“Hashimoto's strength is in creating textural equivalents to the conditions of compromise, violation, fragility and endurance that are integral to her discussion of sati. In several works, she coats paper books with wax, then types over them, the impact of the manual typewriter's keys palpable as it penetrates the page and even forces small perforations in it. In other works, she mounts groups of clay tablets that seem ashen, weakened perhaps from burns around the edges, though it was fire that made the substance strong.”
– Los Angeles Times
Fire Next Time | Leah Olman (excerpt)

”Challenging the privileged status traditionally granted to the verbal, Hashimoto’s newest works capture in sculptural form the seductive allure and initmacy associated with the privacy of reading. Suggesting that books function as conceptual embodiments of the flesh, they conflate distinctions between verbal and visual, the conceptual and physical. Revealing the inadequacies of established heirarchies, these works argue for a larger interpretation of reality that permits female as well as male voices to construe the narratives of exstence.”
– Sculpture Magazine
Barbara Hashimoto’s Critique of Power | Collette Chattopadhyah (excerpt)

”Barbara Hashimoto's recent work resides at the intersection of sculpture, consumer culture, and environmental concerns. She collects and shreds junk mail to build large-scale naturalistic forms that ironically remsemble the earth itself. Using the seemingly limitedless supply of printed advertisements delivered in the mail every day, these pieces expose the excessive use and abuse, of natural resources.”
– The New Earthwork, ISC Press
Edited by Twylene Moyer and Glen Harper
The Art of Activisim: A Conversation with Barbara Hashimoto | Collette Chattopadhyah (excerpt)


”Hashimoto’s weavings were especially strong, for instance a surrealist abstraction whose title helps us identify its source in a shredded catalogue photo of Kate Moss. “
– Art in America
Reverse Trash Streams: The Junk Mail Project | Kirsten Swenson (excerpt)

“Barbara Hashimoto's innovative approach to ceramics has earned her critical praise both internationally and locally. She fires books in clay. Applying slip to books or individual pages, Hashimoto’ works are subjected to single or multiple firings in the kiln where the materials react to one another in unexpected ways. Her books are fired bound, stacked or split. The resulting pieces are reworked through drawing, painting or collage to further articulate their content. These surprising compositions blend poignancy, violence and meditative tranquility.”
– Ceramic Art and Perception International
Barbara Hashimoto’s Books | Nancy Baker Cahill (excerpt)


”Challenging the privileged status traditionally granted to the verbal, Hashimoto’s newest works capture in sculptural form the seductive allure and initmacy associated with the privacy of reading. Suggesting that books function as conceptual embodiments of the flesh, they conflate distinctions between verbal and visual, the conceptual and physical. Revealing the inadequacies of established heirarchies, these works argue for a larger interpretation of reality that permits female as well as male voices to construe the narratives of exstence.”
– Sculpture Magazine
Barbara Hashimoto’s Critique of Power | Collette Chattopadhyah (excerpt)


”Process and concept are closely connected with Hashimoto’s work. The process of covering book pages in clay results in a fragile and, in some ways, mutable repository of meaning. The book page becomes a parallel to the stories. The stories, passed through time, can be changed and modified just as the pages of the books—and therefore, the meaning of the story—can be altered. Hashimoto challenges the idea that what one reads—what one can find in books—is truth.”
– John Michael Kohler Art Center
Barbara Hashimoto: Moral Stories | Lina Vilna (excerpt)



”The creation of each delicate slab was, in effect, a roll of the dice and leap into the unknown. That she succeeded in creating poetic physical structures to hold her ideas is the thing, and several of the pieces on view will hold the interest of generalists and specialists in ceramics alike.”
–Chicago Tribune
Technical Daring Gives Ceramic Show its Strength | Alan Artner (excerpt)