With an eye for precision, form and quality, Theresa Lim, who goes by Terry, dresses up your favorite lamp base with styling that you absolutely cannot buy in any store. Terry’s self-taught lampshades creations lend vintage flair to a home essential in mood setting fabrics, and they become a functionally beautiful focal point shining in your daily lives.
A Tucson native born during a period of time when it was illegal for her Chinese father and Arizona-born mother of Mexican ethnicity to be married, Terry began her artistic journey by happenstance as far as lampshades go. As a child she worked alongside her siblings in the family store on Main Street, pricing goods, stocking sodas and slicing meats.
The family had living quarters in the back of the building. Their business was open 7 days a week for 12 hours, Terry recounts that it was difficult at times.
Shy as a child, Terry credits her mother with teaching her to sew and being supportive of her creative efforts. She remembers going into the desert to collect the dirt used for clay in her mom’s ceramics and pottery. Although she mentions the business was bulldozed, she does not elaborate that many long-time Tucson residents lament the politically shady destruction of culturally rich Barrio Viejo for ‘progress’ back in the 1960s, which saw the building a convention center and homogenization of the area for tourists.
Terry took up ballet and other dancing as a youth to strengthen her leg muscles and today still stays fit with Zumba classes so she has the energy to keep up with all her interest and activities. An early entrepreneurial spirit emerged during high school as she began to sell tie-dyed t-shirts, jewelry, candles and paper flowers she created to fund the attire and airfare she needed for a dance school scholarship back East. Turning a lifelong talent for handicraft into an artistic lifestyle is a dream for many people, one that has come true for Terry and she shares this gratitude with her entire circle of influence…