Lives must change,
2010
Monoprint, 12 x 9 inches


A woman taking a walk in a cemetery

If you follow Green Point Avenue to the east, you will find Calvary Park Cemetery along the BQE road. Tombstones stand in order, just as Manhattan buildings line up. Sometimes I go to the park and read tombstones and stay in quiet tranquility.

Looking at the name of the deceased, I take a walk through the graveyard, guessing which country his ancestors were from, when he was born, and how long he lived and died. The tombstone born in 1700 can also be seen sometimes. I wiped the glass dust of the mausoleum windows and looked inside. Drawers are piled up.

A drawer containing a coffin after someone's death has been marked with a name and the year of his birth. There are also empty drawers to enter when someone in the family dies. When I die, I know nothing, but I don't want to go into this dark, cold drawer.

Walking through the park's graveyard, I feel like I entered a village in the middle of the century. There is a church in the center to console the dead. There is a row of large and small mausoleum around the church. A high stele engraved with a carving follows it, leading to small tombstones. The closer I get near BQE, the smaller the tombstones are. Perhaps the high Mausoleum where I can see Manhattan skyline is expensive. I haven't seen a tombstone with a Korean name on it yet.

The rich are buried in a mausoleum built of heavy stone, even when they die. The dead without money are buried as if they were dumped on the highway. The dead souls will hide quietly in broad daylight, and as the night goes on, they will come out and move like we live. Souls who have died a lot of money will enjoy the colorful party, and souls who have died without money are in the form of a community that is serving the rich souls.

Catholic Italians are buried a lot in Calvary Cemetery. A few years ago an Italian friend living in my neighborhood lost her girl. She didn't want to bury her daughter far away, so she buried in this cemetery near her house. She often walks in and out of the cemetery, complaining that the site is too expensive. It is different from Koreans who visit ancestral graves only on special days. The relationship with the dead soul doesn't seem as far away as we are.

I have thought death was the end and the eternal rest. Death at the Calvary Cemetery is another extension of life and a struggle.



Nowhere to go, 2010, monoprint, 11.75 x 9 inches
A stranger,, monoprint, 2010, 10 x 7.75 inches
Paradise one, 2010, sumi ink on paper, 15 x 11 inches
1/20, pensive, 2013, 11.75 x 8. 75 in.ches
m/p, who is there, 2010, 10 x 7.75 in
paradise, two, 2010, gouache on paper, 11 x 9 in.



Mingle one, 2010
Watercolor on paper, 9 x 12 inches


'Do not stand at my grave and weep,

'Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle shower of rain,
I am the field of ripening grain.
I am is the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush.
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the star shine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quite room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave and bereft,
I am not there. I have not left.'

This is the poem by Mary Elizabeth Frye. She is said to have written poems inspired by a Jewish girl next door, Margaret Schwarzkopf, who was unable to visit her dying mother in Germany due to the advent of the Nazis. The poem is the dead comfort the living.

Victims who were deceased by Coronavirus are kept in a freezer truck for storage of their bodies while wearing hospital uniforms. Within two weeks, the deceased, whose relatives did not show up, are buried on the Hart Island in Bronx, New York City. Workers armed with white protective suits and masks bury pine coffins bearing the deceased's name side by side. Even the deceased, who have relatives, must hold a funeral without being able to say goodbye with a hug or kiss.

How to console the grief of the bereaved families? Rather, the deceased should console the bereaved family.

I couldn't go to the funeral of my mother and father, who loved me dearly. I knew about my mother's death two months later and didn't hear my father's death either. It is only assumed that it was because they tried to catch the feud of inheritance discord. Who should I blame? I just lamented my own situation where I couldn't serve my parents close to me.

My father lived near the age of 100, so I was less sad. However, when I knew my mother's death two months later, I became unconscious and cried rolling on the floor. Did someone say time was medicine? I cried every time I went to the bathroom, and after 3 years, I had my first child and my sorrows died down. My mother, who couldn't say goodbye to me, seems to be hovering around me without leaving. I comforted my mother and myself by reciting a poem that 'Do not stand at my grave and weep.'

My beloved mother is not in the grave. My mom becomes the wind and strokes my head. She becomes gentle rain and wet my cheek. She becomes sunlight and warm hugs me.

I often talk to myself, touching the ring that my mother always wore 
"Mom, you don't have to hover around me anymore. Make yourself at home."

Mingle one, 2010, Watercolor on paper, 9 x 12 inches
Mingle-e, Pen on paper, 2011, 18 x 24 inches
Mingle-e, Pen on paper, 2011, 18 x 24 inches
Mingle-a,, 2011, Pen & gouache on paper, 31.5 x 23 inches
Mingle-b,, 20111, Pen & gouache on paper, 24 x 18  inches
moving north-a, 2014, gouache on paper, 14 x 11 inches




Wnm-1503,
2015 
Gouache on paper, 13.75 x 18 inches

Quiet chaos

Why do I keep thinking of the community in Lois Lowry's 'The giver'? It's a feeling I get as I explore the cities and countryside of Japan, which is unlike any other place I've ever traveled. 

I took off my shoes and walked tired and barefoot on secluded roads with crows cawing. In a clear stream, ducks ride the rippling current roadsides where I can't see even a tiny piece of garbage. Buses, taxis, and private cars gleamed as if they had just been washed and shined. The houses are neat and tidy, as if the rain has swept away the dust.

