User:Sophia.gilbertson/Ellen Bepp

Ellen Bepp is an Asian American artist born in California's Japantown of San José. Working with collages and hand cut paper pieces, Bepp creates political and cultural filled art. Being a proud Asian American civil rights activist, she feels the need to incorporate the history of World War II into her work.

Bepp has had many exhibitions for her textile work and has also had many performances for her Taiko company. Bepp has also been given many awards over the years. The most recent exhibition that Bepp had was called Sansei Granddaughters' Journey: From Remembrance to Resistance. This exhibition was shown from July 24th, 2022 to November 3rd, 2022.

Early Life
Ellen Bepp is a third generation, Japanese-American, mixed media female artist. She grew up in San José, California with her parents and grandparents. She now is based out of Oakland, California. Her age is unknown and it is unknown if she has siblings or not. She learned how to do art and how to incorporate Japanese culture from her grandparents. Her grandfather was a calligraphy artist and photographer. Her grandmother was a kimono maker and floral artist. Bepp learned to combine parts of each of these art forms to do the work she does today. At about 18, in the late 1960s, Bepp joined the Asian American political/cultural civil rights movement. Protesting for her family is what initiated her to make political references in her work.

Education
1972 -Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Oregon, Eugene.

1984-1986 -Pacific Basin School of Textile Arts in Berkley, California.

Individual Folk Art Research:
1973 -Chimaltenango, Guatemala

1985 -Lima, Peru

1990 -Michoacan, Mexico

Career
Soon after joining the Asian American political/cultural civil rights movement, she started taiko training in 1974. Taiko is a term referring to a broad range of Japanese drums in which Bepp first started her art journey. She has never stopped taiko, however, she began doing more textile pieces around 1980 and began exhibitions for them. Her textile work includes collages made from materials like handmade paper, vintage scraps, ink, natural dyes, graphite, oil pastels, heat transfers, and a Japanese handstitching technique called Sashiko. Her series of collages are done on an eight inch or twelve inch square cradled canvas panel. Another form of art Bepp makes are hand cut paper pieces. She has done a series of these in which she cuts out portraits of African Americans who have been killed by police. She did these pieces as a tribute to their lives.

Sansei Granddaughters' Journey
In April of 2018, Ellen Bepp, along with four other Sansei (third generation) Japanese Americans, started filming a 27 minute documentary called Sansei Granddaughters’ Journey. This short documentary came about after all five women had traveled together to visit some of the concentration camps their relatives had been forced to. The idea of making this into a documentary came after combining the footage each of them had taken. This footage includes the shacks that their relatives lived in, and the poor living conditions they had. Soon after starting the documentary, they started the process of making an exhibition called Sansei Granddaughters' Journey: From Remembrance to Resistance. To add their own experiences, they included pieces of art by each artist. The four women who joined Bepp were Na Omi Judy Shintani, Reiko Fujii, Shari Arai DeBoer, and Kathy Fujii-Oka. Due to President Franklin Roosevelt's executive order 9066, the removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans began during WWII. Bepp's family happened to be incarcerated at the Heart Mountain camp in Wyoming. The reason these 5 artists came together to make this exhibition was to show, through art, their unique experiences with this traumatic event. This exhibition was shown from July 24th, 2022 to September 3rd, 2022 in San Bruno, California.

Miya Sommers visited the Sansei Granddaughters' Journey exhibition and sent in a review article to the Eastwind Politics and Culture of Asian America blog. In their article, they write about what this exhibition means to them as a fifth generation Japanese American. They described how this exhibition is a great way to acknowledge what happened during the war, however, it is also a great way to start fresh. They wrote, "However, Sansei Granddaughters offers us a fresh take in showing us that we have the ability to make a ceremony anew that is reflective of our needs and the larger social climate."

Past Performances
1974-1985 Bepp was an original member of San José Taiko company.

1992-1994 Bepp was a founding member and performer of the Foreign Bodies Theater Company where she performed taiko and spoken word.

1994-1996 Bepp was a performer of taiko and Native American drumming in an ensemble.

1997-2007 Bepp was a founding member and performer of Drumfire, a taiko and Native American drumming ensemble.