Martha Nojima
Hi, My name is Martha Nojima. I was born near Los Angeles, and lived many places in the west before settling in San Francisco. I have always very interested in art. In San Francisco I worked as an artist for 15 years making big projects for public places. My favorite project is the Tenderloin tiles project. I worked with the students from Redding Elementary School for five years. First we tiled the outside of a new elementary school that was built in the Tenderloin neighborhood. We made giant tile paintings about our lives and what we were studying. It is huge!! Then we made a new project for our old school, it was all about reading and books and stories we liked, some of the pictures are 15 feet high.
When I finished that project my husband and I decided to move to his hometown Shimabara in Japan. My husband’s name is Senri he is a sculptor. He makes sculptures out of stone, sometimes, paper and bamboo, and sometimes wood. Shimabara has a lot of stone, and we have a big studio with trucks, and cranes and everything he needs. We live in the countryside. There are many farms around us. We eat a lot of fish and fresh vegetables, homemade soymilk and tofu. Our food changes with the seasons. We love to eat and talk about food. My mother and law and I make many things ourselves. I don’t watch TV very much; I spend most of my free time reading books. I like to read many kinds of books novels, philosophy, and books about how to create peace. I am studying Japanese. I need to learn 2,000 characters to read the newspaper. Now I know around 180, this is like a second grader; I have a long way to go!
We live very close to Fugen Dake. Fugen Dake is Japans’ newest mountain. (Actually that is it’s old name it has a new name, but will always be Fugen Dake to me.) It was formed 12 years ago when an old volcano erupted. Many people lost their lives and 300 people lost their homes. Most of the people who lost their homes lived on the slope of the mountain. They all had to move. Sometimes we are lonely because most of our neighbors are gone. The volcano burned many trees. After the disaster was over the government decided to give Shimabara lots of money. They are building new freeways and making roads wider. Many more people have lost their homes to the roads and many more forests have been cut down. This makes me very sad, and so I am trying to plant many new trees. I have 2,000 oak trees I grew from acorns that I will try to plant next month.
Now I teach English at three different Elementary schools. In one month I have 1,000 students! I want to teach them English so they can communicate with other countries. I also want to learn about the world with them. I love to travel and have spent time in Italy, France, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Mexico, and the Caribbean. When I first met my students they were very surprised, it was the first chance for many of them to be friends with a foreign person. Now we are very good friends. I hope that through this project the students working on it can come to understand the world outside Shimabara, and together with students from around the globe begin to think about what they can do to create a better future. It’s up to us.