It all started back in 1973. (Me, that is.) Mom and Pop were busy being Baptist missionaries in Taiwan when out I popped, their "number four." The only toy resembling a bear I had growing up was a crude koala made from real fur. Sadly, it was shedding so rapidly I threw it out several years ago. After earning a BA in Chinese from UCLA and getting hitched shortly thereafter, I found myself in the midst of an illustrious career at a pet shop. My dream to have my own store quickly fell by the wayside after I realized how much crap it involved (literally). And so I became a teacher! In 1997 I started working with middle school students with moderate to severe disabilities, and today I'm still doing it full time. I just have to love those kids! And the bears, you ask? I bought my first artist bear at the Pasadena Rose Bowl swap meet. A few years later I started buying teddy bear magazines. I made my first bear from a free on-line pattern, cheap fabric, and plastic joints I ripped out of a dismembered thrift shop bear. Thank God Elke Block taught me the right way to make a bear! After a couple of Edinburgh Imports' workshops, I was completely, utterly, and hopelessly hooked on bear-making. And the rest, my friends, is bear history.
