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Making Hanji from Aimee Lee on Vimeo.

Okay, does this work? My web designer suggested that I try Vimeo, so I've set up an account.

Also, I've already done the unthinkable: an hour of Kundalini yoga at noon today, and an hour of running/walking around the lake tonight.

Slow recovery

This is the view from the very top of the grave site we visited yesterday. There's a mausoleum-type structure behind me where the ashes are kept of various people. The most depressing part of this picture is the high-rise apts in the back. There's a highway that cuts through, as well, so we heard cars the whole time there. My family was forced to sell the land they owned there to the govt so they could build that road. I went 11 years ago to this site when my grandfather was still alive, to visit my grandmother's grave site, and it was totally different. Very rural, and it took a while to hike there.

This is part of my grandfather's site. I found it apt that the monument is a huge book.

This is the back of his headstone, where it lists his family. Try to find my name! Oh, wait. That only works if you know 1. my Korean name and 2. Chinese characters. It's not near the top, though, since all the men in the family are listed before the women.

Yesterday was a loooong day, but good. I love how people just know how the tradition works here and everyone falls into place. So you know what food to prepare, what to do when you get there, and then have a good time picnicking. I thought it was going to just be my grandfather's son's families (since two of them, including my dad, are in the US, that makes just two families), but my great-uncle's (one of the youngest of my grandfather's brothers) family also came, which added about five more. I didn't know any of them.

It was like the twilight zone, seeing people who have all existed while we have, in a similar formation - my grandfather had 5 kids, and this one, too. Parallel universes in the same universe! The other interesting thing is that there seem to be a bunch of art people in that branch of the family. Either it's all from people who married in, or maybe our ancestors further back had a little bit of it in their genes. Since people in my family always think my sister and I are the weirdos since we're not doctors or working for huge corporations.

When we got home in the afternoon, the men took turns taking naps while we sat and made the traditional rice cake dumplings, and then had dinner. This morning, I played w/my niece and a long piece of pink string. It is fascinating how exciting a piece of string can be to children. Which reminds me: I had a traumatic dream about moving into a shared studio space (at least 25 people in a huge warehouse) with a kitten and smokers. I ended up in a huge, huge fight w/another artist and then they all schemed to kick me out. The hilarious part of it was that it was actually a school, and that school was...SAIC! So weird, b/c I'd think that it would have been Columbia (my alma mater).

Everything feels better

All the panels for my next subscription piece are knitted. Now I just have to make the accompanying zine, which means navigating a scanner in Korean. Yikes! The good news is that I love knitting on the subways here, since they move so smoothly that you can stand w/o holding onto anything for dear life (I'm going to be bummed when I get back to NYC), and my muscle spasm has calmed down.

I just connected w/Dan from The Arm, a letterpress studio and more in Brooklyn - he was the one who refurbished (more like, brought back from the dead!) my boss' old Vandercook that had lived outdoors for months thru winter and spring and construction. Look at the before & after shot!! A beauty.

Beatrice just finished installing yet another public art piece, this one in Arizona.

I had another fun session w/my tutor today. There is SO MUCH to correct. But I'm have to work on it so that I don't sound like someone who was born in Korea in the 1930s. After a brief meeting with Na Rae and Keith Smith for iced tea and a book art exhibit, I ran off to my language exchange. We walked from a really crowded hood to Ewha, and walked around campus. After getting bitten by mosquitoes while sitting on newspapers (on park benches), we walked back out to get some Italian food. He's the perfect person to do language exchange with b/c he's not afraid to speak English (he's quite good), and corrects my Korean while encouraging me to make mistakes so I can really learn. He's traveled all over the world, and is married, which rocks. I prefer that b/c it eliminates the tension that I have already had to deal with when hanging out w/unmarried men here.

Time for bed - tomorrow morning we go to my grandparents' graves to tend to them, have lunch, and then come back for family dinner. It's the big huge holiday here. Some people relate it to Thanksgiving. I'd say, delete the pilgrims and natives, but keep the overeating. I really have no idea, since I've never been in Korea for Chuseok before. But it will be nice to hang with family.

Up and down and all around

[Jeong-In's studio, which I still need to talk about! But I want to wait until I see her again and get my head on straight.] I was just mad for a few hours at someone I've only known for a few weeks but my brother-in-law Skyped me and now I've calmed down. I met Richard, Ellie's and David's friend, who is teaching music composition at Hanyang University - I crashed his birthday dinner tonight. It was really nice: his students and colleagues are great, so I can see why he likes being here and enjoys his job.

