Kay Sekimachi

Early life and education

Kay Sekimachi was born in San Francisco on September 30, 1926 to first generation Japanese Americans Takao Sekimachi and Wakuri Sekimachi. Sekimachi was interned with her family at Tanforan Assembly Center and then the Topaz War Relocation Center from 1942 to 1944.

From 1946 to 1949 she attended the California College of Arts and Crafts. After she visited the weaving room and saw students working on looms, she spent her entire savings on a loom the following day though she did not know anything about weaving. She started her art career weaving clothing and two-dimensional wall pieces. She heard Trude Guermonprez speak at Pond Farm and later studied with her during the summer of 1954. She attended the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Liberty, Maine where she studied with Jack Lenor Larsen in 1956.

She started experimenting with nylon monofilament hangings and weaving off loom by 1963.

Sekimachi was part of the New Basketry movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Her later works comprised small woven baskets. She also created woven paperfold-like boxes with a Japanese influence. She later created baskets of linen warp ends and rice paper. Most recently, Sekimachi has incorporated objects found while beachcombing into her works, also creating jewelry.

She taught at the Adult Division of the San Francisco Community College.

Sekimachi's works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Smithsonian Institution, the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris and the Honolulu Museum of Art Spalding House (formerly The Contemporary Museum, Honolulu).

Awards and honors

Personal life

Sekimachi lives in Berkeley, California. She was married to Bob Stocksdale (1972–2003).