Becoming an Artist
- Mai Ryuno
- 6 days ago
- 9 min read
I Didn't Dream of Becoming an Artist
I did dream of becoming an artist.
When I moved to Monterey, California, I thought I was coming to the United States to become an artist.
I didn't have a career plan.
I wasn't thinking about what job I would have, how much money I would make, or what my professional life would look like.
I simply wanted to make things.
I wanted to explore art.
I wanted to see what would happen.
The image of my dream became clearer as I took the paths that appeared along the way.
The image of my dream became clearer as I took the paths that appeared along the way.
Maybe the clues were already there
I wasn't the child who spent every day drawing.
I owned very few toys, but I had a lot of clothes. Clothing was almost like a toy for me.
My mother loved clothing, too. She would find clothes she liked and have them altered to fit her perfectly. She had a very particular eye for design, and, of course, opinions about my choices.
As a child, I sometimes wondered why I couldn't have the clothes other kids wore, with their favorite characters and bright designs.
As an adult, I appreciate what she gave me instead.
An early education in details, proportion, material, fit, and style.
People have told me that I'm good at making nice things. I think that may be partly because I learned to pay attention to the surface of things.
My father influenced me differently.
He was a civil engineer, but his interests were never limited to engineering. He read philosophy and literature. He thought about people, society, and ideas. He was interested in what might exist beyond what was immediately visible.
He also cared deeply about people and community. After the disasters in Tohoku, he went there to see the damage to infrastructure and volunteer.
Looking back, I can see both of my parents in the way I work.
My mother taught me to notice what is there.
My father taught me to wonder what else might be there.
I didn't know these were artistic qualities.
I didn't even know they were qualities.
They were simply how I lived.
Before I dreamed about becoming an artist, I dreamed about making friends all over the world. I chose to study English in college because I thought it might help me connect with people from different places.
My father helped me see that even choosing a college could be a way of choosing the kinds of people and possibilities I might encounter.
I followed that idea because it made sense to me.
Even then, I wasn't really thinking about a career.
I was following something I was curious about.
Maybe that's how clues work.
They don't usually announce themselves as clues.
We notice something before we know why it matters.
Meaning sometimes arrives later.
The cardboard sculpture
There is one moment I often remember from my college years in Kyoto.
I made a cardboard sculpture for my apartment.
It was functional, something I was making for myself and my space with what I had.
I started during the day and became so absorbed in making that I didn't realize it had gotten dark.
I hadn't even turned on the lights.
I didn't think, This is art.
I was just making something.
But when I look back now, I wonder if that was one of the clues.
I was curious about making.
I eventually decided to move to the United States to study art.
I didn't make a grand declaration.
I followed my curiosity.
Something catches my attention.
I don't necessarily know why.
I think:
Wait. What's this?
And I follow it to see what happens.
Only later can I sometimes see where it was leading.
Following the thread
In 2010, I lost my position at SFAI, which had supported my work visa.
I had to decide what came next.
I chose Japan.
On January 1, 2011, I began a new year in a place that was both new and old to me. I had lived in California for eight and a half years by then, so returning to Japan felt like entering an old place with a new life.
I didn't know what my life in Japan would bring.
Later that year, after the earthquake and tsunami, I moved from Fukuoka to Tohoku and began working with young people.
I worked in an after-school study program and later in creative, project-based, and experiential programs that invited young people to think about their futures, explore possibilities, and learn through doing.
My father had gone to Tohoku after the disasters, using his knowledge and skills as a civil engineer to help assess the damage to infrastructure.
I was there for a different reason, but I also brought what I knew.
Art. Making. Working with people. Creating learning experiences. Figuring things out.
I didn't think of these things as a particular set of skills at the time.
They were simply what I had.
While I was there, I encountered a program called Y-PLAN TOMODACHI.
A staff member from the sponsoring company brought a flyer to our after-school site and asked me to encourage students to apply.
I learned about the program then.
I didn't know I would teach it four years later.
In 2015, after returning to Monterey and beginning to teach at community colleges, I happened to see a Craigslist posting for a summer teaching position.
The program name wasn't even listed.
But the description sounded familiar.
It was Y-PLAN, and the position was to teach the program to high school students from Tohoku.
I applied.
I didn't hear back.
I thought I was a good fit, so I didn't simply let it go. I found a connection through people I knew in Tohoku and eventually contacted someone connected to the program.
That led to an interview.
I got the job.
I stayed with Y-PLAN until 2024.
I didn't know in 2011 that the flyer would matter in 2015.
The first experience simply stayed somewhere in me until something later made it recognizable.
I don't think everything happens for a reason.
I think sometimes something happens, we notice it, and we carry it with us.
Then something else happens years later, and suddenly we recognize a connection.
I've been told that I'm good at figuring things out.
I'm also good at not giving up.
I don't always know how something will work out before I begin.
But I have learned that I can make a choice, follow a curiosity, respond to what happens next, and figure out the next thing from there.
Maybe that is one of the qualities I developed as an artist.
I don't just tolerate uncertainty.
I enjoy it.
I get excited by possibilities.
When “artist” became the word that came closest
My understanding of being an artist changed significantly during graduate school at SFAI.
