The Welcome
The garden is for all, you can be big
Or you can be small
Find a spot on the mountain
For a bloom or a cloud
Listen for rain
(It can get loud)
But no need to stretch
Try another direction
Discover the raindrops contain your reflection
Whether you rock or whether you roll
The garden invites you
To come for a stroll
So delight and explore
A painting you can touch
A sculpture you can feel
A landscape you can shape
If you stand or if you kneel
Never the same each time you visit
You shape it simply by being in it
Details from
the Mindscape.
Magic
Mountain.
Everyone loves magnets. On the surface, they’re simply fun—two things that have no business sticking together suddenly do. But for many children, magnets are also an early introduction to unseen forces. They make the invisible tangible, offering a first glimpse into the idea that the world works in ways we cannot always see. They invite curiosity, experimentation, and the realization that there is more happening than meets the eye. During the exhibition, I often saw children turning the plantables over in their hands, searching for clues to understand how they worked.
In Tend the Garden, Mount Rainier became the place where children could quite literally grow a garden. Clouds, mushrooms, and flowers could be planted anywhere across its slopes, transforming one of the Pacific Northwest’s most recognizable landmarks into a place where children could play. While the interaction feels effortless, every magnetic component was carefully engineered with safety as the highest priority. Every magnet and steel receiver was permanently embedded and mechanically secured, preserving the wonder of discovery while giving children the freedom to explore—and caregivers the confidence to let them.
As each plantable finds its place, a pair of tiny wireless LED eyes wink back. Hidden transmission coils embedded behind the mountain bring them to life, rewarding curiosity with a small moment of delight and making the invisible visible once again.
The Cherry Blossom Tree
& Strawberry Patch.
When we moved to Bellevue from Singapore in January 2024, I didn’t know that cherry blossoms were one of Washington’s most beloved symbols. We arrived in the middle of winter, and I remember feeling woefully unprepared—not only for the weather, but also for motherhood.
Sabre was born on leap day, at the beginning of spring. Early one morning, I looked out of the window and noticed the first buds on our neighbour’s tree. They marked not only the changing of the seasons, but the beginning of a new chapter in our lives.
As I learned more about cherry blossoms, I also discovered Bellevue’s own history. Long before it became a technology hub, Bellevue was a farming community. Japanese immigrants established a collective warehouse and produced the majority of the city’s strawberries. During the Second World War, Japanese American families were forcibly incarcerated under Executive Order 9066. Only 11 of Bellevue’s 60 first- and second-generation Japanese families returned to rebuild their lives after the war.
The eleven largest cherry blossoms in Tend the Garden honour those eleven families. Each blossom is free to rotate, allowing visitors to set them gently spinning, like petals moving in a spring breeze. They are a small gesture of remembrance—woven into a landscape that celebrates growth, resilience, and belonging.
Learn more about Bellevue’s history through the City of Bellevue:
About Bellevue – City History
Pre-WWII History of Japanese Pioneers in Bellevue
It Sounds
Like Rain.
Would it be Washington if I didn’t mention rain?
Once I committed to making an immersive sculpture, I audited all of Sabre’s toys. It spins. It lights up. It slides. What held her attention? What invited her back again and again?
One of my absolute favorites was the rain stick. With a simple turn of the wrist, you were transported somewhere else—to the sound of rain falling through the trees, soaking the earth, filling the air with a rhythm almost everyone recognizes. It still amazes me that this sound can be created by nothing more than tiny steel ball bearings.
Three clouds drift across the garden, each containing its own rainmaker. John and I designed and 3D-printed internal structures with different sized ball bearings, so that each cloud produces a distinct rainfall—from a light drizzle to a steady shower and a storm. Children discover that even rain has many voices as they water the strawberry patch.
Raindrops Are Falling
On My Head.
Most of us draw raindrops as teardrops, but real raindrops aren’t shaped that way. Once I learned that, I couldn’t unsee it. Small raindrops are almost perfectly spherical, while larger ones flatten into shapes often compared to parachutes or (yum!) hamburger buns as they fall through the air.
The raindrops in Tend the Garden are cut from mirror acrylic. As children move through the sculpture, they catch glimpses of themselves reflected in the falling rain, becoming part of the landscape they are exploring. Like many elements in the garden, the reflections shift with every step, reminding us that no two visits are ever quite the same.
Celestial
Bodies.
When I think that humans thousands of years ago looked up at the very same stars, it’s pretty humbling. Our fascination with the night sky has endured across cultures, generations and civilisations. We have always searched the heavens for stories, meaning and our place in the universe.
For me, including the cosmos in my work is a reminder that we are, quite literally, made of stardust. Against the scale of the universe, our lives are unimaginably small. Yet we have the remarkable ability to give them meaning. Sabre is the most important thing in the world to me. The stars remind me that while the universe may not assign purpose, we can.
The sun offers something different. It appears large and immovable, one of the few things in the landscape that surely is fixed. Yet visitors discover that even the sun can be turned with their own hands.
We are what we do with our time. We choose what we place at the centre of our universe. I wanted to create a moment where the seemingly impossible becomes possible. You can spin the sun. You can choose what your world revolves around.
