Thank you to everyone who is here, I know Kazu would be deeply touched to see all of your faces here today.
Chisako, Yukie, Yuta, students, friends-colleagues-
When I started to write this out, I started with the traditional salutation,….and I saw that I had written “Kazu and Chisako”. To me the two names are totally intertwined, Chisako was a part of my whole experience of Kazu- from the day I met him to the end, long before I ever met her.
I met Kazu in 1979. I had moved to SF to be one of only two graduate students in illustration dept at Academy.…I didn’t see Kazu at school for a long time, though everyone talked about him…Id heard a lot about him but never met him. I finally did meet him when he was hanging his 4 pieces at a SF society of illustrators show I realized why I never saw him, …he had 4 amazing paintings of Chisako-his girl friend who he was able to see only two weeks in his first 7 years in the country.…. He totally blew away the show; I realized Id been thrown into the hopper with a genius. You can’t imagine how intimidating that could have been.
But instead of becoming rivals we became best friends. We had our graduation show together in 1980 and had 5 more 2 man shows together over the years, Kazu was the first of us to go to New York, and came back with a job. The next year I went to NY with him, and we went 17 more times. I want to tell you, those trips were the best times.
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I want to tell you a story from one of those trips:
One night we were walking back from Greenwich village at about 3 am -and there was a film shoot in times square, -this is the PRE-GUILIANI cleanup times square so we had to detour down to 8th ave or so- a couple of local gentlemen came walking towards us one of them veered into me and then dropped a wax-paper thing on the ground with a splat - and they then demanded that we reimburse them for their “fish sandwich. We looked at each other-I would up pulling out my wallet and paying- as we walked back to the apartment we were really mad walking back….
Kazu started laughing we laughed and laughed all the way back to the hotel, we laughed about it for years--- we laughed about it because we started to see these splats every block-these guys were working, just like we were- trying to make it in NY.
About his art: .He used liquitex acrylic paint. He bought it at the same store you get yours, but somehow he was able to make it do things that nobody else could do. He learned acrylic colors inside out and made them his vocabulary. He truly mastered his medium and made it do what he wanted.- which enabled him to rise to almost any challenge, and to make these amazing pictures that are part of his lasting gift to the world.
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He saw beauty everywhere, he saw the good in people. He saw the artist in people even where it was buried far inside. He was a positive person who saw the good and beautiful in everything, and kept a positive attitude even when he had to confront the worst possible news. He never complained. When he told me about his diagnosis 2 years ago, the first thing he said was he had to tell me something and he was sorry because he knew it would upset me. He was worried that it would upset me.
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I want to say something to the students who are here:
Sometimes when we were in NY Kazu got tired -he would start to speak to me in Japanese… and the funny thing is that I understood him when he did. We could be like like an old married couple and I think with your forgiveness : -I will take one last opportunity to think of what I think he might say to you all:
“You have chosen to do something that isn’t easy, but something truly good and worthwhile and noble and beautiful. It isn’t so important that you make money or reach an audience, although those things can happen as the result of your efforts- but to be a true honest kind and loving person, to be a good wife or husband, a good parent, and to create lasting things of beauty in the world, there is no higher calling, nothing better that you can do with the gift of your talent and your time on earth.”
No one was better at these things than our dear friend.
Earlier this summer, Kazu was at home I was visiting, Kazu asked Chisako for a piece of paper . he very carefully drew a grid and labeled the days, m t w etc. Chisako said whats on the calendar for today Kazu?…he thought a long time and said: “Painting.”
He then stared at the calendar a long time, and eventually said “ I have a lot to do”.
This was his last day.
Kazu saw the good and beautiful potential in everything, even in the dawn of a new day no matter how bleak the outlook might have been. He loved his life, his family, he loved his friends, and he loved his paintings. We loved him back for all he gave us and for sharing himself , his art and his time on earth with us. And in the words of Kazu’s favorite poet:
“All you need is love”
Thank you
Robert Hunt
Sept 17 2011
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