(playful music) - [Ron] My grandfather was born in 1858.

When he was 20 years old, he immigrated to Hawaii.

My grandfather on his farm, in Kula, Maui grew corn and Lima beans.

He became very successful.

I decided to honor him by creating this piece.

that's called Soil Toil.

(playful music) I'm a person who is totally into the visual arts.

I have found that art enriches my life in so many ways.

Design is truly important part to mark the way I live, the way I work, the way I analyze things.

My name is Ronald Tau Wo Ho.

- [Stefano] Ronald is a pillar here in the Pacific Northwest for craft, especially in the field of jewelry.

(energetic music) - [Peter] Ron's work is, you know, kind of a part of a school of jewelry making that kind of found object, narrative story.

- [Bettie] Ron really sees deeper, not just shapes, not just design.

The story is as rich as the elements of the design itself - [Laurie] Art records life, you know and he loves what life is about.

And he loves recording something and putting it together.

- They also reflect his love of travel and love of objects.

And then his particular way of putting things together is unique.

Uniquely Ron.

- Ron is a master.

He's been around long enough.

He knows his voice.

- They either tell a personal story or a story related to his family, or they tell a story about the collector who commissioned the piece.

Or they might tell a story about one of his travels.

He has traveled extensively throughout Asia.

- There's something about his it was always like a whole meal.

I mean, it's beautiful.

And it was full of many references.

- [Laurie] They're almost tribal looking.

They look like ceremonies, kind of ceremonial pieces.

I think that's unique that he recreated the ethnic in the modern day in respects to his culture and what he was seeing in his world.

(Asian music) - [Ron] The Chinese pronunciation of my Chinese name is Tao Wo And it was given to me by my paternal grandmother.

I was very fortunate because of the fact that both my maternal grandparents came from China.

(Hawaiian music) - [Ron] I was born in Honolulu.

- [Peter] The Hawaiian part of him is very important And he comes from a very close family.

And his family is very vital to him gave him a sense of meaning and purpose.

- [Ron] Both of my parents' families, they had their own beliefs.

And many of these beliefs are ways that became ingrained in me.

My father's side of the family, the Hakas, were farmers and my mother's side of the family, they were the business people.

- [Peter] It was basically the American dream kind of story, you know came as poor immigrants very poor immigrants and made their way and made life better for the next generation and the next generation and Ron's generation was the first one to go to college in his family.

All of the children in his family went to college.

(serious music) - [Ron] My father had suggested that maybe I might like to become a teacher.

My sister was at Pacific Lutheran, kept writing to me and saying, "Oh, you should come here to the Northwest.

It's really a lovely place and this is a small school and the people are wonderful, and you'll really like it."

I attended Pacific Lutheran College from 1954 to 1958 when I graduated.

I started teaching in Hoquiam, Washington.

I knew that I was not going to stay in Hoquiam forever.

I applied and eventually was accepted into the Bellevue school district.

I was somebody who wanted to get the very best creative work out of my students.

- [Lynne] My first class with Ron was in Highland Junior High School which was, in Bellevue, in the seventh grade.

First of all, he was different than most of the other teachers that there because he was Chinese American and he had a wonderful sense of humor.

- The junior high thing was all right but the little kids were his forte.

- [Ron in video] Notice again, the design around - [Ron] At first, when they told me I had to teach half time in the elementary, I thought, "Oh I don't want to do that to teach those little kids."

Once I started teaching them, there was such an inspiration.

They were so creative.

My main focus on them was to help them to see in a more aesthetic, more visual way.

- Children could do great things with really great art as an inspiration.

And they did.

They delivered the goods because he believed they could.

And he totally gave them that idea.

And he's had many of those students who have come to him over the years and said how important he was as a vital part of their life - [Ron] In your box is probably a light and dark orange.

- [Ron] You have to inspire them in some way.

And how do you do that?

Well, first of all it could be showing them something that's visual.

I had all of these objects from my travels and many times this would be an inspiration.

- [Peter] He would take the actual artifacts to the class.

So, he might take, you know, an Indian blanket and everybody would draw an Indian blanket and it'd be one with a priceless, like, museum type object that he borrowed from someone who actually had one.

So, the kids could actually touch it and see it.

- It was linked to things in the world which was a good education for the kids.

- [Ron] I believe that my early paintings, as I started I was still exploring my talents as a painter.

I honestly have to say they were okay, but I honestly feel that I never devoted the time and intensity to my paintings as much as when I started to make my jewelry.

- [Laurie] Ron's paintings were impressionistic in that they were kind of a little bit foggy, a little bit just an impression of something he didn't get.

He wasn't realistic.

He was working with real landscape or something.

I know that his jewelry's better than his painting was.

- The way I happened to come into baking jewelry was I was finishing up my masters in art education at the University of Washington, Ramona Solberg who was teaching at Central Washington came over to teach that last summer quarter.

And I had met Ramona before.

And I said to her, "You know I've always wanted to take a jewelry class."

So, I signed up for that class.

