Ron Ho

born Honolulu, Hawaii, 1936; died Seattle, Washington, 2017

BiographyRon Ho was a jeweler and art educator. The son of Chinese parents, he grew up in Hawaii surrounded by diverse cultures and their unique artistic expressions. His subsequent work was influenced and informed by contrasts between American culture and Chinese culture and by the cultural diversity he encountered living in the Pacific Northwest.

Ho attended Pacific Lutheran College (now University) in Tacoma. He was interested in an art career but his parents felt he should pursue a more settled profession. Ho received a bachelor’s degree in art education and taught briefly in Hoquiam before landing a position in the Bellevue school system. He simultaneously embarked on an art career as a painter and studied for a master’s in art education at the University of Washington.

In the summer of 1968, needing one last art course to complete his degree, he registered for a jewelry class taught by Ramona Solberg. Serendipitously, he found his medium as an artist and a lifelong mentor and friend. It was Solberg who first encouraged him to use found objects and materials in his works, a practice that became the foundation of all his subsequent work. In addition to his art work, Ho taught in elementary, middle, and high schools for 34 years before retiring in 1992. He was the recipient of several distinguished art educator honors and his jewelry is in the collections of numerous private and public collections. A retrospective exhibition of his work, “Dim Sum at the On-On Tea Room: The Jewelry of Ron Ho” was held at the Bellevue Arts Museum in 2007.

(Source: CraftInAmerica.org and "The International Examiner", Vol. 34, No.1)

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