Before New York, there was San Diego. My first “home” away from home that I struggled to come to terms with as a place I lived.  Graduating from high school I knew I wanted to go away for college. After watching my sister fight to stay, but then leave anyway, my fate was already decided and I was going. I was lucky to move to a new city where my family, my sister, already lived for five years. My sister even went to the same college and I followed in her footsteps and even studied the same major. Since I watched her struggle, I knew I might struggle too.

My first year of college was difficult. In the first semester, nothing major went wrong, but I was learning about what it was like to live alone away from my family. All my friends were learning. That plus focusing on school (remember, that’s what I was there for) but also making new friends and enjoying a new city. That Fall semester was a rush and a whirlwind. Returning back for my second semester in the Spring things were different. I started to miss home. Finally people were finding their place in school and social groups and I was starting to really see how different life on “the mainland” was from Hawaii. School was more difficult and I put in many more hours of studio time, often not making enough friend time.

Towards the end of that Spring semester I felt very distant from my school and community. Always being from a place where everyone knew each other, I was surrounded by strangers daily. USD was not even that big of a school, yet I felt so small.  I took advice of my advisors and friends and started looking for more things to get involved in. After all, I came from such a busy and scheduled life in high school (school, tennis, clubs, art), it was time for me to make one in my new home.

This struggle and overcoming my first face-to-face match up with “the real world” influenced my art practice for my remaining years at USD.  During my second year, I was more involved in school activities, was able to create the art I wanted to create and of course, got to know San Diego a little better too. A pattern emerged and when it became time of my senior thesis I explored how my present life  brought meaning towards my past and as a senior, my thesis, Please Remove Your Shoes, was born.

For the first time everything started to make sense. I understand that I would not have made it to where I stood as a graduating senior if I didn’t struggle and fight as a freshman four years before. As I continued through my art major, I also kept looking back to my Japanese heritage and Hawaii upbringing as inspiration for my work. That seemed like the most natural thing to do because I knew it best.

I did not only look to what Hawaii had to offer that I missed but also why. I was forced to create a conversation with myself about what it was that made me miss home and how I could turn the feelings of loss and emptiness into something whole ago. This was done through my art. My senior thesis exhibition became a combination of my Island and Japanese heritage that struggled to survive in a girl away from her roots in Hawaii.

Design served as a vehicle for understanding but also comfort. As I thought of what each of these pieces meant to me, whether it was exploring pattern, packaging, or studying the culture to better understand, I also knew it was something I wanted others to enjoy. People who had no connection to Hawaii and people who did not even know me. Anyone needed to walk into this space and feel “at home” and I think everyone did.

Stumbling upon these photos was a bitter sweet moment for me. After suffering a hard drive crash during my first semester of grad school, I lost most of my pictures from Spring 2011. The ones that were left were uploaded online and were not the best quality. That’s what you see here. I forgot that some of these things existed. I also forgot about how many people came to support me that night closing the week-long show in the gallery at USD. The friends I had from Day 1 to people I barely knew were there enjoying the work I created and having conversation with one another. I may not have the physical photos to see, but what I felt looking back on what I did have is gratification enough that what  did was a memorable experience.

Four years later, I am still continuing to create worked based around the same influences and struggles I had in college. Now these moments continue to be celebrated through my work. What I once saw as a sad time has served as the basis for my art practice year after year. I even continued this theme from my undergraduate thesis into my graduate thesis without really even realizing what I was doing. More to come on that as I re-read my papers again.

San Diego helped define me as a person and New York allowed me to embrace it. For all the struggles I thought  I went through they were really just stepping stones to get me to where I am now. If I did not test out the waters in San Diego, I would have never been prepared for my move to New York City.  Finding yourself really does come by stretching boundaries, shaking things up a little bit, and even removing your shoes.