The LA Times wrote that Patty Christiena Willis’s work “shows the power

of the folktale to create wonder.” “How the Bears were Saved,” imagined

out of events that happened in a small village in rural Japan, is full of that

wonder. After a summer with rain that destroyed the food sources of the

bears in the mountains, the bears gather to consider what to do. An old

remembered story sends them on a journey. Will they find what they

need? This story was first published in Japanese as a chapter in Patty’s

larger work, “Village Above the Stars.” The Japanese Press compared the

work to Miyazawa Kenji and Antoine de Saint Exupery and the book was

placed on the recommended reading list for the Japanese National Library

Association. This exhibition of the illustrations celebrates its debut in

English.

Named for her great-grandmothers, Patty and Christiena, matriarchs and

patriarchs of her family tree have lived around the artist since her birth.

She is a direct descendant of two women convicted in the Salem Witch

Trials, a soldier who disappeared during the battle of Waterloo, a pioneer

midwife who delivered 3,977 babies, a soldier who earned 4 battle stars in

the Great War and a baker in Wyoming who extended hospitality to the

Japanese Americans incarcerated at Heart Mountain Internment Camp

during WWII. Painting them is her way of giving thanks for their legacy.

Before her second birthday, her geologist father and intrepid mother

moved the family to Venezuela. Her self portrait as “Pecesita” or “Little

Fish” comes from her time in Maracaibo, Venezuela. From there, they lived

in Libya and Bahrain and from those places, they traveled around the

world every two years. Her study of languages took her to Mexico and

Central America, Copenhagen, Paris and Japan where she stayed for 24

years, 14 of which were spent in a mountain village visited by bears. Her

paintings and other creative work were exhibited in many galleries and

stages in Japan. From 2024, she and her musician partner, Mary Lou

Prince, have been happily settled in Tucson, Arizona.