Building a Concept

I received a lot of really generous, thoughtful feedback at BCBF, so this is the first in a series of posts I'm doing as part of a portfolio revamp — one that focuses on stories and pieces that feel meaningful to me.

To begin with, one of the best pieces of advice I got at the fair was this:
Draw from childhood memories. What did you love then?

Because really, how can we draw for children without remembering what we truly loved as children?

So I started asking myself: what did I love?

• Dance, music, and performance — mediums through which I experienced confidence and grace as a child who wasn’t particularly academically inclined.

• Family — the ones who filled my world with travel, books, art, music, and performance, and all the special sweets and snacks we shared around the holidays.

• Trains — All kinds of traveling really. But especially overnight trains to my grandma’s place, when we’d pack up an old striped bag full of food like puliogare, lemon rice, curd rice, and other fried snacks, fight over the top berth, and fall asleep to the swaying and sounds of the tracks passing beneath us.

• Play — hours and hours of it, all day and into the night (but really, who didn’t?)

• Art & Crafts — making with my hands, using found and bought materials to make prints, cards, gifts, and decor. Honestly, that hasn't changed.

• And, though not necessarily childhood, exploring California in my early twenties, I experienced a closeness to nature I hadn’t known before. I’ll never forget hiking among the redwoods for the first time.

I have ideas for all these avenues, but I’ve decided to just start.

For this new body of work based on memories, I’ve decided to follow two threads:
One through my first love — dance and performance, with smaller forays into the other memories
and the other through my more recent love — nature.

If this resonated with you, I’ll be sharing more memory-inspired work soon —
Follow along on Instagram @unfoldingme to stay in the loop.