Pono Artworks

DK. Nagano was born in Hawaii on the island of Oahu to humble parents who hailed from plantation life on Molokai and Kauai. She started drawing at the age of three or four, and never stopped. There have been times when she's gotten side tracked by life, but she has always come back to creating art in some form or another. As a young mother in the 1980s she relied on her talent for creating portraits of people's loved ones to make ends meet. She did this on and off while she raised her two sons. Then in 2005, she started Tropical Glassworks Hawaii, specializing in handcrafted stained glass window panels and lamps. Completely self-taught, she learned to create stained glass works of art in a small workshop under her house and sold her work online, eventually garnering the attention of Hawaiian Style Magazine, who published an article about her work in 2008. Unfortunately, she lost her shop in 2011, and unable to afford the high rents in Hawaii, she was forced to shut down Tropical Glassworks. Today DK. Nagano is aspiring to build a portfolio of artwork and design. Her art is a work in progress, as she strives to develop her style. She spends most of her time in pursuit of pono (balance and harmony), which consists of painting, gardening, and spending time with family.