Montgomery artists give new spin to traditional Korean art
ALABAMA: Sujoung Paek never planned to spend more than four months tearing up tiny shreds of paper. Yet it’s exactly how she and fellow artists Hyekyong Yun and Eunjoung Lee passed the tail end of spring into summer and early fall. In February, Paek atended an event sponsored by the Alabama Korea Education and Economic Partnership, beter known as A-KEEP. The organisation started as an international student-teacher exchange program nine years ago, but now runs a host of cultural programs that include free Korean language courses. The executive director struck up a conversation with her that fell on the topic of Hanji.
Hanji literally means Korean paper, which sounds like a prety dull topic, but there’s more to it than that. The practice of making it dates back to somewhere between the 3rd and 6th centuries. It’s harvested from the inner bark of the Mulberry tree and, despite its delicate appearance, is known for its extreme durability.
How durable is it? The world’s oldest surviving woodblock print, — made from an ancient method of transferring ink to textiles and paper — Buddhist document the Great Dharani Sutra, was printed on Hanji in 704 and remains in good condition to this day. In fact, it still bears the papermaker’s name. The paper is waterproof and used for everything from decorative art and sculpture, to ventilation and temperature control — think of the traditional wooden doors found in classic East Asian architecture, Hanji can be used to cover the frames.
Paek, who moved to Montgomery eight years ago, studied fine art in South Korea and runs a small studio off Vaughn Road. In May, the director asked if she could create an exhibit using the versatile paper that might introduce the traditional art to an uninformed audience. She said yes — on the condition that she could enlist some help.
“They wanted to have the exhibit ready for September and October, and I just knew I didn’t have enough time,” Paek said, with four months of lead time ahead of her. Here’s why.
Not only is the process of making Hanji painstakingly long, creating art out of the material also requires quite the amount of effort. To create the 54 figures used in the exhibit the artists first used wire to create body-like forms. Then, using a mixture of flour and water that was boiled until it became a sticky, porridge-like consistency, they used pieces of South Korean imported Hanji to form a base with a plain white layer of the paper fited to the structures. Each layer of paper must dry completely between applications of the wet paste or it will rot. That meant one full day of drying for each figure. “I’m impatient but making Hanji requires a lot of time. It really gave me time to build my patience,” said Lee. She creates art as a hobby and has been enrolled in Paek’s academy for three years now. Radicals, folklore and fantasy: Read these 8 Black women writers and poets from Alabama. Teaching the arts: Sarah Tanner creates art, plays classical piano and instills a love of music in new generation. Once the base coat was dry, another layer of Hanji was applied for skin colour. The paper can’t simply be taken whole and wrapped around the doll to create a shape; it has to be applied in very small pieces to create a seamless skin tone.
For their purposes, the paper was never cut with scissors — only torn by hand, which is why the women spent months shredding the fibrous material into tiny pieces smaller than a fingernail. Every finger on each doll’s hand was created individually, which meant wrapping the bits of paper around tiny pieces of pre-cut wire. In a photo Yun pulls up on her cell phone, they resemble a plate full of mini hot dogs. She’s a 3D hologram designer by training but has worked as a stay-at-home mom since immigrating to
Montgomery in 2009. The A-KEEP project gave her an opportunity to get creative again. She even helped her two daughters create their own.
“They made up a story for theirs. They’re always fighting at home, so I asked them to make friendly sisters,” Yun said. “Unlike them,” she adds with a laugh.
Yun is BTS superfan. The group is a mainstay on K-pop charts and has quickly amassed a large international following. Using the dolls, she recreated the group’s 2018 music video “Idol.” The remaining figures depict different Korean cultural traditions. One scene shows the four-man percussion circle known as “Samul nori” and another, a couple wearing traditional wedding ceremony dress. To make just one doll took about two months. “It took a lot of effort to make the facial expressions of the dolls.
Shaping the litle pieces of paper into lips, creating the details of the eyes. By the time it was finished I felt like they were my children,” said Paek. While they worked, fear and anxiety about the pandemic continued to grow. The three artists said they were particularly grateful to channel their efforts into something worthwhile that could at least temporarily shit their focus away from the 24-hour news cycle. They grew closer, formed a tight friendship. “We had a really good time together, working and bonding together over this very tedious work,” Paek said. Piece by piece it all came together.