Sometimes you know something in your life is changing before you know what comes next.
For Jay Cheng, that feeling has appeared more than once.
Her life has taken her from Hong Kong to Canada and, eventually, Chiang Mai. For many years, she built a life and practice around millinery. Then, quite simply, she stopped feeling the same joy in making hats.
“I didn’t know why,” she says. “Maybe I was tired, maybe I needed a break.”
Rather than push herself through it, she slowed down.
“I didn’t want to push myself forward, but I knew something was happening and I needed to be honest with myself. I didn’t want to end up resenting what I did or what I had been so passionate about.”
It took a couple of years before she felt ready to move beyond millinery. During COVID, she began an online Reiki course and started exploring energetic work. She describes this period as a time when the “universe” began to guide her path, and she decided to follow what felt right.
The same instinct has shaped some of the bigger moves in her life.
In 2016, Jay and her family left Hong Kong for Canada. They had begun to feel that something was changing around them, while their eldest son was also struggling with the education system. An assessment in Canada showed that he learned differently and needed another approach.
The move was based less on certainty than instinct.
“It was just a sense of something is off for us,” Jay says.
Years later, the family made another leap, this time from Toronto to Chiang Mai.
“After living in Toronto, we felt that things were not what we thought we were signing up for,” she says. “You have to live in a place to see the layers of reality.”
COVID gave them another reason to reconsider where they wanted to live. They looked at several possibilities in Asia, including places closer to Hong Kong where Jay’s parents were still living. Then Chiang Mai came onto their radar.
They researched the schools, visited, and took their two boys to see one that looked promising.
“The boys liked it. We both agreed. Frank (her partner) was on board. So we took the leap.”
For Jay, Chiang Mai became “the start of our family adventures.”
She describes the city more simply now.
“Chiang Mai has its magic.”
It was here, at a different point in her life and her work, that she came to Studio 88.
Jay had known Aom for about two years before the residency. When asked why she chose Studio 88, her answer is uncomplicated.
“I felt I could trust her.”
She also needed something quite practical: “the support to create this body of work.”
That trust mattered because Jay was entering unfamiliar territory. She had spent years working with hats and had never made work at the scale she attempted during the residency, or in such a large exhibition space.
Creating the pieces at Studio 88 helped her understand where the ideas were going.
“I surprised myself with the trust I give myself when struggling with the creating process,” she says. “The artwork came together magically.”
The experience has left her wanting to explore installation further.
“After the exhibition, I want to explore more installation work. I love working with space.”
For Aom, the residency was never about pushing Jay towards a particular outcome.
“I think what Jay needed most was the right moment,” she says. “I never wanted to push her — I let her be.”
Aom and Jay had many conversations about why Jay wanted to make the work and why it mattered to her. Studio 88 then gave her focused time to explore and eventually finalise her vision.
“I let her express herself truthfully,” Aom says.
There were opportunities to talk, exchange ideas, explore possibilities and connect with the local art and artisan community. Studio 88 also explored how Jay’s work might engage with and support local makers.
But Aom sees the role as something quieter than directing an artist towards an answer.
“Sometimes, what an artist needs most is simply the space to listen, reflect, and receive a little encouragement along the way.”
There is a continuity between the practice Jay is leaving behind and the one she is developing now.
When she made a hat, she says, the work was never only about the object itself. A beautiful hat also had to be comfortable. More importantly, the person wearing it had to feel that the hat belonged to them.
“The wearer needs to be in tune with the hat.”
That meant learning to balance the designer’s ego with the needs of the person for whom she was making it.
“I create a piece to bring out the best in them.”
She sees something similar in her work as an intuitive energy healer. She can guide and support someone, she says, but how much they choose to heal is ultimately their own free will.
“I assist humbly. I support. I let them feel safe and trust their healing journey.”
The materials and forms are changing, but something about her way of working has remained: making room for another person, rather than imposing herself on them.
That may also be what Aom recognised in Jay from the beginning.
“When I decide to work with someone, I look beyond their artistic practice,” she says. “At Studio 88, we value kindness, respect, openness, and communication.”
She was drawn to Jay’s “gentle and thoughtful way of observing the world” and her sincere approach to connecting with the local community. For Aom, a residency is not only about the work an artist makes, but also about “the relationships and energy they bring into the space.”
Jay is still figuring out where her work is going.
At this point, she says she is trying to be honest with herself and with others. She is interested in what she calls the “shadow side” of ourselves, and in exploring how that might become a body of work around “the healing of self.”
There is no finished answer yet.
Jay’s story is not really about leaving one practice behind and arriving neatly at another. It is about recognising when something has changed, giving yourself time to understand it, and finding the people and places that give you enough trust and room to see what comes next.
You can catch Jay’s exhibition, The Moving Ceremony: The Art of Becoming, from 12 September to 12 October 2026 at Studio 88. Catch Jay in person and in conversation during Gathering of Stories on 26 September.
Opinion piece by Wong Koi Hin. Koi Hin is Studio 88’s Strategic Adviser with a non-executive role. More information about Studio 88’s team here.
Studio 88 accepts applications on an ongoing basis. Check out our residency program and apply now.
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