I encountered forms of art that were not primarily about making beautiful or technically impressive objects.
Conceptual art.
Performance.
Relational art.
Social practice.
Other ways of working opened up a much larger territory.
I realized that I had always valued experiences with people more than material possessions.
I would rather go camping with family and friends than go shopping.
I would rather drive around with friends than have a beautiful car.
I own a 1976 Ford Pinto named Ms. P.
People see her and stop to tell me stories.
Someone owned one.
Someone's parents had one.
Someone remembers riding in one as a child.
The car becomes a reason for people to talk to each other.
I think I've always been interested in things that do that.
I didn't necessarily think of these preferences as connected to art.
They were simply how I wanted to live.
Then I discovered that art could be about experience, relationships, questions, participation, and possibilities.
Something clicked.
I began to understand that I didn't have to separate art from life.
In fact, I had never really wanted to.
And over time, “artist” became the word that came closest to who I am.
Painter doesn't describe me.Educator comes closer, but it still doesn't describe enough of what I do.
Artist somehow does.
Not because I found a fixed definition of myself.
I am still figuring out who I am.
That changes as I experience more, meet more people, and notice more about myself and the world.
But artist is still the word that comes closest.
Then something strange happened
Once I started calling myself an artist, other people began noticing creativity in things I wasn't necessarily thinking of as art.
Not only in objects I made.
In how I dressed.
The words I used.
The way I thought.
The way I taught.
The way I cooked.
The things I presented to other people.
The way I put things together.
A professor once told me that I was “a piece of artwork.”
Someone had described my way of doing things before as “Mai World.”
Maybe they were seeing something before I had a name for it.
Once I started calling myself an artist, I began to see it too.
Maybe becoming an artist isn't only about making art.
Maybe it is also about allowing the way you see to enter the rest of your life.
Being an artist isn't the same as having an art job
Through teaching at community colleges, I've met many students who were told by adults around them to pursue something other than art.
Nursing.
Computer science.
Engineering.
Business.
Something practical.
I understand the concern.
We need to make a living.
But I don't think choosing a practical profession means giving up the possibility of becoming an artist.
And I don't think having a creative job automatically makes someone an artist either.
A job can be creative.
An artist can have a job.
These things don't have to cancel each other out.
What happens when you notice something and cannot stop thinking about it?
What happens when you keep following a question even when there isn't an obvious reason to?
What happens when you make something not because someone asked for it, but because you need to find out what happens?
I don't think everyone is automatically an artist.
But I do think everyone can become one.
That word matters to me.
Can.
It leaves the possibility open without assuming the outcome.
What if the possibility doesn't exist yet?
I love experimenting and following possibilities.
Maybe that's part of why I became an artist.
I like experiments that don't necessarily have to arrive at a predetermined answer.
Sometimes I find an answer that feels right for me.
And then the answer can change.
I can change.
The work can change.
The meaning can change.
Sometimes an answer becomes another question.
Maybe that's why art never really feels finished to me.
Not everything I'm interested in has an obvious category.
What happens if we paint without paint?
What happens if someone pays $3 to receive a secret instruction and grow an alien?
I don't necessarily know what these things will produce.
But I think it is valuable that someone is able to explore them.
That is part of why we created Cold Topics.
The point isn't only the little alien drawing at the end.
It is creating a tiny space for an unknown possibility to exist.
When I was younger, I could make things, but I was easily bored or lost interest.
Now I'm interested in work that can keep unfolding.
Something with layers.
Something I can return to.
Something connected to people, experiences, questions, materials, memories, and the world around me.
Creative Research Lab is my practice.
Recently, my Co-Creation Studio students talked about investing more time in their work so that it can have more depth.
I found myself thinking about my own practice.
I can imagine doing this kind of work for a very long time.
Perhaps until I die.
The sky doesn't have to be the limit
I have a funny reaction when I hear:
“The sky is the limit.”
Why does the sky have to be the limit?
Maybe becoming an artist is not something we do alone
When I first moved to Monterey, I thought I was coming to become an artist.
I didn't know exactly what that meant.
Over time, I came to understand it differently.
Being an artist is not only making art.
It is learning how to pay attention.
How to follow a question.
How to stay with uncertainty.
How to notice connections.
How to make something happen when you don't yet know what it will become.
And because I became open to those possibilities, I eventually became interested in creating those conditions for other people too.
My father built infrastructure.
I am interested in building conditions.
Conditions for curiosity.
For experimentation.
For connection.
For something unexpected to happen.
Dream Lab is one place where I can practice this with other people.
I don't want young people to simply follow my path.
I want to work alongside them while they discover their own.
I sometimes feel that I can call myself an artist when I become this way.
But I may never arrive there.
I sometimes feel that I can call myself an artist completely when I become this way.
But I may never arrive there.
Who I am keeps changing.
Maybe that is part of who I am.
Maybe that is part of being an artist.
I don't have a perfect definition of an artist.
Maybe I never will.
But when something catches my attention and I think:
Wait. What's this?
I know what to do next.
I follow it.
And maybe we can do that together.
Wait. What's this?
Let's see what happens.
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