Yuri Kinoshita - LIGHTING DESIGNER Woven Lighting Design: Natural Organic Japanese Lighting Designer
Seattle & Portland, Oregon: Map of my Lighting Design
My lighting design Inspiration:
Natural light shining through the large windows of my studio, a divine light seemed to glow between the clouds and I was showered with childhood memories of the translucent white light filtering through the shoji screens at the edge of our garden. passion stirred within and inspired me to begin the process of creating woven light lanterns of myriad shapes and sizes using Japanese handmade paper and textiles. Like clouds in the sky, the lanterns emit a light that is softly filtered through the woven strips and the sun appears to shine brightly though the spaces in between....
BIO:
Born In Kyoto, Japan. Graduated from Osaka Mode Gakuen (Fashion Institute), Department of Interior Design, winning school's grand prize for graduate project.
Traveled to Europe as part of the prize, and went on to visit East coast of U.S. and Asia.
In 1993 joined the family run kimono business Kinoshita Co. and founded "Umbo," a division of the company that specializes in art for home design.
Umbo operates to import and export small items from various parts of the world and also make and sell kimono using various fabrics from around the world.
In 2003 Established Umbo U.S.A. in California and expanded the marketing network through out the U.S. In 2008 moved to Seattle to expand my passion for light design using organic natural lighting materials as "Woven Lights."
Childhood:
Ever since I was a little kid I loved making things, drawing pictures
and redecorating. My family operates a kimono shop in Kyoto, and I used
the boxes for storing kimonos to make a table and desk and chairs, which
I was forever rearranging in my room. I would even draw pictures of my
future home. In middle school I was already telling my teachers that I
wanted to study interior design, but their response was always that I
should focus on getting through high school first, and my parents too
said it should wait until after high school. So I went through high
school and took the standard escalator toward college, but failed the
interview for college, which is really unheard of but shows how much I
wanted to study interior design. During the interview I was asked about
my dreams for the future, and I said I wanted to do this and do that,
and they said that college was clearly not the place I wanted to go. In
failing to pass the interview, my parents finally asked what it was I
wanted to do, and that was the first real chance for me to convey to
them what I felt, which was that I wanted to study interior design at
Osaka Mode Gakuen. It was a round-about way of getting there, but I am
really happy that's how things turned out.
Osaka Mode Gakuen
I was like a fish in water at Osaka Mode Gakuen. Everything was fun and I never missed a day. Some students thought it was hard, but for me the projects were everything and I became so absorbed in making things that I sometimes forgot to sleep. The lighting class was the most fun of all, and I won a lighting contest that helped send me down the path to becoming a lighting designer. The other big push came from the wonderful experience of actually selling a creation. An acquaintance working at a coffee shop liked one of my creations that I liked too and had the idea of placing it in the shop. Two days later I got a phone call that some customer liked the item and bought it. The selling price didn't even cover the material costs, but just the idea that someone wanted to buy it made me really happy. My graduate project at Osaka Mode Gakuen won the school's grand prize, and as part of the prize I got to go on a trip to Europe. Visiting Britain, Germany and France and seeing the museums was a good learning experience.
