FOCUS
​'Ā​ina is a graphic designer, photographer and textile artist

As a corporate service contributor, I am dedicated to restoring community using correct principles using communication design servicing groups and companies with print, presentations and web projects.

I studied photography in Manhattan and was mentored by a teacher from Princeton University and Cooper Union College on art and interior photography, and development with graphic design.   I attended Parsons School of Design in Manhattan for art, photography and communication design.

I attended the Fashion Institute of Technology for textile design and screen printing in 1986.  I was hired on Fashion Ave to work with a team of artists to design and paint fabric concepts for fashion designers.     I was hired by my screen printing teacher to paint props for fashion designers and department stores.

I worked in the tourist trade for the yachting and the hospitality industry and for new business in Antigua and Grenada.    I have lived in and out of the Caribbean region for 25 years working with local business, individuals and the yachting community.  I organized art workshops and fashion shows of the textile design collections I created.

I fundraise for the Maya clans of the continent and United Way.  I worked for Tibet House in New York as the office manager overseeing programs and the communication design material to raise funds.  I studied mental science with the Gelug school sect represented by His Holiness the Dalai Lama; and with the Kargyu sect of Buddhist studies. 

Since 1987 I offer art workshops for kids and adults at community art galleries in New York.  These workshops have proven to heal emotional distress and build creative confidence.  Wherever I travel I find children that are displaced from their land of origin and are grateful when they receive help to get focused and activate creativity with affection.

In London I worked with the Tibet Foundation and fund-raised for Tibetans, the Mongolians and Ladakh for emergency appeals to help restore their community from nomadic living in the Himalayas.  I worked with the director for Buddhism in Mongolia raising funds to rebuild and preserve the Buddhist relics and temples.

In 1989, I joined Amnesty International as a committee member, responding to urgent appeals to help release prisoners of conscience.  I was successful in releasing thirty-eight prisoners in Colombia, Ecuador and Mexico, and I continue to petition to release Tibetans, and volunteer to help restore Tibetans in exile to Tibet as an autonomous region.  

I have worked as a caterer with restaurants in design and events in New York and in the Caribbean.  For 35 years I developed my culinary art expertise for parties and promotions designing menus for restaurants.  I am trained in nutrition and alternative natural healing to repair the digestive systems, improve health and increase enlightenment in elemental bodies for humans and our loving pets.

I work on creating art that improves how we see our life.  I study about why we are suffering as humans and I work peaceful means to stay in evolution.   I believe its important to respect our land and wildlife to help our clans restore our way of life.  I encourage everyone to become a vegan.

I have extensive international experience with language, cuisine, the psychology of communities in Europe, India, Nepal, Australia and in my continent - the Maya (invaded and labeled the 'america' continent).  I have studied and learned why immigrants arrived in our continent since 1879 and what the generational problems are in fifty states.

I am a Sept 11th survivor that worked and lived downtown in Manhattan.  After the terrorist attack, I began to develop an online network to promote our indigenous clans in the continent to raise funding to help restore their families and remind the public that there is an indigenous group of twenty-three clans that originate in the continent we know as the Maya.