Thursday, June 18, 2009
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Summary of my Korea Trip
This is the paper that I wrote summarizing the highlights of my trip to Korea, so if you do not feel like reading all my posts, this will give you a good sense of what happened this spring!
The workshop that I attended during my faculty-let study abroad program consisted of a workshop with the International Society for Ceramic Art Education (ISCAEE) in conjunction with the World Ceramic Art Jamboree (WOCEF). Both organizations hold a conference every two years and this year teamed up for the “Adventures of the Fire” theme in the cities of Yeoju and Icheon. ISCAEE provided housing for the participants, of whom were international students, Korean students and all respective professors accompanying the various schools. The booths that were assigned to the different schools showcased students demonstrating techniques in the ceramic arts as well as their professors and master potters. The workshops were five days, the first two days were all the participating Korean schools, the middle Wednesday was for professor demonstrations, and the final two days were for international student workshops.
The different techniques ranged from traditional throwing (on a potter’s wheel) to contemporary performance art involving the concept of making and working with clay. The various schools were genuinely interested in the goings on of other schools, students and professors from all over the world were given a venue to share and learn about one another. During the Korean student workshops, I had the opportunity to browse and experience some of these new and old techniques. One technique I found very relevant to my own artwork was that of Kim Sun, a student at Seoul Women’s University. The women there were demonstrating the technique of weaving fibers into pottery. I met the girls and they invited me to help them drill holes in the leather-dry pottery. After the holes are drilled, the pots are fired and glazed, and then the fibers are woven into them as the last step of the process. During their demonstration, I was able to inquire about the concept of this artwork. The artist who was utilizing this technique was named Kim Sun, and she explained to me that the fiber made the pots warmer, more welcoming. Kim Sun said pottery can be cold and rigid, but when fibers are woven in, they soften the feeling of the piece and you might be more attracted to it. I was very excited about this concept, and explained that I worked in almost the opposite way, by taking qualities of fabrics and imitating them with clay so they are less welcoming, making the clothing we wear into almost a kind of armor that protects us from the world. The women at Seoul National University became good friends of the Grand Valley State University students, and our friendship was made stronger throughout the duration of our trip. The play between fiber and ceramic is something I have been interested in all through my ceramic artwork, and I have been in contact with Kim Sun since we left. Another student that I was so fortunate to meet was Gin, a student attending Seoul National University of Technology. We had a deep converstation about the basic concepts that drive our artwork and found that we have a lot in common. We both deal with the social pressures on males and females to be gender specific, to adhere to the social norms of society becomes a huge stress. By making artwork that expresses our frustration with this pressure, we are allowed an outlet. Our mutual interest led us to exchange favorite artists' names and ideas for future art projects. Gin has become a great contact both personally and professionally.
I and the rest of the Grand Valley State University students decided to base our workshop in the central characteristic traits that make clay so unique to all other mediums, and that is the malleability, memory, and human touch required with clay to create a work of art. Our focus lay in the touch that clay can capture; the spontaneous can be recorded with it. We decided to build three structures by squeezing and essentially touching the clay once. With one squeeze we make a small unit, with that unit we build a space to live in. Our spaces ended up becoming our “temporary homes” symbolic of our time in Korea, and the small units became symbolic of all the experiences we had that made up that time. As the workshop progressed, we had many interested bystanders, who soon became participants in the building of our temporary homes. The original intention was a reaction and interaction with the space we were given, but our product produced something a little unexpected. By allowing the viewers to become engaged in such a direct way by touching and building alongside us, we produced a meaningful and lasting impression that had almost nothing to do with any product that we might keep. By making a temporary structure, we enriched the preciousness of the experience, which was our goal from the beginning—the experience was the concept, the clay was the medium, and our humanity was the tool.
