Ron Ho's parents were worried. As a child, the Hawaiian-born Ho expressed a strong interest in becoming an artist.
Ho's grandfather had moved to Hawaii from China in 1872 to work in the cane fields. His father was a carpenter. They wondered: How could our son make a living as an artist? Why doesn't he want to become a doctor, or a lawyer?
They probably never thought the Denny-Blaine resident would be named Pacific Lutheran University (PLU) Alumni of the Year for 2004, let alone become a renowned jeweler.
But Ho's artistic passion surpassed his parents' concern. In 1954 he followed his sister to Tacoma's PLU, and his artistic career as both a teacher and jeweler began.
A technical art
Ho didn't start out making jewelry. While earning his bachelor's degree in arts education at PLU, he thought painting was his calling, and Impressionism was the style he preferred. He even had his work displayed at the Seattle Art Museum.
After graduating in 1958, he went to teach for two years in the town of Hoquiam, near the coast of Washington. In 1962, he began attending the University of Washington, earning his master's degree in art education while teaching art in the Bellevue School District, where he worked for 32 years.
During his graduate school studies, his artistic niche had yet to be discovered. Then in 1968, he attended a jewelry class taught by his mentor, Ramona Solberg; she helped him gain confidence in the craft.
"I was always interested in the jewelry class," Ho said. "I always kind of enjoyed working with my hands. I wasn't really good at it at first. Jewelry is very technical. It is always a surprise that you can do it because you have to solve a lot of problems. For instance, how to make a catch that actually works and is well-designed."
'Folk jewelry'
Ho not only has been able to solve the technical "problems" of making jewelry, his artistic sense has earned him accolades all over the world. In fact, after his award-winning display at the Henry art Gallery in 1977, Ho began to travel the world more extensively, especially in Asia.
During his visits to Thailand, India and China he collects culturally symbolic artifacts and incorporates them into pendants for his necklaces, the main type of jewelry he creates. He calls his necklaces "folk-jewelry."
"I only make necklaces because I have traveled all over the world and I collect little artifacts that I put into jewelry," Ho said. "They can be anything from a little, beautiful, wood carving to carved jade, and it could be a piece of porcelain from China that I like the design of."
These pendants can have narrative value and are often indicative of a particular culture, he explained. For example , one of Ho's favorite artifacts is a carving made of jade found along the Silk Route in China. Ho remembers this place as being unique to that country in that Islam is the main religion practiced there.
"A lot of people, when they think of jewelry, what comes to mind is diamonds and rubies and gold. But I only work with silver, and I also use objects that, in some people's eyes, might not be worth anything at all. But the way I set them, I can make them become jewel-like," Ho said.
"The thing that makes Ron's work most outstanding is that he often works in themes, like his series of chairs that are about people and life things," said Karen Lorene, of Facere Jewelry Art Gallery, where Ho's work will be displayed next May.
"He always tends to capture the bigger picture," she added. "It would be comparable to someone who is a hack writer and someone who moves your soul like a Tolstoy or a Dovskoyesky. Ron has that kind of power in his jewelry."
Art-inspiring
Over the last 10 years, Ho's interest in other cultures has increased his interest in his grandparents' land. During his travels to China he became inspired to create pendants that represent the country's culture.
For instance, his piece "First Born" has a silver pendant that depicts a chair with slippers in the rung, representing a child, and a ball of twine on the seat, which symbolize the lifeline of the first-born. According to Ho, the first-born is the most important in Chinese culture.
Today, Ho, 68, lives in a home designed and formerly inhabited by famous Seattle architect Paul Thiry (whose work includes the Museum of History & Industry and the Seattle Coliseum), surrounded by artifacts from all over the world. He has lived there for 40 years and loves his home and city, whose volatile weather he believes is art-inspiring.
"A lot of people don't see how art can work in to their lives," he said. "When I was a school teacher, one of the things that I would do is bring my students to show them my house, to show how a person could live when surrounded by art. A lot of them even went on to become artists themselves, that is very satisfying."
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