the artist

Amy Tan is the designer and artist behind The TreeSpace Studio. She resides in Southern California with her engineer husband and plays regularly with the fluffy gray lion-esque cat from next door. She worked as an architect for 7 years and is now drawing, designing and crafting from her home studio with a view of their backyard lemon trees. When she is not working, she loves hiking and camping with her husband and creating edible concoctions from her collection of traditional and vernacular cookware.

” My love for art came very early. My mom still has drawings I made of little eyes when I was just 2 1/2 years old. Growing up, I spent hundreds of hours on my belly on the floor with a thick stack of recycled papers, pens and pencils-drawing from imagination, inspired by the stories I read in books. I drew regularly until I was in Secondary School, at which I stopped and adolescent interests took over. I studied architecture in college and graduated with a graduate degree in Architecture and went on to work in the industry for 7 years. In all that time since I stopped, I drew from imagination maybe less than 5 times.

Architecture gave me a love for materiality and built spaces and ambiance. It taught me dimensionality, tactility, perspective. When I decided to take a break from the industry to finally pick up a pen and draw from my mind again, it was almost accidental. I knew I would always have a career in design, but until two dear friends enlisted me to design their wedding invitations, I never imagined I would return to my drawn world on paper.

I love coming up with unusual ways to marry my illustrated artwork with the wabi-sabi world of wood, handmade papers, nature, old things and interesting personal stories.  Each project I take on is a multi-dimensional study. Having lived in 3 continents, my travels and adventures in the natural and man-made world keep me inspired, humbled and in love with life.”

➤Read about the Studio