A bit too fast, going backwards

Velma tried to remind me to sleep and rest so that my soul can catch up to my body and get reacquainted. I've failed miserably at that, so extremely busy since leaving quarantine, so I will recap a week in Seoul in bits because I would have liked to go to bed hours ago but am not yet packed for my next trip early tomorrow morning!

Food with family, and this family saved my life during quarantine with food drops, calls, and generally making sure I knew they had my back.

Food by family (my cousin runs a takeout place in a very hip neighborhood that is brand new since my last visit). I completely overate this day but was extremely happy to finally see my family in person.

Gwangjang Market was was PACKED and full of food that I would have loved to eat but we were on an errand and were going to eat elsewhere. Little to no social distancing but a relic of the joy of the Before Times when it comes to eating at a food market.

Air quality is horrid because of the fine dust, the sky not quite clear because of that. One big palace, did a walk through to get to the other side of the compound on a day that was probably near 60 degrees F.

As I wandered through neighborhoods I could see how they had changed but also could see where I could discern the old outline that I remembered.

The big temple, Jogyesa, very close to my digs. Thanks to Youngmin for the hotel rec!

Vegan in the neighborhood, which is nearly empty in comparison to how it was, because of no tourists and so on. Still way more going on than back home, but this area has changed a lot...not for the best.

Café offerings after a fabulous dinner with an old friend and new friend the day after I escaped quarantine.

I usually see elderly folks squatting but there are always exceptions.

The underground but now released stream, where I walked to get a break from the cityscape up top on my first big day out alone, reminding my body how to walk. So much to share but must sleep! Next post will be from down south.

Weeks

Less than 27 hours until release from quarantine! It was great, then dragged a bit around day 10, and then it suddenly picked up so that now I can't believe it's already over (because that means...yet another round of re-packing). I had considered ordering a pillow for delivery my first week but was advised against it because then I'd have to carry a pillow around the country with me for the next few months. But sleeping on a rolled-up fleece blanket was getting tiresome, so I splurged on another buckwheat husk pillow (I have three at home). I always remove a bunch because as is, they are too high for my neck, and my aunt said that they get crushed to powder over time. So the key is to every so often dump the contents of the pillow over a screen so that the powder falls away. She said in the past, people who sold those husks traveled from town to town because everyone needed to replenish. At home, I had sewn a small pillow full of them for driving lumbar support, so now I know I should replace the husks.

I stare out the window a lot and in particular at that red sculpture in between food deliveries. My wonderful family surprised me with three deliveries over the two weeks. That kind of care through home cooking and careful shopping makes a world of difference and made me feel so loved and held—especially knowing how busy they are, and aging/ailing. My aunt even hand delivered ingredients for lunar new year's rice cake soup: packets to make broth from anchovies, kelp, and other dried seafood, dumplings handmade by my cousins, rice cakes, sliced green onions of the large variety, and soup soy sauce—different from what passes as soy sauce back home at Asian restaurants.

This is the ugly view, where I wonder after rain and water pooling why architects/builders make flat roofs, and near where a persistent ringing sound emanates. I'm surprised I've been able to tolerate it since arrival, the not-so-low hum of a city, but am curious what sounds I'll hear at my next digs. Tomorrow I go to a hotel in Seoul as I take care of errands that can only be done in person, and continue to untangle what my next steps will be. At this point, I only barely know what the next week brings, and where I'll be sleeping, but I hope housing gets settled soon. Already, my initial plans to live south are starting to look untenable, but living in Seoul is not a bad back-up plan if I have to take it. In the landscapes that I don't inhabit, there's a post about my work with a hanji dress here, and a link to my last show here.

See you on the other side! I am so excited to be able to simply walk outside.

Days

Quarantine of this strict type leaves not as many hours to while away as I expected. Days have been full, so many calls and messages from Koreans who check in and take excellent care of me. That has been massively reassuring, as the folks who sent me here don't seem very concerned. Today, a week into these digs, I finally wrapped a few gifts in slippery elm paper and paper thread.

The videophone revealed to me today a surprise food drop by my cousin! He and my aunt had already brought over precious treats (like homemade kimchi) during their last drop on Sunday, and I wasn't expecting this one. I managed to catch a glimpse of him at the end of the hallway when I opened my door to retrieve the goodies. It will be really good to see family in person when I get out, at least those for whom it is safe to visit.