- Ruth Penington was there, even late fifties she was there, and she was kind of the the anchor that started that program.

And later on Ramona and Ron, because he studied with her became part of that whole community of jewelers.

- Ramona Solberg was the catalyst.

She was the mother of all of us.

She was the guiding principle of probably why we were all doing it.

- [Ron] Here I was, working in the studio, but I was terrible.

I ended up burning and melting some of my pieces.

(cheerful music) Ramona always said that I was a good designer, but I was a nervous solderer.

(laughter) - Ramona's opinion mattered more to Ron than anybody else's.

She really was his teacher.

- [Ron] Ramona who had traveled around the world had picked up all these wonderful artifacts which she started incorporating into her jewelry.

So, one day, she gave me a bone domino because she loved polka dots.

I took that piece, started designing around it and I assembled it with other bone and wood pieces.

I came up with the name All Fall Down because of the ivory domino.

And of course, when you play dominoes you usually stand them up and then when you touch one, they suddenly collapse.

And I guess in many ways, it can be a metaphor about life.

That became the major piece that started me on my journey into working with found objects.

- [Peter] The germ of many of his pieces have started with objects are with an idea of how you would turn an object into a story.

- [Karen] When he first began, you could see the reflection of Ramona Solberg.

As he grew and time changed, she helped him become the Chinese person that he is by looking at his roots and then that was reflected in his creation of his art.

- [Laurie] Ramona said that he made her jewelry better than she made her own because he really picked up on what she did.

- [Peter] She was his traveling companion and she was his mentor and his best friend in many ways.

- There were four jewelers who were very, very very close friends.

Ron Ho, Ramona Solberg, Kiff Slemmons, and Laurie Hall.

That was kind of the base of the the best jewelry art in the Northwest.

- And we were all such close friends.

- We were a school of thought.

And we were all different.

And with the danger of becoming like each other.

You know?

We were inspired by each other and competing with each other.

I mean, I won't deny that it was, it was really hot stuff.

You know?

It was.

- The jewelry arts community always has struck me, in this town, as very generous, spirited to each other, less competitive than you might imagine and generous.

So, Ron was part of that.

- They were so willing to share their information.

They didn't feel like they had to keep anything close to them because they were gonna lose something.

- [Ron] And I was starting this necklace and I had solved the pendant shape, but I wasn't quite sure how I was gonna attach the neck piece to it.

We were all sitting around.

Then I said, "Well, I'm going to the restroom."

So, when I went to the restroom and I came back, Ramona says, "We got it solved."

She had a piece of paper.

She drew exactly how it should attach.

And that's how it all worked out.

- They have to share her ideas because this is how they learn the next trick.

(laughing) - They are kindred spirits, you know in friendship and in the art form that they chose.

- It was a very exciting time, you know?

It was a the hippie-dippy time, you know?

It was fun.

It was fun.

- [Ron] I had started to travel and I began to see so many other cultures.

- [Peter] Ron is really fun to travel with.

He takes great joy in all things that happen on a trip.

He loves the journey.

He loves the people.

(Asian music) - [Ron] And I'm always going to mark as an example you never know exactly what's going to inspire you to pick up a piece and suddenly say, "This is what I'd like to have."

I think you have to actually see it.

And it somehow gives you a certain vibration.

I want them to be something that relates to their cultural values or things that they believe in.

- [Peter] I think Ron is genuinely motivated by and inspired by the object.

And he really wants to kind of showcase them in a way that it's his story.

It's his narrative but he loves using those things.

I think he feels somehow connected to the makers of those things as well, you know?

The history of the object.

- When I bring these artifacts home I might have an idea to begin with.

And I might find pieces that, I feel, represent this idea that I'm trying to do, but other times I honestly have to say that the whole idea comes after I've found certain imagery that I feel go together.

And sometimes it may be because the colors are right or it might be because the way the pieces a carve that have a certain movement to them that they actually work together.

And usually what I do when I'm creating is I lay them on my sketchbook and I move them around.

And then I start then drawing around them to see how I'm going to frame the piece.

- [Peter] I don't know if you've ever watched a jeweler, but the the work is quite slow.

You know, cutting out a piece of silver can take days.

You know, and it's a kind of patience that takes a long time to get everything ready and then when it comes time to solder, everything can go wrong.

- Since your drawing isn't two-dimensional, what happens is then you have the hard part is how do you make it in three dimensional?

There are all these problems that need to get solved about how am I going to mount some of these found objects?

They're going to be able to be stable in those positions.

And they're also gonna make a beautiful composition as well.

There's a lot of thought, actually, that goes into making those designs - [Laurie] Those decisions you make when something has to move or from one image to another that's hard work because it's gotta not only look right but it's gotta make sense up in your head.

- [Peter] Ron's pieces are almost all silver.

You know, there's peculiarities to that kind of metal with the kinds of fabrication that Ron does, it's fairly precise and it has to fit just so.

- [Lynne] The design of it takes time too.

