Exihibt: Cherry blossom obsession

From an early age, girls doodle in their notebooks and commonly sketch flowers. In my case, I sketched cherry blossoms. My floral sketches eventually became jewelry sketches, both of which filled up all the free space in my college engineering notebooks. Now I carry around a sketchbook to be able to capture my ideas at any moment without having to sketch around equations.

Late in my college career I had to take an art class as a general education course so I could become a "well rounded engineer." I should use "had" loosely because I was really looking forward to the studio classes. My final project was a 9 panel piece with each 2' x 2' panel symbolizing something about me. One panel is in the photo you see here that I made with black paint.

It is said that cherry blossoms symbolize the ephemeral nature of life which corresponds to my belief that you need to embrace each day and make the most out of it. On a more basic level, this panel also represents my Japanese heritage and my tendency to sketch in class.

Now a lot of my inspiration comes from my Japanese grandmother who taught me about Ikebana, the Japanese art of flower arranging, the core concept of my designs.

When I was young, I would sit with her and we would make flower arrangements from the flowers in her garden. I learned how to unite twigs, greenery, and flowers in a way that was simple, balanced and by no means overwhelming. This is what I think about during my design process, from picking out the components to laying out the design.

There is a bead store right down the street from my current home in Santa Monica. The first thing I bought from them was the rose quartz flowers you can see in the necklace. I knew from the moment I saw it that it would be my core bead. Although I do not include it in most of my jewelry, it will continue to pop up as I continue designing.

I knew whatever I made with this floral bead would have to be simple yet still make a statement, as did my painting. To me, the flowers, with small pearls on each side, loosely spaced between draped lengths of chain, resembles what I painted in the panel above. Many thanks to Jon Chan for taking the photo of my necklace!!

You will find I never whip out a piece of jewelry. There is always something special behind each design I come up with. A lot of art nowadays requires the viewer to understand how the piece was made rather than just interpret the standalone piece. I guess the difference between those artists and me is I try to make the piece look good so someone will like it without knowing the back story. =)