A Japanese Art Journey

“McArthur recounts her path from a lonely childhood in coastal Scotland to a respected career as a curator and art historian. […] As McArthur recalls these professional milestones, she weaves in more intimate anecdotes…with vivid descriptions of art’s soothing power…It’s a lovely self-portrait.” —Publishers Weekly
“This journey of self-discovery and -realization was catalyzed by her passion for Japanese art,” Taylor says. It began when some visiting Japanese students gave her a paper Chiyogami doll that sparked an interest she followed to university and then Japan. “Through this love, she found a way to understand herself and to forge an identity authentic to her,” Taylor says. —Library Journal interviews Cathy Taylor on Meher McArthur’s newest book, A Japanese Art Journey
“A profoundly multi-cultural and inspiring journey. How lovely to meander along the path of a woman’s lifelong study of ancient and contemporary Japanese arts…”En” which Meher describes as “connection,” swirls throughout this memoir of arts, motherhood, and friendship, as entrancing as walking down a winding path in an ancient garden of Japan.” —Leslie Buck, author of Cutting Back-My Apprenticeship In The Gardens Of Kyoto

Meher McArthur has decades of experience as an Asian art historian and curator specializing Japanese art. With degrees from Cambridge University and London University’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), she has served as Curator of East Asian Art at Pacific Asia Museum, Creative Director for the Storrier Stearns Japanese Garden, Academic Curator for Scripps College and Art and Cultural Director for Japan House in Los Angeles. She has also taught courses in Asian art at the University of Southern California, Scripps College and Claremont Graduate University. She regularly lectures and trains docents at various museums in Southern California. For over a decade, McArthur has curated exhibitions for International Arts & Artists (IA&A) including Washi Transformed: New Expressions in Japanese Paper and Kimono: Garment, Canvas, and Artistic Muse. She also curated the exhibition Shiki: The Four Seasons in Japanese Art at the Sturt Haaga Gallery at Descanso Gardens. She lives in Pasadena, CA.

Foreword by Pico Iyer: A British-born essayist and novelist, educated at Eton, Oxford, and Harvard. Since 1987, he has been based in Western Japan, traveling everywhere from Bhutan to Easter Island and from North Korea to Los Angeles. He is the author of fifteen books. He has been a constant contributor for more than thirty years to Time, The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, the Los Angeles Times and more than 250 other periodicals worldwide. He has written the introductions to more than fifty other books, as well as screenplays, librettos and many liner-notes for Leonard Cohen. He speaks regularly everywhere from West Point to Davos and Shanghai to Bogota, and his four recent talks for TED have received more than ten million views.

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