The collaboration of our workshop was a huge success for our overall experience of Korea. We were able to create something without the stress of trying to “finish” the work or have it become something spectacular. The beauty lay in the experience of working with new people, getting to talk and know who they were, and understand that ceramic professionals everywhere are very similar people. As we moved onto our next city, Icheon, we were now impressed with the size and public interest of the WOCEF Biennial. Some of the Korean culture that I long for now is the rich history and tradition that Koreans will always possess, especially within the ceramic world. The development of ceramic technique is essentially Korean, and this honor is evident in the culture. The public interest and respect was obvious in the numbers of everyday people attending the WOCEF Biennial. There were children all the time, everywhere excited about ceramics, anxious to get to the front of the workshop lines. Along with my Bachelor of Fine Arts, I am also pursuing my Bachelors of Arts in Art Education to teach this to our American children, and I hope to inspire such awe and excitement in my own community.
In Icheon, our professor, Hoon Lee was participating in an international professional workshop. There we were able to watch him work on his performance as well as meet and interact with other professional artists. The variety of work was great, but some of the most impressionable to me were of Nina Hole. She is an artist who works on large, (around 20 feet), architectural sculptures built on site and transformed into their own wood kilns because of their immense size. The project she worked on while at the workshop was spectacular and required teams of people to help build and especially fire this work. Constantly feeding the fire for three days and monitoring the progression was an experience I was most interested in. The teamwork required and knowledge of the process was impressive. While we were assisting part of this process, we were able to interact with other student assistants, mostly graduate levels that were there to assist all the workshop artists. I learned many things from these students, things like how the Korean school system works and the different kinds of classes required for ceramic students. We were quite similar in our education, and even though communication was not always easy, it was always worthwhile. They were able to teach us many things about simple Korean traditions, everyday living and what the Korean words were for certain things.
Our last city was Seoul, and we were hosted in the dormitory on Seoul National University of Technology’s campus. We were able to see the undergraduate campus of our professor, and meet again with some students we had befriended in Yeoju. We had individual rooms which ended up being a relief from the constant companionship that we had been experiencing the entire trip. I found that the privacy helped my companions and I be more at ease and peaceful when we were together during the day. Seoul the city was overwhelming at times, and always interesting. The best way I found to describe Seoul was that everywhere was the same, yet a little different from the large cities of the United States. This dichotomy was in the way that people were a little friendlier and genuinely hospitable, yet the customs leaned towards conservancy in things that were discussable with new aquaintances. Another example was the delightful surprise in architecture, with finding traditional Korean homes tucked in among the modern skyscrapers.
Living with and working with the people of Korea was an experience I can hardly begin to explain. I know that I have improved my skills for meeting, relating to and working with people from all over the world. My understanding of the world has deepened; I do not just know about the rich history of Korea by reading about it in books, but rather I have felt it under my own feet, seen it in the contemporary life, tasted it at every meal, and loved it. I was particularly impressed with this genuine interest and honest hospitality that we were all shown by our hosts. Working and sharing provided an opportunity to relate and befriend many people in my profession, make lasting memories and begin to build my professional international network.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Meeting people
We met so many people all week that my head is starting to spin. I really enjoy meeting everyone, I just wish that there was an easier way to remember all the names. I started taking pictures of people who I need to remember and Dean had the idea to have them hold up a nametag or business card in the picture. We are sharing pictures and I will hopefully have them up on my Flickr page soon.
We tried to keep track of everyone we met so we could go out the last few nights, we were supposed to meet up with so many different people it was very confusing. Not really being fluent in each others language didn't help either. On one of the first nights, had a dinner with some guys from the Seoul National University of Technology, some Amerians from Tacoma and the English translator. That made things easier! We also hung out at the room and then at the bar with some other people (English student and professor and Turkish students and then met up with more Koreans at the bar we didn't know would be there). A guy nick-named Chris saw that Dean and I didn't have a table and came and adopted us. Kajin Lee and her boyfriend were a little worried by Dean's Soju and Beer bombs that the other Korean guys kept having him take over and over and over.... but we all got home, the condominium that we were staying in for the workshops in Yeoju was sharing a parking lot with this bar.
