"I see that many of these kids have really strong ties to their home country." said Corinne Okada Takara, 39, a mixed-media artist, teacher and brainchild of the quilt project, which will hang at the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles through July 15. "But they don't know much about other kids who live just a couple of towns away."

That gap was the inspiration for her quilt: Create a pen-pal art project between 9 year-olds at Horace Cureton Elementary School in East San Jose and Stevens Creek Elementary School in CUpertino., where Takara also is an art teacher. Many of the students are first-generation Americans whose parents were born in far-flung places across the globe.

The culmination of the project occurred Sunday at a meet and greet at the museum where the students showed off their quilt, introduced their parents and enjoyed cookies and juice. It was the first time the two classes met face to face...

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Okada's Frost and Fire Butterfly, a commissioned piece, was included as part of a photo spread featured in Harper's Bazaar magazine.

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We get the feeling artist Corinne Okada is not at all like Go! When we pop candy (namely an entire bag of Hershey's kisses in two sittings), we're quick to dispose of the evidence. Okada, however, transforms the wrappers, as well as Asian rice paper, into contemporary sculptures with fanciful names such as ''Blooming Snack Wrapper Shoe" and ''Salty Lemon Spring Butterfly". Today's your last chance to see Okada's work at L'Attitude Gallery's latest exhibit, ''Paper & Paint." Owner Betty Bothereau has paired Okada's work with Lana Gordon's mixed-media paintings, and judging from the various ''sold" signs on the gallery's website, it's been a popular attraction. Also today, the gallery inaugurates a new exhibit, ''Point Counterpoint," with an artist's reception from 1 to 4 p.m. You can check out samples from both exhibits at www.lattitudegallery.com. It's free, and today's hours are noon to 5 p.m. 218 Newbury St., 617-927-4400.

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HGTV
Crafters Coast to Coast
December 2nd, 2004.

Home and Garden Television - Episode HCC2C-147
Fiber and Wire Frog project
Corinne Okada Tokara of Cupertino, California

Corinne has found a pastime that is playful and unique, while paying homage to her Asian heritage. Using Asian rice paper and handmade fibers, she creates an adorable wire and fiber frog.

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The Honolulu Star Bulletin
By Nadine Kam, Scratch Paper
February 26, 2004.

Corinne Takara Okada takes childhood lessons to heart in turning odds and ends into whimsical pieces of art.

Corinne Okada Takara's living room didn't look like all the other kids' in the mainland neighborhoods where she grew up. She's since realized most people don't have a giant hippo couch, complete with foam teeth that she crawled through to make a home in the creature's belly. But back then her father's carpet-patch creation -- a child's couch that was the result of a product design master's-degree project -- seemed normal. Looking back, Takara says: "My poor mom! Imagine that sitting in the living room everywhere we lived."

Things got even stranger during the family's almost annual visits to Hawaii to catch up with relatives on Oahu and Paia, Maui, where David Okada grew up, a plantation boy through and through. "I don't think my dad even wore shoes until junior high," says Takara, who listened in amazement to elders talking story."They were storytellers and would always talk about the good old days, about eating things like grubs off wood sticks and say they feel sorry for kids today who don't grow up with that." She also learned the No. 1 plantation household rule: Don't throw anything away, because everything has a purpose. "My great-auntie had a drawer for plastic bags and another for plastic bags with holes in them. If they caught me throwing away aluminum foil, they'd tell me to wash it and hang it out to dry.It was funny to see all the plastic bags and foil flapping in the wind. "I don't think that people in Hawaii realize it's kind of a unique thing. The only other place I've seen that is in the South, where they also had a plantation history. "I appreciate the way people were able to use what they had to create something beautiful, how they'd make clothes with rice bags, and occasionally you would see a patch of a beautiful silk kimono that would be part of something really special." Takara took these lessons to heart in turning scrap pieces of fabric, plastic netting, and milk candy and crack seed wrappers into whimsical paper-and-wire sculptures and wearable hats. A few of her works are on view at C.S. Wo through Sunday.

Takara didn't start as a recycle artist. She began her career in the arts as a commercial illustrator and graphic designer, focusing on corporate identity for the high-tech industry in San Francisco, where she still resides. That changed four years ago when she gave birth to her son and wanted to devote more time to him. The timing, coinciding with the tech bust, couldn't have been better. "Even it I had tried to stay in it, I wouldn't have found work," she said, turning her attention to more personal art pursuits. She started working with commercial papers but was drawn to the translucent quality of the Chan Pan Mui and blue rabbit illustration of the milk candy wrappers that also reflected her Japanese heritage and Hawaii ties. Fixed in her imagination were tales of apple wrappers folded into kimonos for homemade dolls, airport greetings marked by an exchange of crack seed leis, and patchwork blankets stitched from hundreds of tiny Bull Durham tobacco bags. "My father made all his own toys," she said, including boats made of leaves and pinwheels of flowers. He grew up to be a head designer at toy giant Kenner and senior vice president of product design at Mattel. Creativity at home was encouraged, and at Halloween time, Takara never had to go trick-or-treating in a store-bought costume. She remembers her dad helping her to make a frog mask out of a foam cooler covered with papier-mache. "I was so young I thought I made it, but really, he made it."

