Letter from the Designer
Old and New My mother has a knack for taking the same piece of furniture, fabric, or decorations and rearranging it in a way that makes it feel brand new again. In that same fashion, creating this portfolio-magazine has been an incredible venture that allowed me to both find new ways to present my projects and to breathe life into photos and illustrations that I’ve filed away over the years. I hope you, the reader, are reminded of your own ways of reinventing, rediscovering, and reimagining different combinations of what’s already in front of you. British philosopher Alan Watts said, “We didn’t come into this world, we came out of it.” We ourselves are rearrangements of what already was, and we are part of the circular motion that bridges the old to the new. Design is circular too. We look at the past for advice on how to create new designs. We look to nature and history to enrich our designs with context and milieu. And now more than ever, we are thinking of ways to reuse materials and break away from the throwaway culture that we’ve become accustomed to. KERN was created one year into the Coronavirus Pandemic, and although it’s been a time of isolation and uncertainty, it’s also been a moment to reflect on where we are, and how we can revive and reinvigorate what we already have with what we will create in the future.
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