This enterprise was very meaningful to the founder. It marks a pivotal point in her life where she discovered herself, what she wanted to do, and why she wanted to do it. The founding of this business helped her overcome a large obstacle in her life and learn the lessons of letting go. The passage written below is how she tells this story.

A creator was imprinted in me.

I have always found the purest joy in creation. Every piece of art I made became an extension of me. I mounded tiny noodle bowls and plates of papaya salad. I wrote stories about vampires with flowers on their heads. I filled an entire sketchbook with variations of one koala. In the span of six minutes, it was all taken away.

What began as a tiny little flame roared into a blaze that consumed every creation I ever made. Any record of me before the age of 15 was razed to the ground. Every sculpture, every drawing, and every short story I wrote, all burnt down along with the only place I ever called home.

A reset button was pressed for me.

The following months were filled with my incessant dwelling, dwelling on all the things I held dear, slowly losing my grasp of each and every memory, slowly forgetting the things that shaped who I was. Tirelessly, I scavenged the recesses of my mind, trying to fill in the gaps of my past in hopes that it would reunite me with the me that I lost to the fire.

Every moment onwards was a haunting first. It was my first time having no home and living in someone else’s house. It was my first time rebuilding my life from scratch. Every sketchbook began at a pale, empty first page. A first page I no longer had an undying urge to fill.

A passion was taken from me.

Years later, during a family trip, me and my grandma conversed with the jewelers of Phatthalung and learned that their Manora beading tradition, the heart and soul of the South, was fading. Despite the province’s efforts to preserve the practice, only one small Manora community of women artisans remained. An uncanny feeling of familiarity rose within me. These women were slowly losing grasp of pieces that, for thousands of years, served to represent their identity. Twenty-two women were about to face what I did.

Something struck me. I was reunited with a state I had been so eagerly trying to restore over the past years. The state of flow. I took a pencil in hand, meticulously drafting graphite circles and interlocking them together in traditional Manora patterns. I wanted to modernize their craft, sustaining the intricacy of their beading skills whilst also attracting contemporary audiences commercially. I wanted this community to discover a newfound purpose and a monetary means to preserve their tradition. For the first time in a long time, I felt the same little girl sketching, drawing on nothing but the natural movement of her hand.

I reignited my passion.

When I proposed these designs to the Nora community, I could see a glow ignite in their eyes, as if they had been waiting for someone to see them and bring their work back into the world. But little did they know that I had also been waiting for someone to see me and bring my work back into the world.

I pressed the reset button.

Cast out of my mould, I no longer felt the need to recreate my past. I came to the realization that the past version of me I could no longer revisit physically was still so prominently ingrained within me. No matter how hard I tried to hold onto who I was, there is no such thing as one me.

In the same way that silver beads are polished to reveal their true brilliance, I am continually refining and rediscovering my identity. Just as each piece of jewelry is shaped and crafted into intricate forms, I am shaped by my experiences, values, and interactions. From now on, external things will have no authority in defining who I am. The small flame taught me to find my own fire.

I imprinted the creator in me.