Bunnies, Bubbles, and turning adversity into Art - A conversation with Yuki Nagasato
Yuki Nagasato is an artist in every sense of the word - this is not breaking news. But the Japanese footballer was gracious enough to sit with Southside Trap and discuss how her most recent works of art came to life, and what inspired her to gift original portraits to her teammates during the Challenge Cup.
As a soccer player, Nagasato can thread the needle as she breaks the line on a single pass. As a musician, she’s been classically trained in piano since she was a child, and has learned how to shred the drums while in Chicago -- and in a truly unforeseeable year, Nagasato has used significant parts of her quarantine to enhance her painting skills.
Since her arrival to Chicago, Nagasato has spoken on how integration of her passions has led to her success on the pitch, and that personal fulfillment has become essential to her growth as a soccer player. During her time as a Red Star she’s learned how to play drums, and played in live shows (most recently put together by Chicago Local 134.) This year, amongst all the challenges, she turned to painting.
Back in March she transformed an Instagram page primarily created for footballing to include her passions for art and music, and began posting some of her paintings.
(Screenshot: @Yuki_arts_music_football (IG) Follow: Here )
“This quarantine life was tougher than I expected,” said Nagasato.
“Since our one-week preseason emerged, I started randomly thinking -- what can I do this time at home? And it just came [to me), “Oh, I just wanted to paint more.” More than playing music. So then I kept painting for two months in quarantine life at home.”
In between personal training to maintain fitness for her job as a pro soccer player, Nagasato used painting as a way to cope in isolation, and maintained the craft all the way through the teams’ return to training and relocating to Utah.
“I was mentally and physically okay from our stay-at-home training to our training on the field, but we couldn’t practice at our normal practice field for like three or four weeks, that was a very tough transition because the first two weeks in Wisconsin the training fields are so rough and we couldn’t train normally, [or] really be physical.”
“After beginning life in the hotel, I was painting bunny stuff,” she quipped. “But at some point, I somehow changed my mind to paint for someone, starting with Naho [Kawasumi] and then on my team.”
Life and playing adjustments in Utah were a process both individually and collectively for Nagasato and her teammates. The painting supplies that she had packed up for herself had begun to quickly run out, but she was able to order more canvases online, and also noticed a shift in her painting beyond just what she felt, to wanting to change how others felt instead.
“A first time team portrait, I gave Tierna [Davison] the bunny “Go Gay!” because she wasn’t able to play the game at that time and she was kind of frustrated. I knew she wanted to play and she wanted to be more with the team, like connected, and bonding,” explained Nagasato.
“That made me think about her more than others. I wanted to see her smile with joy and happiness, and the feelings would give more bonding with the team. That was the start, to paint for teammates.”
(Screenshot: @Yuki_arts_music_football (IG) Follow: Here )
The Japanese international was shut down early in the tournament for Chicago, after never truly being up to her own personal standard for the club. After playing in Challenge Cup group matches, Nagasato felt her body wasn’t responding well to the tournament, and a decision was made to sit out the remainder of the games
She also acknowledged and expressed the struggles of navigating bubble life in light of so many other concerns outside of soccer related to COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement. The Red Stars were notably part of an emotional Challenge Cup opening day for the team, on top of trying their best to adhere to strict social distancing rules to help maintain a COVID-free environment, and Nagasato was also struggling with general pain and soreness.
“My muscles have been struggling with pain, I don't know why, it's just so sore, there's tightness in my whole body from the first day,” she said.
“It was just painful, I couldn't handle the practice during trainings. Then we moved to Utah, and with everything going on -- I can’t explain what was going on [in Utah] but everyone [was] so emotional and and felt stress in every thing, which stresses out each other -- which they don’t recognize. I think that made me kind of get injured. Because there were a few times where I was so emotional on the field, and at practice. So, that part was so tough. I was trying to control myself but I just couldn’t, and I think that's how I got injured.”
In between the struggles, the team still found time to celebrate one another when the opportunity presented itself. This included putting together a surprise birthday celebration for Nagasato, complete with watermelon smashing -- a Japanese tradition that Nagasato explains is for kids’ birthdays, and typically takes place in summers.
As her team had planned her birthday celebration, Nagasato was still at work making portraits for her teammates - even gifting ones to Alyssa Naeher, Casey Short and Sarah Gorden on her own actual birthday.
(Screenshot: @caseyshort (IG) Follow: Here )
“Casey and Sarah are very invested with the Black Lives Matter movement so they are very very emotional, tired, sometimes sad, that's why I wanted to make them portraits. To smile more, make them happy, and I just kinda wanted to make it for them.”
“That’s the biggest reason why I am making more portraits. I just wanna make people smile and feel happiness. It’s what I love to do. That makes me put more of my passion into it.”