We have since moved to the Miranda hotel in Ichon (not to be confused with a larger city Inchon-- we have all been corrected at some point for this mistake) and I am going to find some food. I will have to summarize the workshop and what went on in this past week real fast.
*I sprained my ankle-- I have crutches and a splint and it really sucks a lot
*We got to see many schools from Korea do their demonstrations and workshops for us and the other international students. This was 2 days and we made a lot of friends and learned some new techniques.
*Professors had their workshops for one day. Still no Hoon-- much confusion on this day because we thought we were starting our project, but found out it was the next day. We wandered into town a way with the French girls from the Swiss school and bought some ceramic tools, went drinking and I sprained my ankle while dancing (not drunk! there was a hole my ankle went in) at the BBQ and later Dean carried me all the way to the Karaoke bar and then home. Hoon showed up and wanted to sing Karaoke with us... I have video proof he knows how to have fun!
*We had our workshop for two days and met new people yet by having them work collaboratively on our little clay huts. I will explain the concept later-- it has to do with making a temporary home in Korea for us...
*Workshops were finished and we went to Icheon for the remaining two days for lectures. They were kind of dry with images in Power Point, but we learned some new things. Said goodbye to new friends and into the Miranda Hotel now, not much has happened, I really needed sleep!
I will blog more. Mom, my ankle is fine, and Dean helps with everything I need. NO WORRIES!
What we have done so far
We have been busy little clay heads! What we have done:
Korean breakfast with Hoon on the first day-- SO much to eat and they even brought us more. There was seaweed soup and Kimchi (picked spiced things) and eggs and fried zucchini and seafood and hot water (no tea?) and seaweed... and... things I don't recognize.
ISCAEE was a blast-- the first day we walk into an exhibit with a bunch of important clay heads that Hoon (our professor) knows, and find all our art work hanging up! I got introduced to a great bunch of girls from the Seoul Women's University because Hoon knew the head professor. He had taken a class with her when she was a visiting professor at his school (Seoul National University of Technology) and he was her first male student. He said that at the retirement party for her he was the only male in the room. I said that she must have not wanted to teach another boy after him. He grinned, but I never know if he thinks I'm funny or not... The girls were all impressed with my work and asked if I was a professor! (plus Europeans look older anyway) but really it was because our work was in with the other professors (and a few students from the Swiss school that we met later). They showed me their work in the student section (a tent near the workshop/demonstration tents for all the Universities) and I LOVED IT! We exchanged emails-- these girls had made a business card with their picture, artwork and email, waaay more professional than me scribbling my name and email on scrap paper. I will email them the link to my blog and artwork. OH YEAH here is the link to my website with some of the artwork I have made: http://www2.gvsu.edu/~hipshean (the web page sucks, but I have never made one before)
We made lots of new friends, including some girls from the Swiss school, but two of them were origionally from France. I had introduced myself to them because I wanted to meet their professor... I LOVED his artwork, it was in the same building as ours and I walked right up and introduced myself and he talked to me for so long all about how he works and thinks about clay. He really enjoys working backwards-- finding a material that pleases him then thinks of a form that would be appropriate for such a material. I introduced him to Hoon and he said it was great that Hoon had such outgoing students; I blushed. Everyone we met had really great accents, and there artwork was great-- I think Dean really took a shine to the French girls. I floated between Dean and the girls then our girls and some Korean boys, then back to Dean and the girls. We hung out at the workshop area for a long time, also bought some really great wood fired cups, then came back and tried out the (naked!) sauna in the lower level of the condominium we are staying in (like a dorm room with a kitchen and quick mart near the lobby, special for the conference with tons of students staying here... we only have bed rolls, no actual beds though). We then met up again with Dean (the men's side was separate of course) and went to dinner. I forgot my dinner ticket and went back, then met some Japanese girls, and we found the dinner place together and met up with EVERYONE. We had to throw darts to get a "yes" or "no" to get into dinner, which was good and had a buffet-style so we could try everything. Always Kimchi, or pickeled cabbage and spices, at every food place we went so far.
