The Yumiko Tsumura Atelier
About
Pacific Art League is honored to launch a new initiative made possible through a generous gift: The Yumiko Tsumura Atelier, a tuition-free studio program designed to support and inspire the next generation of young oil painters.
For many young artists, oil painting—the medium of Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and countless master painters—can feel out of reach. The cost of materials and the technical nature of the medium often create barriers that prevent students from exploring it fully. Your gift removes those barriers and opens the studio door to young artists at a pivotal moment in their creative lives.
Through the Yumiko Tsumura Atelier, a small cohort of dedicated students ages 12–17 will receive sustained instruction and mentorship in a supportive studio environment where curiosity, discipline, and artistic voice can flourish.
A Year in the Studio
The atelier will run alongside the academic school year, allowing students to develop their artistic practice while balancing school commitments.
Program Dates: September – April
Atelier Cohort: 12 students
Studio Sessions: 12 sessions
Session Length: 3 hours
Total Studio Instruction: 36 hours
The primary studio sessions will take place on Sundays, creating a consistent weekly rhythm for students throughout the academic year. Additional learning opportunities or specialized sessions may occasionally be scheduled during the week as instructors and programming allow.
Throughout the program, students will learn in a studio-based environment guided by a range of Pacific Art League’s experienced oil painting instructors, each bringing their own approach, techniques, and artistic perspectives. Exposure to multiple instructors allows students to experience different painting methods and expand their understanding of the medium.
The curriculum will introduce both the technical and expressive possibilities of oil painting, including:
Drawing and observation for painters
Color mixing and oil painting techniques
Still life and observational painting
Introduction to portrait and figure painting
Independent studio work and artistic exploration
About Yumiko Tsumura
Yumiko Tsumura is a poet and translator of modern Japanese poetry. After receiving BA and MA, and PhD residency in American literature at Kansei Gakuin University in Japan,
she joined International Writing Program and earned MFA in poetry and translation from the University of Iowa.
New Directions published her books of translation of selected poems of Kazuko Shiraishi: Let Those Who Appear (2002), My Floating Mother, City (2009), Sea, Land, Shadow (2017)
Her books of English translation of other modern Japanese poets in collaboration with Samuel Grolmes include Tamura Ryuichi Poems 1946 - 1998, cccbooks, 2000.
Her books of poetry include Woman of March, Finishing Line Press, 2017, Man of Peace, Black Mountain Press, 2020, All in One, Black Mountain Press, 2021
Recently she has donated three masters of modern Japanese literature---Ryuichi Tamura, Kazuko Shiraishi and Yumiko Kurahashi; original signed books, manuscripts, correspondence
as well as her books of translation of their works to Stanford University East Asian Library, and to IWP, the University of Iowa for permanent preservation.