I drew the weird trees outside the window today, which are pruned rather ruthlessly, and was excited in the morning to hear squawking birds. Not pretty sounds, but still, birds! I haven't heard them for a while. I caught a glimpse of large black ones streaked with white and was glad to see different animals from the people walking in the street like ants. I also made pics of the kitchen sink, which blew me away with its thoughtful engineering. Maybe some good ideas for how to set up a series of traps to keep solid waste (aka pulp) from getting down the drain, in some future fantasy paper studio.

I wash dishes 3x/day and have been eating like I'm being stuffed for slaughter. Today is the big new year, the lunar one, but I can't gather with family or eat the right foods. But these are the sacrifices we've been making for nearly a year now, so it doesn't feel too sad. I had a funny call with my aunt who made/sent a bunch of the food and it's like having a mom away from home. It's amazing how much I've already found to be grateful for while shut away, and hope I can pay it all forward when I am released from captivity.

Of course, tons of podcasts as always. I was stunned by the idea of nature returning when the tourists were barred from Hawaii, and also really intrigued by this take on Greek plays and how theatre of that time is 100% connected to coping with war.

Times

8:30am pickup from home, 9-something check in at Delta with two male employees bad at their jobs (one wore a mask under his nose, the other refused to read English on my visa that is in English and Korean, both of them telling me worst case scenarios of traveling during pandemic). 10:35am takeoff, landing in Detroit 25 min later to meet non-alarmist Delta gate agents. Temperature check + paperwork, oral interview, and a little after noon we get on the plane. After cleaning my area with wipes given upon boarding, I hear a big white dude crowing about how cheap his trip to Asia is and how he wants at least 3 more pillows and then yells across the aisle to converse with a random guy. Given how empty the flight is, I ask to move seats and get on the other side of the plane, wipe my new seating area, and prepare for departure after 12:30pm on Wed.

14+ hours and too many dairy/salty snacks later, land in Korea at 3:56pm on Thurs. Only about 30 min sleep though I could stretch out across three seats and watch an Evander Holyfield film that my sister edited first, a Linda Ronstadt documentary last. Because I knew there would be no bathroom for a while, I went to the first one out the gate, which meant I ended up near the end of a giant line for checkpoint #1: quarantine. That took over an hour. I wore too-warm clothes and my temperature (98.86 degrees F) was too high for them to let me go to the next checkpoint, so I had to wait to be checked twice more. 6:11pm: checkpoint #8, holding area. Eventually to checkpoint #9, a holding area that took even longer, though this time we could go to the bathroom if we needed.

8:12pm: the bus we boarded 6 min ago leaves the airport, only to arrive at the airport at 8:30pm (first I thought we had circled, but later my cousin explained that Incheon airport built another terminal that is really far away from the original site) to pick up more folks. 8:45pm: begin a sleepy bus ride to Yongin, a city 20 miles from Seoul, to arrive at the Golden Tulip hotel at 10pm. The guy in the blue baseball cap is mad that there is no proper dinner and that we aren't allowed to run across the street to the convenience store. The face shielded guy is an employee covered from head to toe in protective gear.

The suitcases are sprayed down and we sit down in the lobby to record our temperatures on the app we downloaded at the airport hours ago. Then we are allowed to check in one by one, get our covid tests, and be sent up one at a time in elevators to our rooms.

10:25pm: the first bed I've seen in over 24 hours. Of course, because of jet lag, even though I was extremely sleep deprived, I only slept about 5 fitful hours.

I wanted to cry when I opened the bag of "food" we got on the way to the elevator: all processed junk. But I was so hungry that I heated water in the electric kettle to have my cup of ramen, showered, and went to bed.

My room faced east, and the mountains reminded me of all the ones I saw when landing. 7:40am: call to my room saying the covid test was negative (that's why we had to sleep overnight, waiting for test results). The caller instructed me to leave my room at 8:10am, not earlier. I reluctantly left bed and wrapped up the hazardous waste bag of my trash to place on a small wooden platform directly outside of the door, and we were taken in small groups to the lobby and directly to our transportation. Mine was a quarantine taxi that departed at 8:16am.

9:16am: arrive at Fulbright building. I didn't stay in these apts when I was a junior researcher but had friends who did, so the layout was familiar. I can see people out and about through the huge wall of windows and finally recognized one area that was under construction all the other times I had been here.

I had asked for fresh fruits, veggies, and eggs before departure, so this was in the fridge, with more cup ramen and other dry goods on the counter.

