Giving Shape to a Tradition : Art: A ceramist brings her skills to a special audience in La Canada Flintridge, where she teaches Japanese-speaking students.

Raised in her parents’ art gallery and picture-framing shop in San Francisco, Japanese-born Eiko Amano grew up with a deep appreciation for art, particularly ceramics. But her parents admonished her at an early age not to become an artist.

“They thought I would starve,” said Amano, 41, of La Crescenta, the oldest of five siblings.

So, she studied bacteriology, earned a master’s degree in public health and worked as a medical technologist for 17 years in the UCLA anesthesiology department.

Most of her spare time in the last 10 years, though, has been devoted to ceramics. “She is doing a lot of raku and is very good at it,” said Rob Kibler, Amano’s former ceramics instructor at Glendale Community College.

Amano’s forte is raku-yaki , a Western adaptation of a method of firing pottery that began in Japan in the early 16th Century. Unlike traditional methods in which pottery is glazed and heated over a period of days, raku is a method of heating pottery to extreme temperatures in the very short period of about an hour, usually producing unusual, and often unpredictable, results, Kibler said.

Amano is now one of the leading artists practicing this form of firing on the West Coast, said Melinda Williams, education director of the Los Angeles Music Center, which this year named Amano one of 52 artists in residence for local school projects. As such, beginning in February, Amano will teach basic skills in pottery-making to 123 first- through fifth-grade students at Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School in the Paramount Unified School District.

In addition, the artist is bringing her skills to a special audience in La Canada Flintridge, where she has started a beginning class in making pottery by hand--with instruction given totally in Japanese. The class is taught Tuesday mornings at the La Canada Youth House, a social center in the affluent foothill community.

“This is a different kind of era now,” said Chris Valente, youth house director and a La Canada Flintridge city councilman. “We have a lot of Japanese here who don’t speak English. This program is unique and different. We want them to feel welcome to the community by meeting with others who have the same interests and speak the same language.”

Valente added that he is considering offering courses to other cultural groups with language limitations.

Amano said she proposed the course last year because she had studied at the youth house and had used its art workshop before she established her own studio at home.

When she takes her works to exhibits, she said she frequently encounters people from Japan “who would like to learn the techniques, but really don’t have command of the language.” She added that she remembers the frustrations of her own parents who enrolled in a museum-sponsored art class in San Francisco, but were unable to follow instructions in English.

“There is a need in the community for this kind of service,” said Amano, who has traveled extensively throughout Asia, interviewing artists and visiting ancient kiln sites in China, Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

Vice president of the California Japanese Ceramics Arts Guild, Amano frequently uses her slide presentations on the Asian arts scene as educational aids in the arts programs of Southern California colleges.

For her 40th birthday, Amano said her present was to take some time off from UCLA to work extensively with Paul Soldner, internationally known as the Western master of raku and a professor at Claremont College.

“His brushwork is very Asian,” Amano said. “He uses the Japanese style of teaching. I feel very honored that he gave up some of his studio space to have me study with him.”

Amano’s specialization in raku-yaki stems from her love of Japanese culture and traditions. The pottery typically is tied into the Japanese tea ceremony, a centuries-old ritual filled with infinite layers of meaning and history, and whose ceramic utensils are themselves greatly admired.

“All of my work reflects my love for Japan. That’s my heritage,” Amano said.

“There are big cultural differences between Asia and the United States,” she said. “Art in Japan is appreciated on a daily basis, through the tea ceremony. People there are willing to pay great sums of money for the jars and utensils. But in the United States, we don’t have the tradition or cultural background. Our motives are utilitarian.”

As a result, she said, jars and other ceremonial pottery that sell for hundreds of dollars in Asia would be worth only a pittance in the West.

Amano has returned part time to UCLA, where she works two 12-hour days. She devotes the rest of her time to teaching, work in her studio, exhibits and cultural activities. Her husband has a private dentistry practice in Burbank and she says they have had no time for children.

She said she is particularly appreciative of the limitless opportunities for education in America and the opportunity for married couples to pursue dual careers. “Women, especially, would not have those chances in Japan,” she said. “I feel real fortunate to be here.”

A kind of magic is reflected in her voice when she speaks of raku-yaki . “The beauty of raku is in its individuality and the softness of the glazes. Each piece comes out differently in the process and becomes a symbol of its own unique sense,” Amano said.

In the final firing, the kiln is heated to 1,800 degrees or more and the pottery is turned into a red glowing mass with a molten glaze while the oxygen content in the kiln is carefully controlled. “Each piece is fired individually and it’s real exciting,” Amano said. “Some things are accidental and some things are planned.”

The piece is then quickly removed from the kiln and placed in a receptacle containing combustible materials, such as dry leaves, pine needles or newspapers. Some of the beautiful lusters are created at that stage, Amano said. She prefers to use a bed of newspapers topped with dry maple leaves for the post-firing finish.

“People ask me if I can make another piece just like this one,” she said, “but I cannot,” although she admits that her chemistry and physics background allow her to achieve unusually predictable results.

Amano’s artwork is held in the private collections of actor George Takei, journalist Tricia Toyota and Judge Robert Takasugi, among other patrons of the Little Tokyo Service Center, where her work is displayed. Corporations such as Atlantic Richfield, Rockwell International and Inouye Masunaka also include her work in their collections.

Born in Fukuoka, Japan, Amano came to the United States at the age of 11. “My father wanted to be a professional painter,” she said, “but he had to support a family.” Her mother paints as a hobby, as do her three sisters and a brother.

They are planning an exhibition in March called the “Kimura Family Affair” and displaying all of the family members’ talent. It will be held at her sister’s gallery in Palo Alto and celebrates the 74th birthday of Amano’s father. The two other sisters now run the family’s San Francisco gallery, opened by Amano’s father in 1961.

Enrollment in her class at the La Canada Youth House is available by calling 818-790-4353. The cost is $60 for six weeks.