I have been made fun of because at dinner I fell asleep propped up and then came home, laid down, and fell asleep last night at 8pm and woke up with everyone at 6:30am-- we have been getting up early because of the jet lag. We got up this morning and really have the hang of it-- the rice cake things we got yesterday were a good breakfast and we were off to the conference again. All the universities were doing their workshops and WOW WE MADE A LOT OF FRIENDS!! I have tons of business cards and pictures and we even ate LARVAE!! All of us tried silk worm larvae from a street vendor. Gross.
Other things:
Meghan had her palm read and he gave her long life.
Becky keeps describing everything as "that's so Asian" tee hee
Everyone loves Dean's shiny head and red beard.
I was randomly called beautiful.
I can haggle pretty well.
I bought a teapot and cup set! Only $20
I bought a frog incense burner! Only $4
I bought a Korean stlye shirt! Only $30... that wasn't haggle-able
Meghan got called a cow 2X because she has a nose ring.
Hoon found us again and got us our food tickets only AFTER we went and bought a ginormous lunch-- but it was soooo delicious!
Korean breakfast with Hoon on the first day-- SO much to eat and they even brought us more. There was seaweed soup and Kimchi (picked spiced things) and eggs and fried zucchini and seafood and hot water (no tea?) and seaweed... and... things I don't recognize.
ISCAEE was a blast-- the first day we walk into an exhibit with a bunch of important clay heads that Hoon (our professor) knows, and find all our art work hanging up! I got introduced to a great bunch of girls from the Seoul Women's University because Hoon knew the head professor. He had taken a class with her when she was a visiting professor at his school (Seoul National University of Technology) and he was her first male student. He said that at the retirement party for her he was the only male in the room. I said that she must have not wanted to teach another boy after him. He grinned, but I never know if he thinks I'm funny or not... The girls were all impressed with my work and asked if I was a professor! (plus Europeans look older anyway) but really it was because our work was in with the other professors (and a few students from the Swiss school that we met later). They showed me their work in the student section (a tent near the workshop/demonstration tents for all the Universities) and I LOVED IT! We exchanged emails-- these girls had made a business card with their picture, artwork and email, waaay more professional than me scribbling my name and email on scrap paper. I will email them the link to my blog and artwork. OH YEAH here is the link to my website with some of the artwork I have made: http://www2.gvsu.edu/~hipshean (the web page sucks, but I have never made one before)
We made lots of new friends, including some girls from the Swiss school, but two of them were origionally from France. I had introduced myself to them because I wanted to meet their professor... I LOVED his artwork, it was in the same building as ours and I walked right up and introduced myself and he talked to me for so long all about how he works and thinks about clay. He really enjoys working backwards-- finding a material that pleases him then thinks of a form that would be appropriate for such a material. I introduced him to Hoon and he said it was great that Hoon had such outgoing students; I blushed. Everyone we met had really great accents, and there artwork was great-- I think Dean really took a shine to the French girls. I floated between Dean and the girls then our girls and some Korean boys, then back to Dean and the girls. We hung out at the workshop area for a long time, also bought some really great wood fired cups, then came back and tried out the (naked!) sauna in the lower level of the condominium we are staying in (like a dorm room with a kitchen and quick mart near the lobby, special for the conference with tons of students staying here... we only have bed rolls, no actual beds though). We then met up again with Dean (the men's side was separate of course) and went to dinner. I forgot my dinner ticket and went back, then met some Japanese girls, and we found the dinner place together and met up with EVERYONE. We had to throw darts to get a "yes" or "no" to get into dinner, which was good and had a buffet-style so we could try everything. Always Kimchi, or pickeled cabbage and spices, at every food place we went so far.