11:11am: with help from the assistant via a phone app, I figure out where the utensils are! Then I make oatmeal (my bags were heavy because I brought the entire orchestra: oatmeal, oat bran, chia seeds, cinnamon, walnuts, dates. My fear of lacking food has only strengthened with age).

The view on one side, this is the area that had been under construction for years and leads to a subway station.

And to the right. A big building directly in the middle. Though horribly tired, I manage to stay awake until 7pm! After 1am, I wake up and call home for a while, then figure out how to turn off the heated floors and go back to bed around 3 or 4am. Up again at 8am and it's Saturday: time for oatmeal. A few hours later, I cook a small soup to go with warm rice from the cooker (I had to beg an employee downstairs to help get me groceries because of quarantine logistics), and wonder what I'm going to do with the 3 kilos of rice that was delivered. I eat a lot, but can't eat that much rice over 12 days. Now: fighting sleepiness but glad to be in one place for a bit to get my bearings.

A first breath

Carol has been sending delightful pandemic booklings to us and this quote from the latest felt like it was speaking directly to me. I have been so out of my mind with ceaseless worry that I've already read a children's book for kids who worry too much twice, and eaten way too many bags of chips.

Turning outrageously dyed t-shirts into pants has also been a stress coping mechanism, except then my eyes got freaked out and I had to stop when my pulse got too strong under one. They're not really appropriate for anything but being home alone but are extremely fun to wear.

In my countdown to departure, I have been grocery shopping in spurts when I need something for now and also to take overseas for quarantine. On Saturday, the cashier said, "When you spend over $10, you get a free potato. Do you want one?" I thought, that is a really weird offer, but said yes, only to find that she meant a 5-lb bag of potatoes! I swapped them for a few N95 masks from a friend today.

Aside from the ongoing red tape saga that started in April, my most immediate worry (about something out of my control, as always) was if the Covid-19 test that I had to take within 72 hours of my international flight would yield results fast enough. I agonized over this for days, trying to figure out which of the paltry options I should use and if I needed to double test. Yesterday was the test, and starting last night I obsessively checked my email for results. I even walked in the heavy snow today to calm down, then called family to whine. Mid-whine, my results were in! That clears the final hurdle—I can fly this week. Last week, I took my bricks to the new studio. It feels really good to be there, and I'm looking forward to the reunion.

Stitching to hold fast

There was one day the other week when I got only wonderful things in the mail. No circulars, junk, bills, or other people's mail. Books from a past student, a printed cheetah card from an artist friend, and the first square of a collaborative sewing that I'm doing with friends—along with cattail heads from a pond near the Finger Lakes.

I have been on edge forever, for so many reasons, but mostly because of the red tape nightmare that has defined my Fulbright grant. When I sat down to sew over my pieced square, it hurt my arm/shoulder like crazy but was extremely soothing as I waited and waited and waited for the consulate in Chicago to process my paperwork (which felt more like them not processing it, asking me to repeat the work, and then demanding other people in my family repeat the work, and then a lot of calls back and forth to try to get them to put pieces of paper together to complete the puzzle, which is hard when the people on the other side never pick up the phone).

The process has limped along so I am close to flight confirmation, giving me less than two weeks until departure. It's insane to think that I got notice about winning this grant in Feb 2020, but for many unfathomable reasons was not able to know that I could actually go almost Feb 2021. On top of that, there are still many complicated dances to perform because of the panorama, like very specific Covid-19 testing in a very specific window prior to boarding, quarantine of a particular type, and so on. The sewing keeps me from falling apart even if it tears up my muscles. And soon I'll go for a walk in the sun even though the ground is icy because I want to enjoy the outdoors before I no longer have the option to go outside.

But on a cheerier note, this interview with Gaelynn Lea gave me excellent perspective on navigating life and now. Her reminders that each able bodied person can (and will) become a disabled person are so helpful as I have been diving deep into physical therapy to address old issues that I want to pay attention to before I leave. Much of my quarantine will involve PT exercises!

Making arrangements

My dear wonderful grad school prof shared this Jenny Holzer quote with me and it felt like a good harbinger of the new year. This week has provided reasons to think it will be a harder go than we hoped, and makes me want to leave the country as soon as I can. Visa still in process, but today I'll begin making a Korea pile. If I had a big enough basket, it would be a Korea basket.