So, when he thinks about what imagery is gonna use or what particular topic that he wants that piece to be tied into, I think that the designing of it, if people forget about that and then you add the time of the hand, labor work on it.

- And the soldering and all that, it's fun.

It's hard.

It hurts, you know, it, isn't easy at all.

- Working through the years.

It's interesting to go back and look at your original pieces and see actually they were quite simple in their construction.

- [Lynne] And then there comes the time when he starts making all of the pieces and is no longer so dependent or maybe just that he was discovering more things as he found his soul in his heart and his life.

(happy keyboard music) - [Ron] As I became more skilled I could see how I could develop the construction so that the pieces could flow together to be able to look and see how you could actually give life to a stiff piece of metal and make it act actually flow.

And how do you then make it so that it speaks on its own?

It's something that you really have to develop.

- [Peter] Ron's work is sculpture pure and simple.

I mean, it's adornment, but it's also each object stands by itself.

You could hang it, you know, to be seen in a 3D context.

- [Lynne] Many, many people, including me, put their pieces on the wall as sculpture.

- This particular piece is almost like a painting for me.

And so, I like to have it out and look at it everyday.

- Ron's work it does reach out and says, "Hello."

And when people purchase from me, I say, "You have to be ready that people are gonna walk up to you and not look you in the eye but look at your chest and say, 'tell me about your jewelry' Or they will even reach out and touch it."

- [Ron] I always thought of myself as being an American and that's it.

I never thought of myself as being Chinese.

As I was working on my jewelry, you know, I made things out of of found objects that maybe were old toys or very common things.

But eventually, Ramona said to me, "You know, you ought to think about your growing up in Hawaii and your Chinese heritage which I think is something you should explore."

And that's when I began to do that.

I think it has reflected in my art tremendously.

(thoughtful music) I started looking and thinking about all the things that my parents had said that I began to really appreciate those things that they told me.

I was able to use those ideas into creating so many of the narrative thoughts in my jewelry.

(pensive music) - I think one of the most beautiful pieces he did when he was doing this kind of searching for his roots his Chinese roots, he did a piece called Lily Foot.

His grandmother had bound feet and he made a little tiny shoe with a foot in it.

that's all about him and his grandmother and the history of the world.

And he captures all of that.

- My maternal grandmother, who came from the Canton area when she arrived in Hawaii, she had bound feet.

They wrapped her feet when she was a child.

When she walked, she was walking on her toes.

I remember her having these rags that she would wrap and unwrap her feet.

At that time, it was a custom in China because they called it The Lily Foot, which is a symbol of beauty.

Much as those beliefs at the time didn't mean anything they eventually became infused into my thinking, my thoughts and my ways of creating narration in my jewelry.

- For him though, was this idea of regaining his own identity or finding a way through his work through his artistic expression to claim cultural identity as a Chinese.

- [Ron] When I had a show, I titled that show Becoming Chinese because I thought that really depicts what really happened to me.

It truly transformed me from being just an American into really respecting my Chinese heritage.

To be able to have a show here, I think is a great honor.

- I think Becoming Chinese, that whole series of projects that rounded with his jewelry allowed him to ask questions of his own heritage in a way that he hadn't really pondered much before.

- Everybody's been really wonderful, really.

- Very.

- [Ron] I have gone back to my Chinese roots.

I like Chinese furniture.

I like Chinese food.

I love the art.

So, it all has become a very important part of my life, really.

- [Stefano] And the idea of Becoming Chinese defined his journey both artistically and as a human being.

- [Ron] It's always been a wonderful rise as to what's happened in my life and my career as a jewelry artist - [Lynne] We're all aware of Ron's jewelry, his work his commitment to it, his shows his resume.

It's beautiful and all of that.

But in, and amongst that, I think it's really important that people need to know what he did in all those years of teaching.

- He makes things fun.

He's a community person.

Definitely.

- [Peter] So much of Ron is about Seattle.

and about that house.

There isn't hardly anybody who's been involved in the arts that Ron hasn't known.

It's been his whole persona.

And that's a very important part of Seattle history, really.

He likes to bring people together.

He sees that as one of his roles as a person is to kind of bring like-minded people together through friendship.

- [Bettie] He valued other artists and he was valued by other artists.

- [Peter] Being an important part of our relationship is that we're both gay and Ron's being gay and being pretty open about being gay for a long time has been a pretty important part, I would think, of his identity.

A number of Ron's friends who, you know, are kind of out and also important artists, those were really valuable part of the art scene and also part of Ron's life.

You know, that that was something that they shared before it was really popular to share it.

- [Ron] I guess I have to be thankful of having had such a rich history and background about where I came from and how I was able to relate it into my art.

And as far as my legacy, I hope that in the end they will always remember the things that I have made, the places that I've been have inspired other people - What people remember somebody by, or remember somebody for isn't necessarily all the stuff that they made but the kind of person that they are and have been.

And I'd say that, that's what I think people should know about Ron Ho is that he's an amazing, loving human being that communicated that really well through his art, as well as his life and his friendships.

(soft piano music)