Sookyung Augustin is a graduate candidate at IU Bloomington in her thesis year within their Jewelry and Metalsmithing area. Hailing from West Michigan, she started teaching workshops in beading and metalsmithing for five years, then lapidary and metalsmithing at a gallery, masker-space in Grand Haven, MI for five years after graduating from Grand Valley State University under Renee Zettle-Sterling. Sookyung's fine artwork investigates notions surrounding personal identity as a Korean-American adoptee, with precarious medical limitations, novel, bodily awareness, and exploring community through womanhood. Her enamel journey began two years ago with graduate school under Nicole Jacquard.

From the Ashes She Became is inspired by Nikita Gill's poem by the same name:

Before she became fire, she was water.
Quenching the thirst of every dying creature.
She gave and she gave
until she turned from sea to desert.
But instead of dying of the heat,
the sadness, the heartache,
she took all of her pain
and from her ashes became fire.