This article and photos are based on Yoshinori Ishii’s original article in Japanese.

A new art museum welfare center is the pride of Toma, a small farming town in Hokkaido. Toma is near Asahigawa, Hokkaido’s second largest city. The town only has a population of 7,300 people, and is known mainly for its delicious rice and watermelons. But, it is now building a reputation for itself as a community art museum, a gallery for disabled artists, and a welfare center for training intellectually handicapped people.

Presently, the art museum is exhibiting 150 works by disabled artists until 31 July. This exhibit includes paintings, ceramics, woodwork, and other creative works.

Art museum exhibit that is fun to explore

The town’s Ikaushi primary school was closed down in 2005, however, with support from The Nippon Foundation it recently reopened in this new incarnation as the town’s art museum, locally known as “Katarube Mori Bijutsukan ,”(artist in forest Katarube). The name is derived from the fact that the former school is surrounded by the Katarube forest and is in very natural surroundings. The town organizers of the art museum also decided to use the spacious premises as a creative welfare center for disabled and handicapped people. The present chief of the art museum/welfare center is Toshiyuki Yokoi, a former professor at Hokkaido University’s Health Sciences Department.

The former primary school in Toma reborn as the “artist in forest Katarube art museum”

The teaching part of the art museum has a woodcraft center, weaving looms, and pottery making equipment for training persons with disabilities.

Local welfare organizations see it as an ideal outpatient training facility for patients in their care.

The art museum’s entrance featuring small weaving loom and painting

The two story art museum’s galleries and other renovated areas cover 1,700 square meters. The first floor is for the disabled to use for making pottery, ceramics, and woodwork. There is also a shop for selling the goods made by the artists, and a coffee shop. There are three large spaces on the second floor, one is used as a permanent art exhibition area, another is sorting area for new work being added to the art museum’s collection, and the third space is for saving past exhibition creations.

Distinctive pottery creations on display

The present exhibition that lasts until the end of July contains the work of 29 artists and 150 examples of their creations, which cover about ten years of their combined work.

This exhibition has mainly paintings and ceramics. There are also several hundred notebooks written by Eri Takashima in ball pen on display that contain lists of vegetables’ names.Other works were done by an artist that used his fingers rather than a brush to paint, and another painter’s work is of a deformed animal.The art museum’s visitor book contains comments such as: “a heartwarming experience,” “lively,” ”soft,” “I feel the strength of the heart of the artists,” “I am moved by the beauty of the work,” “I was sad when the old school closed, but I’m happy that it is reborn in this way,” and “I am really impressed with the individuality of the work.”

Kotaro Ishiguro, the art museum manager

Kotaro Ishiguro who is the museum’s manager commented that the area around Toma is well known for the artistic work of disabled persons. Ishiguro wants to spread the word of the museum’s existence through active networking, and not just leave it to the PR professionals. He said he wants to do exhibitions of the artists’ work in other parts of the country.

The current exhibition will be held until July 31.