Project 1
Table: H Desk
06-19-2023
balance through asymmetry
harmony through tension
alignment through void
In keeping with the spirit of the piece, I sought to utilize traditional methods as well as materials.
Alder wood
- Through the construction of this piece, I honed skills including construction, shaping, and technical drawing.
Mortise + Tenon joinery
Internal Domino joinery
- This piece could be a modular, flat-pack design, as tightly fitting mortise + tenon joints are incredible stable.
Danish Soap Finish
- Gentle on the environment and our bodies, this environmentally friendly finish was chosen for its nontoxic properties as well practical and aesthetic reasons. Soap finish has historically been used on hardwood flooring, as it protects the wood without altering its natural state. It is simple to reapply and maintain.
Project 2
Material Study: Recycling Linen
05-25-2023
As a designer, I feel a responsibility to work efficiently and economically without contributing to the ever growing mass of trash.
After working in linen for a few years, I noticed that excess fabric is deemed “waste” in each step of the making process. From the flax grower to the material processor to the weaver to the dyer to the distributer to the manufacturer and then to the consumer’s home, new waste was created. And in each previous step of the making process, that discard had been considered useable.
Learning about the process of turning flax into linen ignited curiosity - I wanted to explore reversing that process. Could I take discarded linen and turn it back into unyarned fibres?
With ad hoc tools, I experimented and developed a process to do just that.
TOOLS
a blender
water
straining tools
small scraps of linen cloth
mold forms
PROCESS
Place one cup of linen scraps into the blender. Add two cups of water. Blend, pausing often to untangle any yarns that may wind around the blades. Add more water as needed. Once the cloth begins to fall apart, pull it apart using you hands to prevent it from clumping. The material, now called “shoddy,” will be tenuous and chunky. Beware tangling.
The rest of this process is similar to wet felting.
Using a mold, press the shoddy firmly into the desired form, squeezing out water. A heat gun, blow drier, or dehydrator may be helpful to aid in drying.
Once dry, remove the recycled textile form from the mold.
Project 3
Composite Memory:
Collective Identities
11-3-2023
identity
belonging
heritage
When looking at my own family photos, I realized that while I might know the names of my ancestors, that’s about it. Who they are and who they are to me are different things.
Here, I explore identity as a composite.
Though we can preserve likeness through photography, memories shift and warp. bell hooks wrote on this “living memory shaping and informing the present,” describing the “longing to tell one’s story” as a “gesture of longing to recover the past in such a way that one experiences both a sense of reunion and a sense of release.”1
There’s a reunion here of faces that never met in life. There’s a sense of release here as their identites blur and morph into each other, much in the way their bodies did to create mine.
“
ancestral bodies
buried in sand
sun treasured flowers
press in a memory book
they pass through loss
and come to this still tenderness
swept clean by scarce winds
surfacing in the watery passage
beyond death
”
- bell hooks, In the Manner of the Egyptians
All photos are from personal family collections.
1 bell hooks, “writing autobiography”
Project 4
Perception: Biomimicry
10-02-2023
“
No more photos. Surely there are enough. No more shadows of myself thrown by light onto pieces of paper, onto squares of plastic. No more of my eyes, mouths, noses, moods, bad angles.
No more yawns, teeth, wrinkles. I suffer from my own mulitplicity. Two of three images would have been enough, or four, or five. That would have allowed for a firm idea: This is she. As it is, I’m water, I ripple, from moment to moment I dissolve into my other selves. Turn the page: you, looking, are newly confused. You know me too well to know me. Or not too well: too much.
”
- Margaret Atwood, The Tent
GOALS
- learn from other life forms how to control perception of self
- explore biomimicry through various aquatic-inspired camouflague techniques
METHODS
- Counterillumination
- Mimesis
- Transparency + Reflection
-
Self Decoration
-
Irregular outline
-
Motion Dazzle
-
Silvering
Project 5
Speculative: SF IS A BEACH TOWN
11-25-2023
Sea rise threatens these seven square miles.
Information
Hi! I am an MFA student studying Industrial Design at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. I love developing solutions to design problems across creative domains - my preferred practice is interdisciplinary. Brainstorming with a team fuels my creativity, and I thrive while digging into challenging design questions.
I genuinely love making and craft, and I wear many hats. Whether CAD modeling furniture, sewing a bespoke piece, throwing ceramics, experimenting with unconventional materials, or woodworking, I'm all for it!
I like to start by researching a design question I have in mind and exploring it from first principles. I've found that creative inspiration and design research go hand-in-hand, and it is through this process that I refine my solution and plan my next steps. I like to take my research from raw ideas to digital explorations and physical prototype, often moving back and forth between the digital and physical.
I'm a quick learner and am skilled at asking the right questions to get things done. I am a proud Jane of All Trades, Master of Some.
Skills
Research
- I studied History in my undergraduate degree, and developed a rigorous and efficient research practice.
Aesthetics
- is it okay to say I have good taste? I have spent a lot of time making art, and now as a designer, I find a particular sensitivity to color and form.
Material + Method + Medium
- my practice is all over the place, which means I can do a lot of things. I feel that material informs narrative, and successfully working with it is crucial to communicating succesful design .
Writing
- I’ve done a lot of different kinds of writing in my life, from my own undergraduate thesis (ask me about Chinese-American Suffragetes sometime) to ghost writing artsy blog posts (Interior Design Inspired by Wes Anderson Films)
Technical Skills
- CAD modeling; Rhino, others
- Adobe Suite
- Physical prototyping
- Metalworking, woodworking, ceramics, sewing,