Japanese American Artist Masumi Hayashi Murdered - Cleveland, OH - WWII Japanese Internment
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-- Masumi Hayashi, 60, of Cleveland known for her photocollages
Dorothy Shinn. Beacon Journal. August 19 2006
http://www.ohio.com/mld/ohio/entertainment/15312557.htm?source=rss&channel=ohio_entertainment
Masumi Hayashi was a gentle soul, a practicing Buddhist and one of
Northeast Ohio's most outstanding artists.
The shooting death of the highly esteemed, 60-year-old photographer in
her apartment building on Thursday has stunned the artistic community.
``It's just very hard for all of us to believe that she's gone and in
such a sudden, violent and meaningless way,'' said Akron Art Museum
Chief Curator Barbara Tannenbaum.
``This is an enormous loss for Northeast Ohio,'' said photographer
Andrew Borowiec, a professor at the University of Akron Myers School of
Art. ``Masumi was a great photographer. Her work was in all the great
collections. She was doing innovative work and she was one of the
leading lights of the Northeast Ohio art community.''
Fellow artist John Jackson, 51, also was fatally shot during the
incident. Both lived in an apartment building at West 75th Street in
Cleveland.
A neighbor of the victims got into an argument with Hayashi after she
called the man's mother to complain about loud music, according to the
Cleveland Police.
The man fatally shot Hayashi outside her third-floor apartment and then
shot Jackson while fleeing the building, Cleveland patrol officer Nancy
Dominik said.
A 29-year-old man is being held in Cleveland City Jail under suspicion
while the investigation continues, Dominik said. Charges are expected
this weekend.
Hayashi was known for her large-scale photocollages taken at sites that
were significant to her around the area and around the world. She had
been a Cleveland State University art professor since 1982. Her most
recent project was a series on the internment camps where Japanese
Americans were placed during World War II.
``Masumi was born in a relocation camp,'' said Tannenbaum. ``She was
born in Gila River. When she got her apology from President Clinton,
she began to document the different location camps and to meet with the
survivors and record their images and their words.
``It was a project she hadn't finished,'' Tannenbaum added. ``She was
photographing their eyes and was continuing to photograph some of the
sites.''
Jim Corcoran of Corcoran Fine Arts in Cleveland has exhibited Hayashi's
work and is also devastated by the news.
``This is just a blow-away tragedy,'' said Corcoran. ``She was one of
the most placid and pacific people you ever want to know.
``Masumi and I were really longtime friends. Her death is as
inconceivable as anything I can think of. She had lived in that
neighborhood forever, and she'd never had any problem of any kind with
anybody,'' Corcoran added. ``The art world has lost someone of major
importance. I think she was by all odds the most important artist
working in Cleveland. She had an international reputation and exposure,
showing from London to Tokyo.''
Jackson, the other tenant in the building who was killed, was also a
prominent artist whose work had been exhibited in the Cleveland Museum
of Art's NEO Show.
``It's just a very great loss,'' Tannenbaum said, ``both personally and
in terms of artists who had many long working years ahead of them. It's
so illogical, this killing, and ultimately wasteful of human life.
``Masumi was a practicing Buddhist and one of the most gentle, polite
and generous people you'd ever want to know,'' Tannenbaum added. ``It's
just so difficult to imagine someone lashing out like this toward
someone like her.''