This is a story of three women, one thread, and a craft carried across distance.
Chapter 01
外婆
Grandmother
My grandmother could not read or write, yet her hands understood the language of thread and cloth.
Through the long quiet of the farming off-season, she stitched embroidered shoes, tiger-head shoes, insoles, and fragrant herbal sachets — small objects, steadily made, that helped raise five children.
Her craft was never called art. It was simply what a careful woman did for the people she loved.
Chapter 02
母亲
Mother
My mother was the first in the family to attend university. She later became a professor in an art department, devoting her life to the research, preservation, and teaching of Chinese intangible cultural heritage crafts.
Where my grandmother stitched out of necessity, my mother studied out of reverence — gathering patterns, techniques, and voices that might otherwise fade.
Between them, a single thread runs clear: the belief that something made by hand carries meaning worth keeping.
Chapter 03
创始人
Founder
I came to New Jersey to study, and eventually settled there, building my professional life as an economist.
Yet the farther I lived from home, the more I found myself missing the textures of it — the cloth, the thread, the patient work of hands, and the women who kept those traditions alive.
Yuan-Yi Art began in the year my grandmother passed away, as a way to keep that inheritance close and carry it into a wider world.
Each piece I present here is chosen with that continuation in mind. Every work is made by hand, often by women in rural villages whose skills deserve to be seen and sustained.
This is not a store. It is an offering — a small, considered way of passing something on.
Not a biography, but a continuation.
To keep Chinese handmade traditions visible, personal, and alive while supporting the women whose hands continue the work.
Memory
Holding close the women, objects, and gestures that shaped the family story.
Craft
Presenting Chinese handmade traditions with care, clarity, and quiet reverence.
Livelihood
Supporting meaningful work for women makers in rural regions.