Takara didn't have to wait long to attract an audience. Her first step was to contact Union Square stores with window displays. Tiffany was staging an insect-inspired jewelry display, and it was a natural fit for Takara's butterfly and dragonfly sculptures. A gallery curator saw her work and invited her to show, which led to more displays in Boston, New York and Florida. Eventually, the translucent quality of the wrappers she was using led her to think of Cinderella's glass slipper, and this resulted in a series of single shoes, all full of possibilities of one day finding a home on a princess's foot. Some have found homes in the private collections of the head curator of the Peabody Essex Museum and other private collections. Although the shoes are not meant to be worn, Takara's hats, inspired by Japanese kanzashi hair ornaments and Okinawan dance hats, have made many an appearance at San Francisco social events.

The first hat she created was a gift for French couturier Christian Lacroix, who made an appearance at Neiman Marcus San Francisco in February 2001. Takara had created the sculptural display as a backdrop to his fashion show, and afterward the designer returned twice to photograph her work. She responded by sending him a large paper-and-wire flower hat in the style of her sculptures, for which she received a thank-you letter that she keeps in her studio. Her family remains encouraging, plying her with papers from candy and crack seed they have consumed. Her husband, Kurt, who grew up in Nuuanu, also eats his share of crack seed, but recently, she says she's been naughty, buying certain seeds more for their wrappers than their edible qualities. The couple didn't care for a certain apricot-lemon combination, but with the wastefulness taboo, they groaned through the mouthfuls, "Ohh, gotta eat those."

Corinne Okada Takara Exhibition of paper sculptures: Where: C.S. Wo Gallery, 702 S. Beretania St. When: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. today and tomorrow, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday Admission: Free Call: 543-5388 Quotable: "I appreciate the way people were able to use what they had to create something beautiful, how they'd make clothes with rice bags, and occasionally you would see a patch of a beautiful silk kimono that would be part of something really special."

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The Peabody Essex Museum
Connections Magazine
Art, Culture, Connections
November/December 2003

By Dan L. Monroe Executive Director and CEO Peabody Essex Museum

Most, if not all, museum professionals have been drawn to this field by the opportunity to work with the art and ideas represented in one or more collections. Even during a busy day I try to steal a few minutes to visit the galleries. From time to time in this letter I will mention an artwork that has lately caught my eye. One of these is a recent acquisition on view in the Japanese Art Gallery. It's a contemporary work titled Jan Ken Pon (Rock, paper, scissors) in which artist Corinne Okada has drawn on ideas, values and methods form several artistic and cultural traditions. Almost the first thing I notice is the intense sky-blue color. Also striking are the strong curves that make this piece appear to be soaring through the air --

conveying a feeling of suspension that suites the title's reference to the decision-making game found in many cultures.

Okada's sculpture of paper and wire recalls the kimonos and kites of traditional Japanese culture--and also the mobile sculptures of Alexander Calder. The materials of which Jan Ken Pon is composed include real scissors of the kind used in Japanese flower arranging and the art of bonsai, wrappers from Asian foodstuff that Okada associates with childhood visits to relatives in Hawaii, and papers printed with Japanese comics. References to the artist's personal past inevitably mirror the different cultural traditions with which she is familiar. Jan Ken Pon exemplifies the interconnectedness of many forms of contemporary artistic expression and demonstrates the rich complexity that results form interactions different artistic and cultural traditions. Such interactions have characterized art from its earliest beginnings, and they are manifested in works found in all of the museum's collections.

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Inspired by family stories of life in plantation-era Hawaii, graphic artist Corinne Okada Takara has turned to sculpture. Her thrifty forbears recycled candy wrappers, cloth and scraps of paper and plastics into dolls' clothes, blankets, dresses and toy boats. Takara, '90, gives new life to exotic, multicolored Asian food wrappers and fabrics in creations fashioned with wire, like Fireworks Kimono (left). She also makes accessories such as hats and wedding-veil ornaments. Takara's sculptures have shown at galleries across the country, and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass., recently acquired one of the Cupertino artist's pieces for its newly opened contemporary Asian-American collection.

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The San Francisco Chronicle Magazine
Return to Romance
January 20, 2002.

In this article describing the seasons trends, the artist's yellow orchid corsage was photographed as a hair pin showcasing its versatility as a unique fashion accessory.

The corsages are made of a variety of recycled materials: Japanese manga comics, Chinese preserved fruit wrappers, glass beads and produce netting.

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