Designing a logo and deciding upon a name for the gallery in Julian’s memory took us on a journey of about eight months.  It was important that we shared the footprints of Julian’s life and the footprints that remain joyously and painfully indelibly inked upon our hearts.  With that focus, the ink prints we took of Julian’s feet on his 3-month birthday became the seed from which both logo and name grew. 

The name for the gallery, Tenpo (天歩), came rather quickly to us.  The character 天 refers to both heaven and the gallery’s original Mt. Tenjinyama (天神山) adjacent location, while 歩 means walk.  Walking in Heaven captured the essence of Julian we wished to convey.   We designed and discounted numerous possible renderings for the logo before hitting upon the idea of the blue (Heaven) and green (Earth) background with Julian’s feet walking through heaven. 

The final step was incorporating the heart-shaped leaves from Julian’s Sunflower watercolor painting into the design.  When Julian brought that painting home from school, he told us the three heart-shaped leaves on the flower represented each of us.  In bringing those leaves from Julian’s watercolor into the logo, we are forever together as a family. 

We are grateful to artist friend Andy Cheng for suggesting the final element of the stems of our leaves wrapped around Julian’s feet.  Julian will forever be intertwined in our lives and spirits as we are in his.