Celebrating Self: Tom Tsuchiya
Hamilton, OH – Before he became an internationally known artist, Tom Tsuchiya was just a kid getting dirty in a neighborhood creek.
He and his brothers collected clay from the creek bed and Tom shaped it into his earliest sculptures - rudimentary animal figures - that inevitably crumbled not long after drying and occasionally earned him time in the doghouse for making a mess in the house.
Tsuchiya will be the featured speaker for the Celebrating Self luncheon at the Fitton Center of Creative Arts Wednesday, November 4.
“I am excited to get back to Hamilton” he said. “I’m glad to be part of the City of Sculpture.”
Hamiltonians can see Tsuchiya’s work every day crossing back and forth over the High-Main Bridge. He created the bronze medallions adorning the face of the structure that depict scenes from the city’s history and its relationship to the Great Miami River.
Many more people in the region know his work from the baseball diamond’s worth of it in front of Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati, starting with the Ol’ Lefthander himself, Hamilton’s own Joe Nuxhall.
Tsuchiya also captured dynamic likenesses of Reds legends like Frank Robinson, Ted Klusuzski and Ernie Lombardi, along with Big Red Machine stars Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Tony Perez and Joe Morgan. Most recently, his sculpture of broadcast legend Marty Brennaman joined the crew in 2025.
Tsuchiya plans to bring several models of his sculptures to the luncheon to help illustrate his process, including a 3-D print of the Brennaman sculpture.
One of the next things up for the artist, Tsuchiya’s three-person sculpture depicting President Ulysses S. Grant, 19th century Commissioner of Indian Affairs Ely Parker and abolitionist statesman Frederick Douglass will be unveiled at the Bethel Historical Society on Grant’s birthday April 27, 2027, in Bethel, Ohio.
While his older brother now works in the world of finance, his younger brother is an architect, giving the two siblings opportunities to collaborate on different projects. In 2024, they made the first permanent BLINK installation – Embrace No Evil – on Court Street in Cincinnati. He’ll have five-inch LED replicas of the piece for sale after the luncheon (and will autograph them, too).
The scope and skills may have changed over time, but Tsuchiya still appreciates the opportunity to work in sculpture.
“It’s really cool that I get to do this for a living,” he said. “Not a lot of people have that kind of opportunity. It’s hard. You have to take all the work you can when you can, because nothing is guaranteed. But I’m still excited to make things and hope people continue to enjoy the work.”
Tickets for Celebrating Self are $26 for Fitton Center members, $32 for non-members, and are available online right here, by phone at 513-863-8873, ext. 110 and in person at the Fitton Center box office. Kathleen Klink is the Celebrating Self series sponsor; Trudy Marcum is the event sponsor for the November luncheon.
The Fitton Center for Creative Arts is located at 101 S. Monument Avenue on the Riverfront in downtown Hamilton, Ohio.
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