Kay Sekimachi was born in San Francisco’s Japantown in 1926. As a second-generation Japanese American, her artistic practice was informed by her duality as a member of cultural communities in California and Japan. Her artworks frequently reference Japanese culture as part of her ancestral heritage, and merge Japanese and American artistic conventions. As a child, Sekimachi embarked on a yearlong visit to her family’s home country, and later learned calligraphy, origami, and the Japanese language upon return to Berkeley, CA. During World War II, Sekimachi and her family were forcibly relocated and incarcerated in San Bruno, CA, where she took art classes with Chiura Obata (1885–1975) and Miné Okubo (1912–2001). After returning to California, she trained in silk screen printing, watercolor painting, and eventually weaving at California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts), McKinley Adult School, and later Haystack Mountain School of Crafts in Liberty, ME. By the 1960s, Sekimachi emerged a leader in the fiber arts movement, particularly in California. In 1963, she began experimenting with the new monofilament material from DuPont Chemical, drawn to the dualities of its properties—pliable yet firm, and transparent yet receptive to dyes. The plasticity of the monofilament line allowed the two layers of the double weave, strategically interlocked at intervals, to transform, when separated, into multidimensional structures. Triple and quadruple weaves followed shortly, and Sekimachi’s monofilament sculptures evolved into layered and volumetric configurations as she explored ideas of space, transparency, and movement. While the material was representative of American ingenuity, Sekimachi evoked the Japanese appreciation for natural materials and simplicity in design by eschewing color in her resultant artworks, emphasizing the innate properties of the monofilament–flexibility and strength. Throughout her six-decade-plus career, Sekimachi has explored the infinite possibilities of double weave—a technique in which she uses one warp to produce a cloth of two or more layers stretching its potential by transforming it from two to three dimensions. Katsura is from Sekimachi’s seminal monofilament series. The artwork’s title also draws upon Japanese culture, referencing the name of the deciduous Japanese tree. This series was a defining moment in the artist’s career, and she continues to use complex techniques to create simple, elegant forms.