Los Angeles, July 2025 – Kimiko Muraoka Koyanagi is a third-generation doll maker originally from Tokyo. Her dolls are very different from such well-known Japanese doll-making traditions as decorative Hina dolls or wooden Kokeshi dolls, but they are just as exquisite to behold, take many days to complete, and employ a unique technique that will soon be lost to the world. Her memoir Kokoro – A Memoir, published by Lark Avenue and now available on Amazon.com, preserves her story, explains her unique artistic technique, and shares photographs of the exquisite dolls that she is still crafting at the age of 93 years old.
Koyanagi was born Kimiko Muraoka in 1932 into the Muraoka doll-making family in Tokyo. Her mother was a second-generation doll-maker, and her father came from a family that specialized in making glass eyes for dolls. One of eight children, she learned how to make dolls as a child using a technique that was passed down to all of the siblings. She has been using this technique, with her own modifications, to make sculptural dolls for over 70 years.
This memoir explores her life growing up in Tokyo before and during World War II, describes her childhood as part of a traditional doll-making family with 7 brothers and sisters, and the impact of the horrors and hardships of war on their lives and work. She explains how, as a young artist, she wanted to break from family tradition and become a painter, but eventually she began to develop her own style of doll-making that was more akin to sculpture, creating tall, slender figures with a graceful profile and an economy of gesture and detail.
Her dolls stood out from those of the rest of her family. She sculpts the figure out of a paste called tōso (made of wood shavings and glue), then smooths down and coats the figure with gofun, a white pigment made of ground-up seashells, painting its surface very simply and occasionally adding floral details or gradations in color on their kimono. Many of her figures are monochrome, often wearing black, which differs from the traditional colorful dolls and reflects Koyanagi’s own personal style and aesthetic.
Her artistic style was not the only quality that separated her from her family’s traditions. She recounts meeting Jim, a Japanese Canadian architect, with whom she fell in love and married, and leaving Japan in 1966 to move with him to Ontario, Canada. With warmth and humor, she recalls the struggles of being far from her homeland, her doll-making family and their artistic traditions and of beginning a new life in Canada raising a family, while striving to continue her craft. Over the following six decades, she continued to grow as an artist, eventually exhibiting her work in solo and group exhibitions in Tokyo, Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Eventually, after the death of her husband, she moved to Los Angeles to live with her son Eric and his family. And, in her third home, she continues to make her art.
In this touching memoir, which spans almost a century of life and art, Koyanagi shares with us her passion for her craft, her love for her families in Japan and North America, and her resilience during challenging times. She also documents a unique artistic technique, one which she evolved from a traditional process and made her own and one that she hopes will continue after she has gone.
Link to purchase Kokoro – A Memoir
Koyanagi's contributions to doll-making have been recognized with the 2025 David Fujino Pioneering Artist Award by the National Association of Japanese Canadians. This award honors her mastery of the traditional gofun technique and her impact on the Japanese Canadian cultural landscape. The award ceremony will take place at the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre in Toronto on Sept. 19, 2025.
