It's Been an Owly Day

This is a scattered, random post, so be prepared for it! I'm quite a horrible writer. I blame my English for it, but actually, I sucked at writing in Korean too. I usually wait for a blog writing topic. However, there are new works to be posted, and I really can't think of anything interesting to talk about.

Above is a personal piece I made. Hyein owl with a vegan donut and the other owl with his Creemore Springs beer. Ooooh, I could use some vegan donuts right now. I haven't had them for more than half a year. I almost went to Seattle just to visit their vegan donut shop. I paid for bus and lodging and everything. That's a long story, let's move on...
Last Friday, I was invited to guest lecture at Sheridan College, my old school (Kickin' it Oldskoool, yo). What a surreal experience. Everything felt so familiar to me, I almost went to my old desk and sat there. My heart ached thinking about having an owly good time with my old classmates. And I sincerely missed my teachers. It's strange what "the right school" would do to you. I don't have happy nostalgic memories about my engineering school, and I purposely erased all my highschool memories. Sheridan College was just right: great teachers, good curriculum and life-long friends.

So I was very happy to give a talk at Sheridan. I love teaching, because I learn from students while doing so. As Randy Pausch said in his famous Last Lecture, "You are a great salesman so any company you work for will make you sell stuff. You might as well sell things that's worthwhile, like EDUCATION" Not that I'm a good sales person, but using my abilities to give someone hope is the greatest feeling. Also being an attention wh*re, having people listen to me is just beyond awesome. Thanks for all the Sheridan students who came to the lecture. You were very attentive and passionate, I loved it!
And of course, thanks to OCAD students who put up with me every week.

Somehow above paragraph turned into an Oscar speech.

Yesterday, I finally met one of my favourite illustrators, Aaron Leighton. What an honour! He was such a nice guy too.

For another completely unrelated topic, I am having another show in March.
This time, in the Big Apple! Oh, New York, how I love thee...
Date and Location:
March 6 - 29 '09 (March 6 is opening night, 6pm - 9pm) in New York.

Address for APW Gallery:
48-18 Van Dam St.
Long Island City, NY 11101

Gallery website: http://www.apwarts.com/

I've recently finished an editorial piece, stay tuned for the next post!

Sketches, Social Anxieties, Cut to the Drummer Show

Some sketches for this cold, cold winter... Yeah, I could be eating vegan donuts right now, and look at me! Resorting to cashews.

I went to "Cut to the Drummer" show yesterday. Number of awesome illustrators (a lot of them were my old teachers) were in the show. It was inspiring to see so many beautiful images. But oooooh the anxiety!!! I fear small talks and I have an amazing ability to make everything awkward. I love all my old teachers, but too scared to strike a normal conversation.

I know this is lame, but I even read "The Art of Schmoozing" before I left. One of his advice was to read a lot so you have something to talk about. Um, I read A LOT. However, that is detrimental to my social skills. I should go out and practice instead of sitting at home, reading. And how am I suppose to go from, "Hi! I missed you so much! How have you been doing?" to "Have you heard about that cloned Ibex? It only survived seven minutes!"
If anyone can tell me how to do that, I'll make you the best hot chocolate you've ever tasted in your life. That's an arrogant statement, but at least, you know it's a damn good hot chocolate.

He also suggest asking questions and listen, instead of talking. Word, man. Word.
However, that doesn't work so well when I'm just downright frightened. I had a great, famous illustrator in front of me, and I said all the wrong things.
"Hey, I know you hear this a lot, but you look just like that guy from that TV show"
"..." *insert frustrated gesture*

Believe it or not, in the end, it was a goodnight and I had to be there. I had to congratulate my teachers and thank them. I saw some of my friends and we chat. And I did make some friends.
Oh, the fine art of schmoozing! I need to meditate or something before I go to these things, so I can relax and enjoy myself more. Before I end this long post, I want to apologize to everyone I talked to last night for my awkwardness. Deep down, I know you don't even remember, but just in case!

Lastly... This is Joe Morse' piece from the show. He is the best! I am a better artist (not that I'm even close to being a good artist yet) because of him. The shear fear of disappointing him made me work like a crazy muuunkey.

Two Shows!

