Publication Date: Friday Dec 12, 1997

True to tradition

The worlds of art, music and sports meet in 19-year-old Drue Kataoka's brush strokes of black ink on white pages. These worlds are not so different as they may appear, the Stanford sophomore says, and, in fact, share many of the same qualities.

Kataoka is a master of the 2,000-year-old Japanese art form sumi-e, and years of training are working for her when she puts her dipped-brush to the paper. But there is no erasing in sumi-e. She knows that, like the swing of a tennis racket or the pluck of an upright bass, there's no taking back a movement once it's made.

"You have to have a really good understanding of space. You only have one chance to capture the moment," she said. "I try and have my brush strokes have a dialogue with each other. One brush stroke leads another.

"You really have to think when you lay down a brush stroke."

Sumi-e is a well-known art form that relies heavily on negative space and the viewer's ability to complete what is technically an unfinished image. Traditionally, sumi-e has been associated with such typical subjects as bamboo leaves and landscapes. But Kataoka is helping to modernize this ancient art form.

"I'm interested in crossing over and bringing (sumi-e) to new arenas," she said. "I'm interested in bridging the sports world with the arts world."

Kataoka has done just that, and the results can be seen all over the Stanford campus. She has an ongoing exhibit of 50 sports-related paintings at Arrillaga Family Sports Center, as well as 20 sumi-e works hung at the Taube Family Stadium that all picture tennis-playing athletes.

It was through the art hanging at Taube that Kataoka managed to meet and begin a friendship with Martina Hingis. Hingis, the world's No. 1 tennis player, was at the university to participate in the Bank of the West-sponsored tennis tournament.

"She saw (my tennis) paintings and she really liked them," Kataoka said. "She asked me for a brush painting lesson."

Kataoka provided Hingis with a tour of some of her other paintings, as well as with the requested sumi-e lesson. Kataoka didn't feel the need for an exchange, however.

"I didn't ask her for a tennis lesson," Kataoka admitted.

Moving from the tennis court to the football field, Kataoka was chosen to do the art for the poster commemorating the 100th Big Game between Stanford and the University of California. The painting she provided pictures an old school footballer standing on top of the Stanford Axe, which is the trophy awarded to whichever school wins the Big Game. The athlete has his right foot extended above his head, having just punted the ball, and is bookended by Stanford's Hoover Tower and Cal's Campanile. Kataoka autographed posters at the Big Game, and the collector's items proved very popular--they sold out.

Kataoka, herself a flutist and a member of the Stanford Jazz Band, also has focused her painting skills on the music world. She sees many similarities between painting and playing music. While it's obvious that timing and rhythm are critical elements to music, Kataoka says that they also can prove important in painting. Furthermore, both sumi-e and music make use of negative space.

"The art of it is to leave something out, so that there is more," she said. "What's not there gives what's there shape and form."

Musically speaking, negative space can be a break or a pause in the music that adds emphasis or denotes an oncoming change in the music's direction. Negative space has been used effectively throughout the ages in a variety of musical styles, from classical and country to rock and rap.

Negative space in a painting can be when the artist does not entirely complete an image or declines to "connect all the dots," allowing the viewer to do the work for him- or herself. The desire is for the viewers to interact with the pieces, creating visual and mental images unique to each individual.

"The negative space kind of allows the imagination to take flight," Kataoka said of both music and sumi-e. "It's all those things that you bring to it."

Kataoka's interest in art can be traced back to her early childhood in Japan. A carton of crayons was a constant companion for young Kataoka, who says that those days were also filled with creative activities and trips to the museum.

"(My parents) pushed me around in a stroller, and I would look at the great masterworks in Japanese art," she said.

Kataoka and her family lived in Tokyo until she was five and then moved to the Bay Area. Although this is just her second year attending Stanford, she has long been a part of the university's community. Her father, Tetsuya Kataoka, is a research fellow at Hoover, and her mother, Barbara Kataoka, is an administrator for the Communication Department.

Kataoka went to school locally and graduated from Sacred Heart High School in 1996 as the class valedictorian. By 17, the young artist had received her han. The han--the signature stamp denoting a particular artist as a master--can be found printed in red on each of Kataoka's paintings. Her first dose of national exposure in the United States came recently when 60 of her paintings went on display at the Wyndham Riverfront Hotel in New Orleans.

Kataoka's an art history major at Stanford, she says, because she thinks it is important to know "whose shoulders are you really standing on." Looking back through history, Kataoka says that art is one of the ways that cultures have been able to leave their mark upon time. Now approaching the new millennium, she wonders how the 20th century will be remembered.

"The arts are crucial," she said. "Without them we are lost."

Note: Check out Drue Kataoka's work on the Web at http://www.stanford.edu/^drue 

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