When I visited Japan for the first time in 1993, I discovered an incredibly sophisticated visual language that telegraphed culture and custom in subtle and creative ways. With subsequent trips and further study, I've discovered and artistic tradition that doesn't distinguish between high and low, or fine and applied, arts. Instead, I experienced a Japanese view of art as life that resonated deeply with my own creative journey – and has inspired it ever since.

In 2016, I wanted to make a kimono-style coat out of a WW2 US Army blanket, and so I taught myself how to sew, and I made one. That coat led to others, and it also led to my ongoing examination of the complex history between the US and Japan – a history that began with Admiral Perry's black ships and the forcible opening of Japan's borders in 1853, and culminated with the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The collision of Japanese and American cultures during the Pacific War and the Occupation era continues to fascinate me, as I work with each country's textiles from that time.

When I'm disassembling the hand-stitched seams in vintage kimonos, I think of the Japanese women who sewed them decades ago. They would repurpose old textiles in their households, embodying the concept of mottainai – letting nothing go to waste. My parents grew up during the Depression, and they passed on some of the same values to me. And so it feels good not only to work with beautiiful textiles and meaningful pieces of history, but also to give old garments new life.