Velma shared with me a wonderful video about Navajo weavers. Almost done with my sewing as escapism and next week will begin a return to the world. And I almost forgot: my show is almost over, closing next Sat (Jan 16), but you can look at pictures here.

Marking time incessantly

For my first holiday away from family (because I chose against travel to NY and instead had my first traditional Jewish xmas complete with Chinese takeout), I made do with a tiny hanji tree. I used the gift wrap for the gwi jumeoni kit that Youngmin sent, which is exactly the right color hanji, adorned with bits of beads and sequins originally purchased to shore up my paper brick wall.

After listening to a panel critique my work, followed by a helpful conversation with an artist friend, I have been thinking a lot about my place in the world on all scales, as a human on the planet to a papermaker in the tiny but growing paper world. Maybe this is simply the time in my life when I'd naturally pause to consider what I have been doing and how I want to change in big and small ways. During this pandemic-long pause, I've discarded a lot of "work" and become a survival chipmunk, jumping from one thing to the next, using hand activity as a salve for immediate feelings of doom. Most projects involve using up scraps. This is one.

This is another. After over a month of eating at 2-hour intervals, I'm trying to wean myself off of emotional and disordered eating and instead sewing like a maniac. Mostly I see that being in a double limbo of panorama + Fulbright = not being able to focus on anything because people keep falling ill and dying and the research grant I had worked so hard for could dissolve. The latter is slowly winding its way to some kind of resolution, but still leaves me with no real dates to prepare for, which enhances chipmunk brain. Tidbits from that scattered mess:

Apply for isolation in the desert!

Consider more nuanced ways of approaching anti-racism as part of a "minority"—ways that make ending racism a reality rather than something we have to live with forever

Watch a 2016 video of my hanji teacher and a V&A conservator

Mostly, be as kind as you can to yourself. My method today was to order chocolate oatmeal cookies online for outdoor pickup. Stay safe as we welcome the new year!

This place I am

With the end of certain prescribed duties, I thought I'd be relatively gleeful about a brief freedom. But knowing I won't be able to see my family and how that imbalances our collective sanity + the dread of the next obligation being taken away from me (a grant that hinges on a visa that hinges on seemingly endless demands for paperwork that I've done already but have to do again) = a return to overeating, listlessness, and lack-of-purpose malaise. Fortunately, I have glorious friends who don't ride the same waves of depression as me, so when Karin mentioned how stunning My Octopus Teacher was, I indulged. I'm so glad I did, because it was quite gorgeous and moving. The cold and fear you feel when imagining free diving into a frigid and wild ocean made me think of Lisa See's The Island of Sea Women, though Korea and South Africa are far from each other.

But this direct contact with wildness, and Craig Foster's instinct to return to that source and be activated as yet another creature of nature, was excellent medicine. I was so incredibly struck by the bricolage of shells, the sound of them as they fall away, and the undeniable fact that wild animals are exquisite artists. This story of an octopus-human relationship began with observation of curious phenomenon, and I've returned to watch that moment again and again.

Today I listened to the first of a three part series on the importance of Mauna Kea and the movement to prevent further desecration of this sacred mountain, a place well above the sea in Hawaii that has a unique alpine desert ecosystem that exists pretty much nowhere else in the world. The sounds of the protestors and their songs had me in tears as I sat on the floor trying to get through another round of visa paperwork (of course, in my swirl of emotions around this app and all of the hurdles in getting back to Korea that the country itself has placed in front of me, I forgot one form, so this process is going to take even longer).

[I did some hand sewing of gwi jumeoni using silk and a pattern by Youngmin, and they are hanging out with so very many reminders of past travel, friends, art, and experiments.]

To recover, I drove out to get Korean groceries and paused to chat with the owner because I was so lonely for people in my parents' generation, immigrants who somehow got here after racist legislation was changed to allow certain non-white folks to enter. They missed home, and that's what I was looking for when ordering food from a nearby Korean hole in the wall. While Korean cuisine has evolved and continues to change on the peninsula, this disapora of a certain age continues to cook and serve food of their childhoods, of what they remember. Younger movers and shakers may complain about them being trapped in the past, but it's actually an incredible time capsule, and a temporary one as well.