I'll be Participating Studio Fuse's "Paint the Town Red" show.
It's at Distillery District
Show Dates: February 11- March 1
Opening: Feb 14, 12-5pm

And I made top 30 for snowboard art competition! You can see winner's web gallery at:
http://my.ridesnowboards.com/sbac7
The show is in Seattle, so I cannot make it. :(

Happy Lunar New Year!

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone! I'm sorry for the late late post. I won't be late for the next post. Still haven't recovered from Holiday blackhole (working at retail during Christmas season does quite a bit of mental damage for me). So to my shame, this is not quite a new image. You can see this at my snowboard illustration post on December.

What is this?! Why, Daruma doll, of course! It's a Japanese wish doll. You draw an eye while making a wish and then when the wish comes true, you can draw the other eye! Daruma doll is a symbol of optimism, good fortune and strong determination. Daruma was a Buddhist monk who came from India (I think?) to spread Buddhism in Korea and Japan. Some Japanese people use this doll for goal setting tool.

I hope in this new year, everything you've wished for and set goals for comes true. Let's all complete the other eye of Daruma.

I Are Dune Hyein

Oh~ Internet Memes... How I love thee!
I've always been fascinated by them. The idea that strangers all over the world (okay, maybe mostly among the blocks of same language culture) share the same joke, and the perpetuity. It's moving to think that we are somehow connected, just like that science news about everyone's ancestry in the world traces back to this one woman. We are not so different from one another after all.

And there's that name, "Internet Memes". Meme is a cool word to begin with. And it's not only because Richard Dawkins first coined the term in his book, "The Selfish Gene" (which I gave up reading in English... a massive failure. I have hard time concentrating on English books if they are not sci-fi. However, I recently acquired a Korean translated volume), but it sounds so smart and nice. Also its meaning - cultural/psychological gene that has its own interest of survival - is way too cool. Lastly, how it sounds! 'Meme' sounds nostalgic... cute and sad. Like that girl Momo from the novel, The Grey Gentlemen.

I particularly loved the Dune Cat internet meme because of its fuse with a popular sci-fi book, and the Lolcat (funny cat photos with wrong grammar). So awesome.
I didn't really like the book, Dune, but the movie was surely a weird thing to watch. I liked looking at the worms and the thumpers. The thumpers (make thumping sound to attract the worms) made me happy. Eyes being baby blue and iris being darker blue - they are more from the movie than the book. So there's another layer of popular culture in this Internet Meme joke.
Just another boring note to the side... I used to love playing the Dune II game when I was little. It was a strategy game. Not knowing any English back then, it was quite hard for me to play. Game play: You mine the spice just before the worm surfaces from the desert and eats your equipment. And invade/build stuff. I loved it when I turned on the game, an intelligent, sharp and robotic female voice saying, "Dune, the land (or "world"? Can't remember) of Dynasty" I used to impersonate that voice all the time until my brother gets irritated. So... I have quite a soft spot for Dune.

Bringing the very long story to the end.... I made homage to Dune Cat internet meme. Click to the photo and you can see that my eyes are blue from being addicted to the spice. Now my embarrassing past-time is for the world to see. But vanity post like this is hard to resist.

Uncle Ronnie's Popup Holiday Art Shop

I'm participating at Uncle Ronnie's Popup Holiday Art Shop in Kensington.
Opening night is tomorrow, Saturday December 20th 7-11pm.
Shop's open December 20-24th 11-7pm.
Buy art for holidays!

We Come in Peace

Tsk tsk... those naiive scientists! They are busy making AIs, but don't they know, as soon as the computers become sentient, they'll rise against us. You know it!
And they know how to lie too. Don't trust them when they say, 'We Come in Peace'

These are very recent (hot as hot potatoes!) illustrations I did for a snowboard design competition. There are many things I'd like to fix still, but I would love to ride snowboard with my own designs. I used to snowboard a lot in my teens until it got boring. It gets boring if one's too chicken shit to jump at all (not that I'm particularly good at downhill either. Sports hurts). Due to my fear of jumping, my five-year love affair ended. I think having a butt-ugly board also contributed to my demise. Back then, there were no girl boards. Seriously. If I win this competition, I'll go snowboarding. Promise to myself. My second design is 'Daruma'. It's a Japanese wish doll. I made a new year's promo for this, so more explanation closer to the new years. If I had more time, I would've fixed scattered flowers more... you both win and lose with randomness.
Also check out my friend Ian's awesome submission too!