Before dinner, I caught the first part of Keith Smith's lecture on book arts at Hongik University. I was glad to have to leave early b/c it made me feel too much like a student again, in a bad way. Speaking of Americans, I need to get a witness for my absentee ballot request and then I can mail it. Even though no one is going to count my vote. I'm going to say now that I am trying hard not to read the news anymore b/c it is SO DEPRESSING AND ENRAGING and I can't deal with feeling that helpless on top of it all. My theory now is that it's all about the numbers. If you're not with us, you're against us. Screw the swing voters - if you haven't figured it out by now, then you may never. I want to come back to a country that doesn't operate like a beauty pageant!! Oh, and on top of the helplessness, more bad news about the Orphan Works Bill. Maybe I'll follow my sister and husband to Europe if they flee the country. No, I can't do that. That's the way it gets worse.

One side of my mouth is done and I have a new mouthguard and it makes me feel like a football player. The GOOD news in all my chaos is 1. I have knitted almost all of the knitting I have to do for my next subscription piece and 2. a Denver gallery has sold one of my books! Wohoo! 3. I finally have a video to show from my visit to that papermaker down south! I shot and edited it all by my lonesome, and have never used iMovie before, so be gentle on the criticism. It's on my website, here.

"You should exercise"

1. identidades.04 is on! Once I know when my invasion begins, you'll hear all about it.

2. Going to bed early sucks if you end up tossing and turning for four hours and then getting up to do your composition homework (though at least the insomnia gave me something to write about. I titled my piece, "Stress Disease").

3. Even though I know that exercise is crucial for my health and sanity, it's not going to happen anytime soon. My language exchange partner was trying to get me to do it but I'm not budging. This has been a lifelong struggle, so why stop the struggle now?

4. I'm experiencing good karma on the transit system lately. Maybe this is what happens after you get felt up inappropriately by a stranger. Knitting ramie thread also helps - wins BIG points w/the older women who are curious and happy to see a young person who knits.

5. Still a BIG fan of my tutor. She's exactly what I need - she yells at me a lot, but in a really fun way, and picks up my mistakes and bad habits lighting fast. ALSO, she has been reflecting the person that I really am, which is to say that there is no way that I could NOT be an artist, based on my personality and behavior. To think that I wanted to be a CPA in 7th grade!

In the spirit of not being myself

I can't remember who said it, but I need to just do it: "work smart, not hard." So, to keep it short:
1. Tina, an NYC poet, just updated her site.
2. I had a very good first tutoring session today.
3. My upper back has spazzed out again, which means: overworked, out of shape, low on mag! I swear I'll go to bed early tonight.

Maybe now just "she is crazy"

Today I went w/NaRae to Heyri Art Village, which is way out past the suburbs, where lots of artists live and there are insane numbers of beautiful galleries. Like an architect's dream, all of them. On the way, we stopped in Paju Book City (a publishing town) and visited a letterpress shop. That was really nice. It's been interesting to note how I feel when I go to places that invoke nostalgia for any number of different places. Too bad it's all so far away from the city.

Both of those places reminded me of IKEA. Or maybe just America: lots of space, numbered and lettered parking lots/entrances, lots of space to park.

It was quiet b/c it was Monday so we didn't get to see much since galleries close on Mondays. We went to the Book House for a while, and then met the gallery owner of Art Factory. I ended up sitting there feeling like I was going to pass out/fall asleep, when suddenly I felt like I was going to throw up. I ran to the toilet and staved it off for a while, but later had to run back for reals. AGH. Not really great when you're trying to negotiate whether or not you want to exhibit at a gallery in the spring. Right now, of course, I'm not feeling doing anything at all.

Oh, and the pictures.

"She is crazy and fun and interesting and busy, all at the same time!"

Carol of Warwick Press said that after looking at my website. I found it all too apt and hilarious. Today's big excursion was a trip to Bukaksan, a big mountain that used to anchor a huge fortress wall that surrounded Seoul, which was a walled city (go figure! No wonder I am so crazy about walls. I esp like the way they built them here w/the HUGE bricks that have tiny corners carved out to fit - they're all different shapes). This wall didn't work very well in warding off invaders, though. Only a little bit is left, the rest being eaten by war, the Japanese occupation, and contemporary life (like train lines). A photographer took me up and down and my half of the apple he cracked had a worm in it. My first worm in an apple, ever!

We saw a tree w/bullet holes when people tried to assassinate the prez about 30 years ago, and lots of people my parents' age - young people don't hike on the weekends b/c they're recovering from their insane jobs. I had that same feeling of death as I did last year when I started treadmilling and thought my heart was going to explode. So, as hot and sweaty as it was, it was at least a much-needed workout. I learned lots of hilarious things about current Korean culture while walking an historic site. And then was horrified as we walked thru the gate that single women visit so that they can get married soon.