After watching a brilliant concert last night by Zenas Hsu through Open Space Music (he'll perform once again tonight! I highly recommend!), I stayed to chat with a dear diaspora friend and met another, as we talked about how gangster Korean women of a certain generation are. And they had to be, to survive wars and famine in a country that was almost entirely bombed to bits. If old fashioned food gives them comfort, go for it. While feeling jerked around by their country's bureaucracy, I try to remember that that is exactly why I do the hanji work that I do: to create a place for myself that isn't unkind, a place that can celebrate all that I am and not freak out that the American name on my birth certificate doesn't match the Korean name on my family register in Seoul, a place that doesn't care about my flaunting of social norms expected of women who look like me, a place that looks instead at my relationship with the world through materials. To learn more, watch the artist talk from my show here.

Final event this year

 

I wonder what they are talking about. Today at 5pm is my final "public" "event" for this extremely unfun year. The talk will not be unfun, though! Here's the info.

In case you can't handle any more zooming (I will never hold that against anyone!), you can watch a video of my portion of the show below. The video of Sarah Rose's part is in the link above.

Masked conversations

I forgot to share these videos of a conversation I had with Michael Verne, the owner of the Verne Gallery in Cleveland, about my artists' books made during pandemic this summer. Plant and neighbor focused.

Today was a slow day but I was glad to hear an interview with Cathy Park Hong. Reminds me of all of the authors and artists I want to reach out to, to say thank you for your work, for putting yourself out there in a way that helps so many of us feel seen.

Lately this is all

The old wall (2006), which I had wanted to just throw over the top of the partial wall, but was told go to ahead and suspend it as it had been built to do. The pedestal keeps it from being so obviously lopsided. I could have weighted the bottom to have it straighter, but I liked the way it rolls over because then it feels more related to Sarah Rose's work in the gallery directly to the left of this when you enter.

The new wall (2020), which was something I swore up and down I'd never do but in the end was the one decidedly new thing that required a daily studio practice that eluded me for most of pandemic.

This is my bit of the show after you enter the Euclid Avenue gallery space and all of the gallery shots were done ably by Jacob Koestler. Documentation work like this is very hard to do so I'm glad he pulled off a lovely group of images.

This is my favorite nook in the show, probably because this is where I spent the most time, with a ladder and step ladder, rigging the wall.

A basket case!

I made the left duck on a flight from Australia back to the US and it came out so much weirder than my other ducks that I had a custom stand built to properly hold it up. After a couple of rounds of dyeing, it has grown on me a lot and the wee one seems to be having a good time with it.

Mushroom stands ranging from very easy to a lot more work. The mix is: uncoated, persimmon coated, and then lacquered by Christine Puza. These are the gifts that keep on giving, after being inspired by woven mushrooms in the educational "touch" section of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. Sometimes the best places in these institutions are where all the kids are gathered and clamoring.

I have many compulsions and one is to always get rid of things. Declutter. After hanging this show, I was tired of the older work I've been storing. This one was carefully disassembled for the meat.

The lesson? Lightly waxed hanji cords beautifully.

This is a nighttime shot so a big bleary, but the one one the left is what became of that little skirt. The vessel on the right was recycled from...

This one! Again, carefully taken apart for the meatiest bits (the jacket is still intact, I have to figure out what happens to that).

Much but not all of the skirt became this shoe.

And even though I finished this after the show rather than before, as I had hoped, I am pleased.

You can't see the driveway behind me to the garage, but I cleared from there to here before stopping for the day. Two hours of shoveling heavy snow and the wet underneath, plus carefully coaxing my shrubs to stop being iced and laden with snow onto the driveway. I pulled them up one by one and shook them, patting them and eventually hugging big chunks and hitting them against my body to remove ice and snow. Everything else is still buried, but I needed to not drive over the shrubs on my way to a video shoot at Oberlin the next day (there was more shoveling at night and the next morning). I'm still recovering from spouting the contents of my brain over a few hours to a camera.

 

On top of that, I was nearly scammed like this artist (I knew it was fishy from the start but ignored red flags until the very obvious one: "I'll send you more money than the cost of the art"), so I've gone into a memory bank of previous swindles. Finally, the process of trying to apply for a visa to Korea for my Fulbright research has been unfathomably fraught. I will write extensively about it later but for now, the fact that my Korean father was a Korean citizen when I was born in NYC means that I have to jump through A Great Many Unfair Hoops. So very many, so very unpleasant.

But you don't have to do any of that! Instead, you can join Sarah Rose and me as Lisa moderates a conversation about papermaking and art next Thursday at 5pm. If you attended the opening, I promise any video and photo documentation will be much, much better.