Saturday, May 30, 2009
At joon's dads place.
As i walk into the studio (of my wheel throwing prof, an hour and a half our of Seoul) past low work tables covered with baskets and crates full of plates and ceramic pieces, past jars and pots that line the walls and shelves, past cylinders of tools, brushes and glazes, I walk to the right, following my buddy Joon as he calls me that way, I walk to the second room, that is a little more dimly lit, with a bookshelf of small pots and more tools and paddles and brushes, I see a low table with a cut out for a wheel, that sits with a small square stool, and a bucket of water that is 3/4 filled with settled slip and clay, and I take a 270 look around and see a door to my left, a large wooden table that is a little more than knee high (sort of a traditional sitting area) that too has the same as which was covering the other surfaces of the studio, I see a large metal shelf with bowls and the large jars that could look like the moon, for they are textured, and full of ash that must have come from the wood kilns that sat outside in the open warehouse right outside these studios. This is a studio/warehouse, which its hallways are made from tall shevles, with walls made from stacks and stacks of plates, cups, saucers, and those large moon jars, varying from porcelain, to woodfired stoneware, to unglazed terra cotta. I double backed towards the entrance of the second studio and found the dark cooridor that led to a third room, a narrow passage made to look as though it was a hallway, and I walked past a shelf a little more than ten feet and turned to the stair case that climbed up next to the walk, with gaps large enough where choco could easily fall to the depths (fricken choco) as I walked up this stair case, that ran perpendicular to the roof's rafters more shelves started to appear in my periferal vision to the left, and as I reached the top I saw rows and rows, to my awe filled with thousands of lidded boxes, water droppers, vases, jars, cups, plates, handbuilt figures, sculptures, and who knows what was in the depths of the shadows. This warehouse room was being lit by the "upstairs studio" which its threshold was glowing white with light. I walked past 3 or 4 shelves and stepped into this room, Joon already entered and I stepped down and took a seat on the small stair case, looking around at this room, in which I felt the atmosphere change as though it were a different dimension. there was a peace about this room, and elegance and respect so to say. Coming from the gray concrete, metal shelves, and the caos of ceramics covereing everything, this room was different. to my left stood tears of small wooden steps so to say, with a display of wood fired 'moon' jars. on the adjacent wall stood a large porcelain jar, nearly rising to my waist, and I felt into and gave it a nice flick to hear its ting compared to the tang of stoneware. there was a respect in these pieces, directly across from the doorway where I entered stood a well made wooden shelf that streched in an L fashion, with large square holes where pieces stood, altered bowls the size of my chest, in a shape of a heart, with a slight tint of red that came through the wood fire, about twenty large pieces stood in this shelf. as I turned towards the door, a small sitting table was covered with books and papers, and along the wall was a small shelf of books, ceramic figures, and what stopped me for a moments were these three small figures of an buddhist idol and a small mirror and I sat and pondered for a bit. just pondered. I wont get into it. anyways as I walked back out it struck me in awe once again, the backlit pieces where the light was trying to reach as far as it could, only brushed the edges, so the shoulders, lips and rims had a small glow where the light reflected, and I tried exploring again but the pieces turned into dark shadowed figures. I walked back towards the stair case, down through the cooridor, through one room, out another and back outside facing the home, where my prof called me to get joon and grubble some dinner. I wondered about if i'll get to have a studio someday as this. where right outside the front door of the house, stood stacks of split wood, waiting to enter one of the two wood kilns, stretching up a slight slant more than twenty feet, to have a large grass yard, and a community in which the neighborhood shares the crops that each family is in charge of growing. (we helped dig some irrigation ditches today) I wondered if I should be a teacher, a professor... to teach my hearts dream. This was a blessed time of thinking about whats in store, I see I have a lot of hard work ahead of me, a lot to learn, and a lot to grow into. I entered the home of an artist, a teacher, and a believer. Just a interesting perspective.
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