I have been made fun of because at dinner I fell asleep propped up and then came home, laid down, and fell asleep last night at 8pm and woke up with everyone at 6:30am-- we have been getting up early because of the jet lag. We got up this morning and really have the hang of it-- the rice cake things we got yesterday were a good breakfast and we were off to the conference again. All the universities were doing their workshops and WOW WE MADE A LOT OF FRIENDS!! I have tons of business cards and pictures and we even ate LARVAE!! All of us tried silk worm larvae from a street vendor. Gross.
Other things:
Meghan had her palm read and he gave her long life.
Becky keeps describing everything as "that's so Asian" tee hee
Everyone loves Dean's shiny head and red beard.
I was randomly called beautiful.
I can haggle pretty well.
I bought a teapot and cup set! Only $20
I bought a frog incense burner! Only $4
I bought a Korean stlye shirt! Only $30... that wasn't haggle-able
Meghan got called a cow 2X because she has a nose ring.
Hoon found us again and got us our food tickets only AFTER we went and bought a ginormous lunch-- but it was soooo delicious!
Friday, April 24, 2009
We're Here!
We are in Korea! Finally I figured out what the heck was going on with the internet, and I need to use a cable to connect, so if someone else is using it, then I have to wait. I forgot my address book in the room, but thought I would email those that I have in my gmail account and then catch everyone up tomorrow. It feels like an eternity since I said goodbye to Brett and the family. I miss you all, but just a little-- more like I wish you all loved ceramics and could come with me!
Our flight schedule went something like this: we left Grand Rapids at 10:30am and then changed planes in Chicago, then again in Toyko and finally we were in Yeojeu at there time around 8:00pm.
I am here and it is 12:30am right now, and I have to get up early. Really, nothing exciting has happened-- we got our ride to the dorm-like place we are residing in right now. We are all together, and I have met two girls from Turkey, they helped me get connected to the internet.
I finished the pojagis on the plane, WHEW! I think that Eunmee and Soon Jung like them! They were the two visiting artists that came to Grand Valley last semester, and we are going to meet up with them later. I bought maple candies which are my favorite things in the world (to put in the pojagis). For those who are completely lost here is a link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pojagi
http://www.flickr.com/photos/soozs/98944097/
We start our collaboration workshop tomorrow, so I'm sure I will have more to write then.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Harold Hipshear
Just a side note that my grandfather, Harold Hipshear passed away at his home on Wednesday night. I was with my family for the Easter weekend and his funeral services afterwards. One of the most difficult things is always made easier with a family such as mine. I am so lucky to have them all! I hope they read this and give me some feedback. I am working on this song in memory of him, and this is what I have so far:
And the last breath he took was my father's--
And the last breath he took with a smile on his face
With his wife, in a room that he built with his own two hands.
We remember his name and a story--
We remember his name and the smile on his face
With his kids, on the farm and the whole Hipshear clan.
Whenever we cry it's our shared greif
Whenever we cry it's because we must stay
With his love, in our hearts and our minds always.
And the last breath he took was my father's--
And the last breath he took with a smile on his face
With his wife, in a room that he built with his own two hands.
We remember his name and a story--
We remember his name and the smile on his face
With his kids, on the farm and the whole Hipshear clan.
Whenever we cry it's our shared greif
Whenever we cry it's because we must stay
With his love, in our hearts and our minds always.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Korean Ceramic Biennial
I will be traveling to Seoul, Korea soon for the Ceramic World Biennial. I have my work in the student show there, it was mailed out last week (hopefully it arrives in one piece!). The artwork that I just sent is my profile picture, and is on my flickr account. I will be publishing more of my artwork later today.
I am going with fellow clayheads Dean, Meghan, MacWhims, Becky, and of course Hoon, our instructor. Hoon keeps telling us things about Seoul (he grew up there) and we are really excited. Almost every Monday and Wednesday since last semester we have had a meeting about Korea and what we are doing there. We are making a collaboration project while we are there for the conference as part of a related event. We should be experimenting here at home next week with ideas.
I leave on April 23rd, wish me a peaceful visit.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)