...
Okay, I tried to act all detached and cool about things... but this Christmas scares me chestnuts! I work every Christmas at my parents' custom embroidery store in a mall. We've been there just over 10 years. And every Christmas has been absolute insanity. There were so many customers, we couldn't sit, drink or eat. All four of us (and sometimes more) worked in a small store in frenzy. We once had to work 27 hours straight (embroidering embroidering...). But this year... there is NOBODY in the mall. I've been going to the store to help out, but I'm not needed. We just sit and watch highschool kids browsing around. Yes, economy is collapsing and it's depressing. Also, thanks to media scary tactics, people don't spend money even if they have some. Making things worse.

Rich and supposedly-smart people in Wallstreet ruining for everybody in the world. Like Alfred said in that Batman movie, "Some men just want to watch the world burn".
How are we illustrators survive in this harsh economic times? I simply don't know.
I wish I didn't quit that job at a coffee shop.

Pathetically Late Halloween Illustration

Halloween is my favourite holiday. Monsters are at loose, and there is magic in the air. Everyone on the street is giddy happy and everyone dresses interestingly. And I fit right in without a costume. So please understand that I missed my Halloween posting. I was busy out and about. And with all the excitement surrounding our fellow Americans' (yup, a week before, I would've never said 'our fellow Americans', but now, things have changed. You boys and girls are A-alright!) new president.

This horribly late Halloween illustration was going to be a promo, but that's not going to happen anymore. So just look at it late, and think back to this year's yet-another awesome Halloween.
If you saw the movie 'Ringu', you'd totally recognize this image (or American or Korean re-make of it). Ahhh.... the Ringu.... Brings me back some old memories. 10 years ago, I saw this Korean movie called 'Ring Virus'. I thought it was weirdly well made for a Korean movie. I know, nowadays, Korean movies are innovative and awesome. But back then... they still sucked. Then I got to read the novel 'Ringu', which 'Ring Virus' was based on. It was one of the scariest books I've ever read. And I found out that there is a Japanese version of the movie. God, I hunted. Hunted hard for that movie. Finally, I got this battered up copy of a VIDEO TAPE. Um, Ringu is about a ghost that kills people through old video tape. So you can imagine my terror as I popped that baby into VCR.
...Remember, by this time, I saw the Korean version of the movie and also read the book. But this Japanese 'Ringu' movie was a different beast all together. Subtle, subdued, scratched quality... with haunting sound effects... Story-wise, it was better than the book. The awkward hermaphrodite story was cut and Cthulhu mythos was thrown in... By the end of the movie, I was uneasy thinking, I'd get a phone call from the ghost like the other characters in the movie.
Anyways... this movie started all those trends that still exist in horror movies now: the creepy little girl, industrial sounds, numbing silence, creepily moving ghosts... If you watch Ringu now, you might not find it remarkable because you are so used to above over-used homage to Ringu. But back then.... Eeeeeek, scary!!! There simply were no other movies like that before. Ah... I have such a soft spot for Ringu.
Speaking of horror movies... Every once in a while, you stumble upon a luck of catching a brilliant film on a big screen. To celebrate Halloween, I went to see 'Let the Right One In' at Scotiabank Theatre. Yeah, I consider myself lucky seeing this film. Go watch it!What a beautiful piece of ice cake! It looked like a Sigur Ros music videos. Desolate and bleak sceneries, but also heart breaking beauty everywhere... This movie has everything. Love, death, vampires (!!!), spontaneous combustion, gore, acid burn, comedy (although.. I was the only one laughing in the theatre... Me no Engrish), heart breaking sadness... but does it all with such style and control. Um, yeah, like other vampire movies... this one also makes rules about what kills vampires (going into someone's house uninvited, in this case). But you can easily forget about that. And if you are not a vampire buff, you don't really care.
Hm, I should talk about the plot a little but I don't want to spoil it for you. Oskar, a bullied loner boy (who's really smart, so has harder time fitting in) falls in love with a strange girl next door, who lives with an old man. Yup, the girl is a vampire. That's all I'm going to tell you. There is a talk that it's going to be remade in Hollywood. So go watch it before it gets butchered!