Levi’s® Celebrates AAPI Heritage Month With Four Artists & Their Customized 501® Jeans

Shao's art is reflective of her Chinese American heritage, her upbringing in the shipyard neighborhood of Ballard, and a reverence of nature. "Something I really love and try to incorporate in my work is this mindset that we are connected to the earth. The reverence of seasons changing or how certain plants mean different things in different contexts. Oftentimes this is my way of connecting with my family, through nature and the changing seasons."

The artist spent most of her childhood summers visiting her grandparents in China. When asked whether she feels most “at home” in America or her familial homeland, the answer isn't so simple. “I feel like that's the problem that you face as an Asian American; growing up somewhere and not feeling 100% comfortable, then going back to your motherland and not feeling comfortable there either. I'm second generation; my parents are both from China and I've struggled with that, especially as I was growing up in a very White area. Through my practice and all the work that I'm doing now, it's interesting how much closer it brings me to my family and how much more understanding of my heritage I am."

The arts were not only an essential creative outlet, but a way for Wazed to make a living. He participated in art competitions and became a street performer, joining the ranks of the talented break dancers dancing across the city's subways. "There's a huge community behind it too, so I felt a lot of support, especially when it felt difficult relating that to people in the Bangladeshi community." During this time, Wazed was exposed to street art and graffiti and found a way to meld the two together.

Wazed views the initial lack of support from his cultural community through an empathetic lens. "When you're an immigrant in this country, it feels like sink or swim. Something like the arts feels like such a risk when you migrate to a new country for your kids to provide for them." Now Wazed feels great support from his Bangladeshi community. His work has been embraced for creating representation for the Bangladeshi diaspora in the art world, a field in which the community is underrepresented despite Bangladesh's rich history in the arts. During trips to Bangladesh, he observed, "Every rickshaw is decorated with paintings. Everywhere you look, it's immersed in art.”

While growing up in Japan, Day wasn’t that interested in Japanese culture and history, but was instead drawn to Western culture, fashion, and art. She is intrigued by how the work she creates still manages to feel intrinsically Japanese. “I'm not trying to create art that is Japanese in feeling, and I'm not really influenced by wabi-sabi aesthetics. But I think it's just there in me." Day moved to Nashville with her husband and daughter and began working in Vanderbilt University's theater department. There she began melding art, her passion for 18th-century Rococo-style dresses, and upcycled denim.

These days, the artist uses red thread to create intricate vessels on a backdrop of objects crafted using sheer white muslin. Her technique was inspired by a Japanese custom known as Senninbari, which translates to "one thousand people's stitch"; where one thousand women make knots with red thread on a piece of cloth that would then be made into a vest or sash and gifted to male relatives leaving for war. "I was very taken by the notion of how making knots becomes a wish for someone’s well-being.”

Kane draws the strongest inspiration from his Hawaiian roots and his work showcases the spirit of his home through the use of vibrant colors, shapes, and textures: "Being taught Hawaiian folklore and mythology and its colonization in school definitely had a major impact as far as the things I gravitate towards in my art, such as surrealism." But that doesn’t mean he didn’t experience challenges there as well. As someone who identifies as queer, he felt that there were parts of himself he had to hide. “I'd dress differently around certain family members just because I would be called names when I was just being myself."

Now in Los Angeles, the artist has forged a community of diverse individuals he affectionately calls his tribe. It was from within them he found the confidence to hold true to himself. "Now, it's so important for me to just be my most authentic version of myself. And when I go back home, I love it, even though I hated it when I grew up there because of how I was perceived. I just have so much more appreciation for it after living in the mainland."