Fall 2024

An Accidental Artist: From Patients to Portraits Edi Matsaumoto’s Incredible Evolut ion B Y MART Y ME E DUNN D uring high school in her native Japan, Edi Matsumoto read of Mother Teresa’s work with India’s desti- tute and proclaimed, “I’ve got to meet her!” Amazingly, that happened when the nun trav- eled to Japan. Deeply touched by Mother Teresa’s service, Matsumoto knew she, too, wanted to help others. After high school, Matsu- moto studied anthropology at Tsukuba University, and her school holidays found her exploring other cultures. That first summer, the independent young woman ventured alone to the northern islands of Japan, sleeping on the train the entire month. The next winter, to be home for the holidays, she rode her bike for nine days and 600 miles to return to her hometown of Shimonoseki. Off she went to Beijing the next summer, celebrating her 20th birthday there.The following year, she was chosen as one of two students to be an official guide at Expo 85 inTsukuba, meeting diplomats and celebrities and earning what became her down payment for a solo trip she would take to Paris in 1986. Graduation brought Matsumoto a good job offer, but she’d never forgotten her desire to visit Mother Teresa in India. She flew there for a week, mostly observing, before beginning her well-paying Tokyo employment. She saved her money and also took a conversational English course. After two years, the job was “not interesting enough,” so Matsumoto packed her things into storage and returned to Mother Teresa’s hospice for a month. Matsumoto’s passion to work in healthcare was signed and sealed. Matsumoto’s wanderlust lured her from India to Southeast Asia, Japan again, then Indonesia. She volun- teered as a museum tour guide in Jakarta for two years. Then, in 1993, Matsumoto came to Carmel and enrolled in a Certified Nursing Assistant program, which was in the Licensed Vocational Nursing program at Hartnell College (where she was class valedictorian), working at Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital throughout. Her RN degree from Monterey Peninsula College soon followed. Matsumoto then took it up yet another notch, enrolling in San José State’s Family Nurse Practitioner Masters program in 2000, and was assigned to Harden Medical Care Center in Salinas. Was it ESP? Matsumoto recalls,“I had a vision of Fred before I met him.” Fred Sadler, MD, a dedicated preceptor for NP and PA students, was the 130 C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • F A L L 2 0 2 4 Created in response to a patrons request, Matsumoto painted a sea otter painting, which led to a series including this otter Mona Lisa.