Micah Schwaberow, printmaker, painter and sculptor, was born in Eugene, Oregon on October 26, 1948 and died in Santa Rosa, California in 2022. While still a child, his family moved to California, first to San Mateo and then to Santa Rosa, Sonoma County. An early interest in art took root in the form of comic illustration, with a strip eventually published in the local paper. In the late 1960s he enrolled in classes at Santa Rosa Junior College, studying drawing and painting with Maurice Lapp. The 1970s saw a time of great and varied creativity for Schwaberow as he pursued scenic painting for California Renaissance Fairs, sign painting, carpentry, and woodcarving, in addition to painting and printmaking.

In 1980, while taking printmaking classes from Elizabeth Quandt at the Junior College, he took a two-week intensive course in the traditional moku-hanga method of Japanese printmaking on a whim at the Mendocino Arts Center. This would prove a pivotal experience. Finding great inspiration in the technique, he immediately wanted to learn all he could, and decided to further his studies in Japan. After two years of Japanese language classes, he moved with his wife, Linda, and daughter, Kyla, to Miasa, Japan. There he spent a month studying traditional woodblock printing before relocating to Nagai, where he would remain for a year studying with the Japanese master of color woodcut, Toshi Yoshida, and his master carvers and printers. In September of that year, he was invited by Yoshida to work as his an assistant during a three-week woodblock course for foreigners.

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