My Korean-American Life

  The figures were enormous. Not in actual dimension — the paintings were canvas-sized, the sculptures bronze and finite — but in their insistence on being looked at, their refusal to make themselves small, their absolute rejection of the apologetic posture that a certain tradition of art criticism has always preferred from figurative painting. They took up room. They took up the room. And standing inside the Hangaram Art Museum at the Seoul Arts Center on the afternoon of May 3rd, moving from canvas to canvas in the long galleries, I began to smile and understand his humor and philosophy behind the paintings and sculptures.  "I have never painted a fat figure in my life," Fernando Botero once told his daughter Lina, who co-curated this exhibition. "What I created was a universal sense of volume, where every human figure, animal, landscape and object was treated in the same way — with the intention of giving generosity and sensuality to form." Volume is a philosophy...

  About a month ago, a friend of mine led me to this place after visiting a nearby fiber arts exhibit where my pieces were included. During the MLK long weekend, I went again with my husband as I liked that place’s vibe so much. Today, the Historic Savage Mill, once manufacturing cotton duck, has been repurposed into a space for art, commerce, and community. The looms are long gone, yet, the massive architecture remains—a heavy, brick-and-mortar. Walking inside this weathered brick mall of the Historic Savage Mill in Maryland, I felt a peculiar vibration in the air—a rhythmic ghost-clatter of history and ordinary life. A huge poster on a wall I faced and read: “In 1822, its first carding building was built using stones from the river bed of the Patuxent; the main product was cotton duck used primarily for sailcloth. B&O railway connection in 1835 brought a spur to the mill. In 1859, a new owner, William Henry Baldwin Jr bought this Savage Manufacturing Co with the land and fact...

Thanksgiving “There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.” – Shakespeare At Johannesburg airport on February 2, 2014, while waiting to be picked up to go to a hotel, I was trying to count how many airplanes I had taken in my life. I could remember 32 countries and at least 50 different cities. I was not sure whether I should be thankful for all those past trouble-free trips or be saddened by what I was still facing. My original itinerary had been to depart Washington, D.C. on Saturday morning at 10 a.m. and arrive in Maseru, Lesotho on Sunday afternoon via Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Johannesburg, South Africa. By this time Sunday night, I was supposed to have already checked in at my hotel in Maseru and been getting ready for work on Monday. Instead, it was Sunday night and I was in Johannesburg. I had arrived via Addis Ababa and Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. While checking in my luggage in Dulles airport, I was told that my flight would be delayed a little bit. As I had a layover...