bean pastes

Humble beginnings

Since high school, I’ve harbored a dream of one day vending in the Artist Alley, much like my artist heroes. I longed to share my art with other people, and for them to acknowledge, accept, and celebrate my work. It’s a tangible way of leaving my legacy in this world.

One day, I decided to stop dreaming and go for it. Thus, in May 2023, I started selling my stickers as BEAN PASTES at the UW Spring Makers’ Fair, where I first learned the ropes for delightful customer service, trustworthy business transactions, and intentional social media marketing. It’s my first stab at a small business. Above all, I nurtured relationships with fellow art vendors, seeing one another not as competition but as collaborators and companions.

Since then, BEAN PASTES has taken me as far as Tokyo, Japan where I sold my art prints, stickers, and portrait commissions at Tokyo International Deaf Art Festival (手話のまち) in November 2025. In late 2024, I was awarded the BIPOC Deaf Arts Grant ($1,000) to make zines, starting with SOUND & SILENCE, which debuted at Seattle Asian American Zine Fest in July 2025. I am currently working on my second zine, and I can’t wait to see what the future holds in store for BEAN PASTES!

BEAN PASTES is active on Instagram: @beanpastes

Mission & values

Now in its 3rd year as a small business, BEAN PASTES continues its mission to spread the joy, share the love of pop culture, and instill cultural pride in Deaf & Asian American identities in the greater Seattle area and beyond. BEAN PASTES embodies my core values of sustainability, resilience, and creativity.

Products

Currently, I’m selling stickers and art prints grouped by themes:

Animal faeries (cat, pig, bunny, panda)
Video game bunny-like characters (Animal Crossing, Pokémon)
Variations of bunnies
Fanart

In the past, I sold stickers of tangyuan (汤圆), which is a Chinese dessert dish consisting of sweet glutinous rice balls with sesame paste inside, and fish (与).

I’m also selling custom pet & human portraits and zines!

My zines are often more personal. SOUND & SILENCE attempts to articulate the experience of sound and silence from the perspective of d/Deaf, hard of hearing, and hearing people. ASTRONAUT DIARIES touches on the nontraditional family dynamic of an astronaut father, who is often working and living in one country while the mother and the children live in another country. It’s a family dynamic that is more commonly seen in overseas Chinese communities, though less common in the Western hemisphere. I don’t meet other people with nontraditional family dynamics.

When I’m not vending or applying to art markets, I’m sharpening my technical skills through color studies and real life sketching. I enjoy reading manga or watching movies to build my appreciation for powerful thematic storytelling that evokes empathy, encourages new perspectives, and creates resonant imagery that linger. Recently, I’m reading MARRIAGETOXIN, a fun manga that plays with gender expectations and challenges traditional values of marriage.