Born in 1920 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, but raised in California, Martha Longenecker was an artist, educator, and founder of the Mingei International Museum in San Diego, California. Longenecker had an early interest in drawing and painting that was supported by several teachers throughout her high school years. She went straight from high school to University of California, Los Angeles, where she earned her BA in art with a minor in English, while also pursuing elective courses in graphic design and ceramics. Set on studying under watercolorist Millard Sheets, whose work she had encountered as a teen, Longenecker enrolled at Claremont Graduate School, where she completed a MFA and received an Art Education Credential. After finishing her studies, she maintained a ceramics studio, selling her works through prestigious Dalzell Hatfield Galleries from 1944 – 1964. An established potter, Longenecker was invited to develop a ceramics program for San Diego State University in 1955. She would spend the next 35 years there as a professor of art teaching ceramics and design, directing the school’s gallery program, and managing student teachers. Longenecker developed a deep interest in Japanese ceramics in the early 1950s after a workshop with mingei scholar Dr. Soetsu Yanagi, Japanese potter Shoji Hamada, and British potter Bernard Leach. In fact, she cites her hope of continued study in Japan as one of her motivations for accepting the teaching position in San Diego. Longenecker would indeed travel to Japan throughout her life, studying with Hamada and others. She ultimately began transporting her interest in mingei, translated as “art of the people,” back to her students in California, founding a nonprofit in 1974 to host lectures, exhibitions, and workshops with international folk artists. This nonprofit became the Mingei International Museum in 1978. Longenecker served as director of the museum from 1978 – 2005, overseeing numerous exhibitions, successful capital campaigns, and a 1996 relocation to Balboa Park. In honor of her immense contributions to cross-cultural artistic exchange, Martha Longenecker was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun by the Emperor of Japan in 2003 and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the American Craft Council in 2005. She died in 2013 at age 93.