I had an early love affair with fashion. As a 5 year old, I was obsessed with designing bracelets, and I would spent hours at a time organizing my beads and putting them together. Later on I started to make lots of wire jewelry with my bare hands, and because my hands would constantly get poked and bled, my mom eventually bought me the proper apparatuses. This age was also when I joined an Asian Dance Troupe that would perform at museums, conventions, and senior centers. The most exciting day at dance was the day the costumes came. At age 7 I discovered that having a little sister was useful, and my 4 year old sister became my doll, I styled her everyday. There was an Italian restaurant near my childhood home, where the table cloth was paper, and I would draw designs of dresses. When I was around 11 I suddenly started writing short stories, I was constantly occupied with books or my writing journal. There were many 4 am nights that I spent writing. In my classes I would doodle plans for garments, houses, or writing short stories or advertisement ideas. I just had a lot of ideas.
Freshman year of high school was when I took to a more academic hobby; neuroscience and psychology. I would work on neuroanatomy sketches in all my classes, even in my gym class. (I had convinced my gym teacher to allow me to sketch as I walked the track.) For my 16th birthday, my close friends bought me my first neuroscience textbook. During this time I read a lot of Oliver Sacks, Sam Kean, and Malcolm Gladwell books. Sophomore year of high school, I joined what our school called National Honors Art Society, and I would always finger paint my portions of the murals. This was the year where I was exposed to ceramics and digital photography. Some of my favorite memories are from after-school, running into the art rooms to work on some projects.
My older sister became interested in photography and ended up buying her first dslr, and I would steal it to take the most random photos. In the beginning, I would spend hours in the trail near my house, taking photos of squirrels. Eventually, I begged my mom to buy me a camera too. My first camera was from amazon, from a fathers day kit. I actually avoided using my camera for the first few months, I don’t remember my reasoning and I do not really remember why I started. When I did begin to shoot actual people, I would buy cheap dresses in the clearance sections of fast fashion stores, do the makeup, hair and set (which would take 5 hours sometimes) then photograph them. It was a true labor of love.
I started an internship for a local lifestyle photographer, junior year in high school. I have learned that even the most perfect looking mothers curse in front of their babies. Also, babies do not enjoy cake. Cake smashes are a lie.
With time, I began personal projects that incorporated as many things from my many interests. The project that I am most proud of is called Operating on a Sensation. The concept is based off of abnormal psychology, specifically mood disorders. Someone that suffers from a severe mood disorder, navigates their life through emotions. They behave a certain way to avoid or to achieve a sensation. The project is meant to establish the universality of these deeply personal experiences, and to create a community that acknowledges the importance of mental health.