"I never thought I was ready for it. It's hard to build an inventory when you're still working part time," she says. "Last year was the first year I applied. I feel like I've gotten an idea of what I'm doing."

Tao is currently journeying to Evanston, Ill., to take part in her first American Craft Exposition show, from Aug. 27 to 29. While far from her first professional exhibit, this one is special—the exposition management had to whittle down thousands of applications to fill the 29 spots open to new artists, so the level of competition was high and selection for the show an honor.

But the exposition also touches Tao in an area that hits close to home—proceeds from the exposition's ticket sales and preview parties are to go to the fight against breast and ovarian cancer.

"There is breast cancer in my family, and I have one friend who had both," Tao says. Her friend has since recovered, but Tao still feels the need to contribute. Last year's show raised $350,000 for fighting breast cancer, which went to the Evanston Northwestern Healthcare Research Institute.

Earlier this week, Tao and her husband, Frank, loaded about $6,000 worth of merchandise into their recently purchased gold minivan and embarked on the drive to Evanston, just north of Chicago. That merchandise included the finely crafted paper sculptures that she puts together in her own studio—a small office in Frank's North Sunnyvale warehouse. To pay for the space, Tao, 59, works part time for her husband's business. He sells scientific instruments.

This arrangement gives her leave to pursue her art—and addresses the tradition of practicality that her family brought to California when they relocated here from rural Hawaii. "When I started working on my art, my father's biggest fear was that I couldn't support myself," Tao says.

Tao landed in the United States in 1964, following her brother and sister to the mainland. She then met and married Frank and gave birth to two daughters. In 1978, she started pursuing a college education at De Anza College, where she dabbled in the school's physical therapy program. "But what's the point in investing all this time if you're not doing something that you really want to do?" Tao says. She later decided to follow her interests in watercolors and acrylics and transferred to Mission College.

While there, she began working with silversmithing and jewelry making. But she recalls the moment, in 1994, when she bought a book on clearance that promised to demonstrate papermaking—for children. "I played hooky one day, and I was putting newspapers and water in the blender. How can you not have fun when you're playing with water?" Tao says. "In the process, I just kept going."

She started out with making journals and stationery with her personalized paper, which she enjoys for its unpredictability. "Each batch has its own uniqueness. There's some part of it you can't predict," Tao says. Later, she moved on to a more sculptural approach, molding or carving dried white paper into floral shapes.

In 1996, she began selling her pieces. Tao says her average price is about $160, but she has also made larger pieces on commission that are priced up to $900.

Most of her exposure in this area has been through events like Silicon Valley Open Studios and the Santa Clara Art & Wine Festival, which she'll be exhibiting in this year on Sept. 18 and 19. "Things have changed here since the tech boom. The market niche is very small," she says. "I fare better back East." The national craft shows have proven fairly profitable in the past, and Tao hopes she'll continue to increase her sales to the point where she can do her art full time.

For the future, Tao would like to revisit her silversmithing past. One paper piece hanging on her studio wall evokes the shape of a dangling, high-fashion earring, and she says she's thinking about mixing metals in with her papers. "I want to make wall jewelry—something with a little more shine," she says.

Right now, she likes working with her husband in the same office—and the opportunity it affords her to zip over to Baylands Park with her binoculars for a bit of bird-watching. Nature is her primary inspiration, though it's easier for her to make flowers grow from the paper in her studio than from the soil in her yard. "I try to garden, though my gladiolas did actually bloom this year," she says with a grin.