We went to a really great dumpling place for lunch and then walked to the Whanki Museum, but didn't go in. Then we walked thru official grounds around the Blue House (the Korean version of the White House in D.C.) - security kept asking us where we were going. I saw the photog's studio site. It's still being built, below an existing structure in a tiny corner in a really quiet hood near a newly trendy gallery district.

Oh, here are the pics from last Thursday's gallery hopping.

I think that I am trying to live about five different people's lives at once, which leads to massive burnout:

1. artist
2. admin assistant
3. researcher
4. language student
5. hypochondriac

Also, I clearly WANT too many things, and am too attached to things, like the idea of being five different people at once, which leads to suffering. I think that in my lifelong pursuit of being non-materialistic, I have become excessively covetous of non-material things! The backfiring is intense.

In just about two minutes

my second wind will come to an end. I don't know where it came from. After the end of classes on Friday, I hiked up to my cousin's neighborhood and searched for fruit. I almost gave up and then found one vendor but the apples I got weren't any good. The rest of Friday and Saturday morning were devoted to housecleaning and babysitting. SERIOUS LEGO ACTION. I put together a huge plane for my nephew. It takes me back - I used to be a lego fanatic as a child, but only in putting it together exactly the way they told me to. It makes me wonder, then, why I'm so bad at putting together IKEA furniture w/o making mistakes all the time.

I had a momentary moment of wanting to move to the boonies in Korea and not speaking to anyone but just making art. There is a big glitch now in my solo exhibition schedule next fall so that makes me a little nervous (three overlapping shows means three bodies of work. And I work hard, but can I work THAT hard???). I started the major dental work today that will wipe out almost half of my savings. AND had the dreaded "drilling w/o novocaine," which was pretty terrifying and definitely hit several nerves several times or more. Not a fan of that method.

But I had a really fun time w/Julie, a family friend, and I tried to explain the differences b/t distribute, attribute, and tribute. Yikes, that was hard. Then I had to do major time killing in a bookstore but it was SO NICE to get lost in the tiny selection of fiction in English. I re-read some Womman Warrior, which was nice, and a few other things. I think reading more regularly would go a LONG way towards salvaging some sanity.

Then I met a new language exchange partner for dinner and tea. He's really good at it, but I wonder if I'll just feel bad meeting him every week b/c he has SO MUCH on his plate but he juggles it all so well! A job that sends him to Latin/South America a lot, learning Spanish, being married, weightlifting, and who even knows what else. Not a good influence on me if I'm going to make a dent in my own overtaxed schedule.

So much for my weekend; I have to get up early tomorrow to meet a photog to go I don't even know where but it requires comfortable shoes (I vaguely heard "3 hours of walking) and my passport. WHERE AM I GOING? For now, to bed.

Art dinner

A view from the rooftop of the Gana Art Gallery, in the mountains of northern Seoul. There was a huge ridiculous buffet w/lobster and carved pork and grilled sweet potatoes and lychees still in their shells. The exhibit here, "the bridge," was quite good and sometimes very good. They paired artists - established with emerging - and they made work that dialogued with each other. Some pairs worked remarkably well together. I went with Hyejin, who was a classmate from grad school who is now back in Seoul after graduating this past spring. She thought it was funny to talk to me in Korean since we've only ever spoken in English. The dress code was to wear something red and I lucked out b/c of the red in my dress and shoes. There was a red carpet and all and they made me get my photo taken w/some big artist who is a friend of Hyejin's uncle. Total randomness.

Part of a huge exhibit up for a week showing the work of SUJAK, a book arts collective. NaRae took me there, and we stopped at an art supply store (all in Insadong), where we then met Hyejin.

Before we drove to the big show, we stopped by a printmaker's studio/gallery, which was also nice to see. He carves stone. Hardcore!

Today was our final class get together even though we have one class left. Audrey leaves Saturday morning to get back to her last year at Harvard, so she won't come to school tomorrow. I'm sad to see her go! It marks the end of summer and of summer school, but also of a more predictable, structured life. I had a big idea for an installation piece this a.m. while dozing on the bus but then forgot half of it once I got near pencil and paper.

I got an email today from Shawn, and it made me homesick. We've never gone for more than a few months w/o seeing each other, so it will be sad to be away for this long. I should revise my first statement: hearing from him made me homesick for a past that is long gone. When I lived by myself, loved my job, and was in a position of power in a really big arts community. Funny that I should be homesick for the days in an OFFICE. But Shawn was the best co-worker ever, so mostly I miss his head popping up from across our cubes, watching the river from our windows, complaining about crazy artists, and bickering like long-married spouses. Those will always be my "good old days."

