Creating art in the midst of the political division

Today's the guest - born in Toyama, Japan. Minako was inspired by Michelangelo's artwork when she was traveling in Italy and decided to study oil painting and graphic design at Musashino Art University in Tokyo.In 2001 she moved to New York City to study artistic human anatomy at the Art Students League of New York where she met her mentor, sculptor Seiji Saito who used to be an assistant of Isamu Noguchi. In 2002 Minako started carving marble and has mastered and utilizes, unlike most modern sculptors, traditional techniques of sculpting stone by hand which is becoming an art form rarity in today's art world.After multiple awards, in 2013 she won the public art competition in New York City and created her first monument "Lovers" for the Riverside Park, Manhattan NYC. Since then she has been designing and fabricating monuments and memorials for parks and gardens which inspired her to study "Public Art for Urban Design" at Harvard University in 2017.