded by a lovely native garden including over 60 mature eucalypts, adjoining Terrigal Lagoon on the Central Coast of New South Wales. Retiring to Australia aGer 34 years of expat life in early 2017, my husband Ted and I looked forward to settling into our own (yet to be built) home. Now moved in, lorikeets, kookaburras and magpies have kept us company as we wait out the pandemic on the top floor of

Tell me about yourself… I grew up in a bilingual environment, mostly in Tokyo. After college, I worked briefly at NTT Communications Corporation before moving to USA, where I lived for fifteen years and enjoyed a career in the renovation and design industry. My life in Washington D.C. and New York was both inspiring and humbling, and I am grateful for the freedom I felt in the USA culture to start anything regardless of gender, age or experience. I briefly operated a small business, until I moved back to Tokyo several years ago. I currently primarily spend time at home with my two children, while working as a freelance translator