Assignment#1. bio and work

• Autobiography:
• Born in the sunflower state in the dead of winter.
• The same day as Babe Ruth, my third grade teacher, and Ronald Reagan. You win some, you lose some.
• I grew up with 3 sisters. 3 out of 4 of us were tomboys.
• Although I am the eldest, I am the shortest. I like to say I'm 5', but really I'm 4' 11 3/4''.
• I lived in Boulder, Colorado for a year. I was going to major in sociology. I'm not sure what I was thinking.
• Now I attend the Kansas City Art Institute, majoring in fibers. I'm still not sure what I'm thinking.
• Sometimes I miss the Colorado mountains, but I always miss the food there.
• I work at Whole Foods. I can't wait till I don't have to say that anymore.
• My guilty pleasures are Korean soap operas.
• I love scallops of all kinds.
• I want to be buried with my knitting needles.

• Artist Statement:
• As a first generation Japanese-American, I am attempting to realize and balance these two different cultures and their effects on my art. My lineage is the base of my identity, just as interlacing structures are the base of my work. Although not all of my pieces are specifically about my roots, they never cease to be apparent in my work.
• Interlocking structures, whether in a knit or in handmade paper, is what informs my material choices. The process of creating my own fiber elements to work with is crucial to the conceptual development of my work because of how it refers to the two cultures I grew up in. After working with the structural possibilities inherent within each material, I push it a step further by using my own hand to instruct the form. By pushing the possible relationships between form, material, and textile processes, I create work that allows me to explore my ideas about self-identity.

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