Reiko Miyagi was born in Japan and studied art at Tama Art University (BFA 1989), and functional pottery making at Bunka-Gakuin Art and Ceramic Institute in 1989-91. Reiko co-founded Studio Pyro Matrix in Motegi, Japan, 1992 with Douglas Black. The emphasis of work was in functional stoneware, based upon traditional Japanese styles and natural materials.

Relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area in October 1997, Reiko worked under several Bay Area potters. In July of 1998 she founded her Studio Tabula Rasa in Berkeley, CA and began her career in the United States.

Reiko is a member of the Association of California Clay and Glass Artists, and the Arts and Crafts Co-op in Berkeley. In the past two years she has participated in the Mill Valley Fall Arts Festival (Award of Excellence, 2000), the American Craft Council's San Francisco Marketplace, and the San Francisco Celebration of Craftswomen, among other Bay Area shows.

"My work is inspired by shapes from Nature and my belief in the connectedness of all beings and objects. In Nature one finds perfect beauty and, although my work could never reach such a level, I like to express my appreciation by working with natural forms and materials.

For example in many of these pieces I've borrowed the spiral shape from ferns, wind-blown grasses, animal horns and the limbs of trees. The spiral has power for me as a symbol of the vitality of life as well as the infinite and unknowable.

My hope is that my work would be used to help celebrate a daily ritual of eating or with nice elements of decor to make harmonious and beautiful surroundings. I believe that such rituals and surroundings are conducive to a good spirit; and that handmade and natural objects are integral to every good environment."