I grew up within nature, deep in Kagoshima, a southern Japanese province filled with beauty and natural wonders: the raging ocean all around, Sakura jima, our volcano lying in its uneasy slumber, woodlands, green hills and tea farms. As a child, I roamed the meadows on long summer days, watching bright insects, reaching out and touching their iridescent bodies. I hunted for fossils. In the warm dark nights I gazed at stars. I always communed with nature.



Flowers and their beautiful coexistence in fields and gardens are for me an important inspiration. My mother is an Ikebana expert from the School of Sensho-Ikenobo and our house in Japan is always filled with beautiful arrangements, full of surprise and unexpected patterns and bursts of color. Thorns from the wilderness intertwined with imperial flowers, meadow grass with rich leaves and bamboo, roses arranged in harmony with tall weeds: the creativity of Ikebana is endless. Growing up within the Ikebana culture has given me many perspectives on natural beauty.

As a university student, I studied Art History and Aesthetics. The core questions were whether a creation had artistic value, what is a great shape, and what makes a design great?
To me, every shape within nature is bound by rules. Every contour exists for a reason. A branch, a string of roots, the delicate network of blood vessels, the enduring spirals of shells. All is as efficient as it is beautiful.