Empty bottles are cleaned and sorted by color and non-color. After the garbage truck passes, an elderly neighborhood cleans up after. The pond is filled with silk carps, reminiscent of the brilliant colors of kimono. In the street, people dressed traditional costumes are as beautiful as silk carps. This is a country that has nothing to do with the common crimes of New York. My son's admiration for the fact that no one touches other people's things on the street.

It was a mistake that a small person like me was Japanese. They have hick hair like thick wooden bushes in the mountains. They look healthy and handsome figures that appear to be mixed with other races. Wives talk to each other in quiet way and wear colorless neat clothes or take their kids home on bicycles after school. I did not hear the car horn or the ambulance sirens.
Everything in the supermarket is shiny and clean. When I bought ice cream, 

The clerk asked me, “Do you want me to put it in dry ice?” My heart sinks at their kindness. I kept saying full of sumaseng (excuse me) and arigato gozaimas (thank you) as I bowed my head to their kindness.

The community in the book "The giver", which I have read before, is constantly reminiscent of the life of the Japanese, who are tranquil and clean in a restrained life. Jonas, the protagonist of the book, lives in a perfect community free of pain and sorrow, but eventually he escapes into a lonely and harsh world where pain and joy coexist.

As time went on, I felt like a rat in my head and wanted to return to the rough and tumble of New York City, just as Jonas escaped from the perfect community. Was it because I had become accustomed to the hustle and bustle of the city?

Wnm-1505, 2015, Gouache on paper, 20 x 27 inches
Wnm-1502, 2015, Gouache on apper, 18.5 x 27 inches
Wnm-1051, 2015, Gouache on paper, 16 x 20 inches
Spring snow, 2015, Gouache on panel, 12 x 12 inches
White birds, 2015, Gouache on paper, 16 x 20 inches
Spinning journey, 2015, Gouache on paper, 19.5 x 25.5 inches



Zippy-d,
2014
Monoprint, 9 x 11.75 inches

Blockland, Buddy, Speedster

2001. September. The second week. A new week for my youngest son and me. It was his first week of junior high school in Manhattan and that Monday morning, the tenth, we took the subway together.  I told him I would accompany him for the first week of school and then he would be on his own. I secretly worried he would get lost and disappear forever underground but I did not show it.  As we sat side-by-side on the gleaming new Six train, his backpack in my lap, I was confident he would be okay.  When I went to pick him up in the afternoon, he proudly showed me his shiny new student Metrocard and my worries began to lift just a bit.  The next morning, the eleventh, I dropped him off at school with a warm feeling that everything was going to be all right. 

Routine. We were establishing a new routine.  But that day was one of those rare days when the routine is yanked out of its deep roots and tossed someplace far away and unreachable. I can still remember people moving about as if sleepwalking.  Time slowed to an imperceptible trickle.  My daily morning habits faded into the distance, like a low tide receding forever.  All that was left was my hands and my family.  I didn't lose anyone that day, my youngest came home after a very long Tuesday at school, but I wonder about those who never came home, those who just keep wandering someplace far away and unreachable.


Rolling men 3, 2011, Rencil & gouache on paper, 10 x 11.5 inches
Zippy-e, 2014, Monoprint, 8 x 9.75 inches
In the wood, 2015, Oil on panel, 12 x 12 inches
In the garden, 2015, Oil on canvas, 16 x 16 inches
In the fire, 2015, Oil on canvas, 18 x 18 inches
In the dark, 2015, Oil on canvas, 12 x 12 inches



Encounter G
, 2018
Oil on canvas, 22 x 22 inches

Rod

What I see before me is just a small part of the world. I often fall into the habit of thinking, this is it, this is all there is. But that’s not true. The world is much deeper than I can fathom, with hidden places and invisible layers everywhere.

Usually, I can’t  access those places or see those layers. I only have two feet and two hands and two eyers. My view is limited.  And yet, there is something I can do. 

I stay still. I focus. At first, nothing happened.  Then something does. 

Clock slow.  Bees buzz. Rain patters.

Colors gradually begin to hint at their true selves, like creatures they can disappear instantly at any sign of movement.

Somewhere a microscope’s, knob turns, light reflects, and what appears to be a simple thing becomes something else. Something different. A hidden place that was there all along, invisible in plain sight.

Everytime I bring my brush to the empty canvas, I try to access the hidden place. The bright, the dark, the space between them.

Building the layers, one stroke a time, takes time 

Oftentimes I get frustrated. There is a kind of relentless silence from the canvas: no directions to follow or instructions on how to proceed., But I keep going. I push and I push and I push.

And then one slow, rainy moaning–
I put down the brush and all the creatures reveal themselves.


Encounter D, 2018, Oil on canvas, 18 x 18 inches
Way-1614, 2016, Oil on canvas, 18 x 18 inches
Way-1607, 2016, Oil on panel, 12 x 12 inches
Encounter B, 2018, Oil on canvas, 16 x 16 inches
encounter A, 2018, Oil on canvas, 16 x 16 inches
Way-1608, 2016, Oil on canvas, 20 x 24 inches
Chase, 2015, Gouache on canvas, 20 x 20 inches
Encounter F, 2018, Oil on canvas, 22 x 20 inches
Icsy-1601, 2016, Oil on canvas, 20 x 20 inches