BOISE, ID.- Boise Art Museum and Skip and Esther Oppenheimer bestowed a special honor that pays gratitude to John Takehara, influential artist and advocate of the artistic community and arts education, who passed away in 2009. The Museum gallery in which selections from the Takehara ceramics collection are on long-term display will be named the John Takehara Gallery, thanks to a contribution from Skip and Esther Oppenheimer in homage to this distinguished artist and educator. Esther studied with Takehara at Boise State University , and Skip and Esther were good friends of his for many years. In 1994, Takehara donated his collection of 166 fine contemporary ceramics by internationally recognized ceramic artists to the Boise Art Museum . Since then, objects from the Takehara collection have been on continuous view, utilized for teaching about ceramics, and appreciated by thousands of museum visitors annually. Takehara