It's almost over

Two more days of class!!!!! And then onto another uncertain chunk of time here, but one with half the contact hours for language study. Wohoo! I got my library card today w/JL so now I have borrowing privileges at Yonsei. That is a big relief. The guy who processed it was super nice and said that I spoke Korean really well and that it was wonderful that I could do that as well as speak fluent English. It was nice to hear that; kind of exactly what I needed right now.

I've been corresponding with Velma Bolyard, who found me online. We started out talking about shifu and knitting since we're both papermakers who love working with it as a textile and love knitting. It has been really nice to have that outlet to just talk about my work, and my thoughts around it, and all the other stuff that comes up in those discussions. She lives on a farm, and we all know how much I love farms. It's also funny to see who comes up in your life and at what moments. I know that it's really hard to have instincts about people who you only meet online, but I feel like she's a good, true soul, and that having this communication won't harm me. Which is really needed in a time where I am feeling wary of people that I meet, not sure of what motives and agendas are waiting to snag me and reel me in.

So, in the usual spirit of being too tired, I'm going to cheat and end with part of the latest email I just sent to Velma, edited a little for all y'all:

Today on the bus home I was thinking about how art and science fit together. I got offered a science scholarship to University of Rochester when I was in high school and I turned it down but thought it was ridiculous that they even offered it to me b/c I was NOT a science person. I did well in all my classes, but I wasn't passionate about it. However, there are aspects of science both in topics and in techniques that I really love. But our educational system doesn't let us just pick and choose the things we like in each subject and combine them. They expect you to embrace ONE thing and just go for broke.

I was thinking, there is SO much experimenting that goes into making my art, which seems more obvious once I started papermaking since it involves so much science in the first place. But also, the whole process of figuring out how one ink will print w/one press on one piece of paper that has been pulled and spun and knit in one way, versus the same thing while just changing one variable and then the next...turns into endless permutations! Which at first seems horrid to me b/c I fear there will be no end to the experimenting - "when do I get to the ART?" - but in the end I guess that IS the art. And that is the way I need to make it: a structure within which to play, a freedom within parameters.

You can easily compare artistic breakthroughs w/scientific ones like penicillin: all serendipity! All random mistakes coming out of lots of labor. But those gems only come when you turn your back for a moment, let down your guard, or take a break.

The subtitle suck

At first, I thought, HOW can anyone tolerate video editing??! What a nightmare! But after spending so much time on this papermaking documentary-of-sorts, I now see how easy it is to get sucked into perfecting a 3-second clip. I'm having a lot of trouble w/fonts and sizes and colors, and it doesn't help that all the things I've read online contradict each other. I think I'm going to use yellow for the subtitles b/c it seems to help those w/astigmatism and it does pop better even if it's ugly. I think all of the video cutting is done; it's just getting all the text to look the same (and be legible at low res) and then I'll finally be able to upload it. It's a month later than my internal deadline, but I should accept by now that all of my internal deadlines are unreasonable.

Can't wait until this is over! But am excited about my first little movie; it will be nice to put it out into the world. I won't say when, b/c it will undoubtedly be an unreasonable date.

These days

[Another shot from Jeong-In's studio.]

I'm already so over the Fulbright b/c of the red tape nightmare, so I'm hoping that tomorrow will be my last visit to the office for a while, when I pick up my business cards (and possibly run into four incoming grantees who have just flown in). I'm really hoping that everything comes through on the NYC end so that I can start my private tutoring next week. I REALLY would like to get some useful Korean language instruction that actually helps me get better instead scolding me for not learning the word for crosswalk.

Tests are over! Four more days of class and then NO MORE SCHOOL. I keep saying that, and then I keep ending up in classes (the last time was 2+ years ago after grad school). But I am determined never to have classes M-F, four hours a day, ever again.

It's been pouring rain all day. I finished the major editing of the papermaking video from last month. Hopefully I'll get back on the paper trail soon so I can remember why I even came here in the first place. I also am thinking that I'd like to get back to printing on knit paper. Jeong-In goes to a studio that costs about $30/day to use. I think it would be nice to get back into printmaking.

I have a "to call" list that is severely backlogged. But I swear I'll make the calls tomorrow (yes, I say that every day). Yesterday I made a few mail art pieces and mailed them today; it felt good to do some work and even make a little book that I think will turn into my next subscription installment. I think that video chatting w/Ellie yesterday helped a lot. Today while getting all wet in the rain, I was feeling sad about how I can't trust people here (in all walks of life, mostly professional!), and thought, "well, who CAN I trust?" And I thought of Ellie and all of my other friends who don't think, "how can we use and abuse Aimee?" or "what can I get out of her?" And that was a relief to know that there are people that I can trust in my life, even if they are far away. Even in my soaked socks and shoes.