In an interview in the 1960s, artist Toko Shinoda said it was both wonderful and terrible to be driven by something inside. She quoted Japan's woodblock print artist Hokusai. "I know what he meant when he said that at 75 he could understand a little. If he lived to be 90 he would understand more. And if he could live to be 120, then maybe he could understand."

On March 28, Toko celebrates her own 90th birthday. A small, dainty, kimonoed lady, she has achieved impressive stature in a wide world of art. In the '60s she was already a luminary -- versatile, distinctive and prolific in her output. Sometimes, in suggestions of the gentleness of her own nature, she used fragile wisps of brushes for her delicate work. Sometimes, acknowledging her certainty and inner strength, in both hands she wielded heavy mops of brushes made from special strands of sheep's wool. Sometimes she used paper that was made by hand 300 years ago. She gave two sources for the force that drove her. "My family environment, and something in my own heart."

Toko was born in Manchuria, the fifth of seven children in her family, which returned to Gifu when she was a baby. "My grand-uncle was a very famous seal cutter, a calligrapher-sculptor, of the Meiji period. He made Emperor Meiji's seal. He had to know calligraphy and Chinese poetry, and he taught both to my father, who taught me," she said.