Kjell Hahn and I graduated together from Truman State University in 2001 and about six months later we both came to Japan under different mechanisms, but coincidentally landed in the city of Himeji in western Japan. I taught English in southern Himeji at a conversation school and Kjell taught at a local high school. Together during the two years that we both lived in Himeji, we set up a welding studio around the back of Kjell’s house. Our long history of working together on the Tom Thumb Gallery exhibitions in undergraduate school made this delicate cooperation possible. In this studio we collaborated at times and worked independently. I fleshed out my thoughts about using bicycles as mobile sculptures and Kjell worked on paintings and drawings. After two years I left to attend graduate school at the University of Texas at San Antonio. Kjell stayed in Himeji one more year and then went to New York to work as an artist’s assistant and a metal fabricator.

For various reasons Kjell returned to Himeji after one year in New York and upon his return set up a painting and ceramics studio in an old leather factory. One of Kjell’s student’s family owned the factory and donated the space. I did not have a chance to see the studio during my time in graduate school but saw it during a brief visit to Japan in May to prepare for my project in Nagoya. Since coming to Japan to begin my research I did not have an opportunity to visit his studio until now.

He built a room inside the large factory that is still half used in the dying of leather. I enjoyed seeing the studio and the art activities of an old friend and colleague. Visiting the studio of an artist for the first time is rewarding as well, but seeing the studio of an artist that you have known for a long time allows for deeper insight into their work and ideas. Kjell has always experimented and investigated the body and the figure in representational forms as well as abstract images. He continues this work in the form of drawings. paintings, and more recently ceramics.
He has completed a few murals in restaurants in Japan including one that he had to repaint after the establishment burnt down. He is studying under a ceramicist named John Dix and at the end of February quit teaching English to pursue art making full time.

I enjoyed my time with Kjell catching up and playing boci ball in the grassy area of a nearby temple. He and I are headed to the kiln where he studies and works with John tomorrow. There they fire a wood burning kiln called a noborigama. More information about Kjell and his art adventures can be seen at www.kjellhahn.com.