A mixed-media artist and one of the artists selected for City of San Jose’s the first Creative License Ambassador in the program’s pilot year, Corinne Okada Takara composes technology-integrated projects and crafts sculptural work out of elegant yet mundane materials, like silk, food wrappers, newspapers, and plastic produce netting. “The sculptures explore the pulling apart and reassembling of modern-day artifacts,” she explains on her website, Okada Design. “I am fascinated by the resulting textures and colliding and merging stories.” Increasingly, this creative has found her art extending beyond self-expression and toward interactive engagement. Her workshops for museums, libraries, and classrooms act as a bridge ushering others into the realm of creativity. She describes her job as “giving people a canvas to work on,” adding that it equips them with “confidence in their own creative voices.”
“I think it’s important we play together in our public spaces.” -Corinne Okada Takara
Takara’s project, Layers of SJ, revolved around stickers—a medium she finds both “playful and inviting.” Each sticker contained an image of an artifact representing the San Jose community, past and present, and the public was encouraged to incorporate these into collages. Though Takara gathered a number of images from library and museum collections, as well as with her camera, she also enlisted community involvement by welcoming anyone to submit pictures. The Layers of SJ booth sparked conversations between strangers who couldn’t help discussing (or puzzling) over images, swapping stories, or pondering possibilities for symbolic objects from their own neighborhoods. “I think it’s important we play together in our public spaces,” Takara shares.
IG: corinnetakara
Read about Corinne and the other City of San Jose’s Creative Ambassdors on our Issuu page.
