Irene Wei is a Taiwanese-American papermaker and furniture designer based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Irene started Pith Flower Shop so she could preserve, share and educate her artistic and cultural communities about this unique 2000 year old craft of making Taiwanese pith flowers. As someone who lives across the world from her heritage country, she believes that traditional arts are a tangible way to access and connect to Taiwan’s history and culture while living in America. She hopes that through educating people about this craft she can share an aspect of her culture with other diverse communities and also help Taiwanese immigrant or multigenerational families stay connected to their heritage culture through making (or receiving) pith flowers. Irene studied pith flower making under the instruction of Jerry Chen (expert pith flower maker and director of the Taiwan Tong Cao Association). She also conducted tōngcǎo research around sweet potato island with Kuei Mei Liang (executive director of the Taiwan Tong Cao Association). Her research on this subject has been supported by the RISD Maharam STEAM Fellowship and the Fulbright Scholar Program.

While Irene’s main mission is to promote the beautiful tradition of making Taiwanese pith flowers, she still works in a furniture/object design-related field. Irene graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design with a BFA in Furniture Design and a Concentration in Nature Culture Sustainability Studies. In addition to her academic studies, she pursued Traditional and Contemporary Papermaking on the side through various acclaimed hand papermaking institutions such as the Ox-Bow School of Art, Pace Paper, Carriage House Paper and Paper Connection International. She has previously served as a board member of the national Hand Papermaking Magazine where she provides representation for student hand papermakers. Irene’s design work can be found at www.irenewei.com.

Pith Flower Shop brand identity was created by Gabrielle Widjaja, a RISD Graphic Design ‘19 alumni who is a designer and illustrator. Her work is on view at @gentle.oriental on Instagram.