Solemnly Blue
Solemnly Blue is a bojagi, a traditional Korean patchwork quilt, comprised of cyanotypes, stitched together with panels of hand-dyed indigo cotton, linen, muslin, and Korean ramie. This project explores the idea of culture, growth, and adolescence, themes that I have been exploring in my photography, through multiple image transfers of my youth and childhood. I often avoid being the subject of my art, but I chose to challenge myself with this project. The printing process removed the pressure of using my own image in a body of work. I used 17 pictures of myself, one from each year of my life. Recently, I’ve felt very disconnected from my own memories, but looking through old photographs of myself and piecing together the familiar imagery made me think about my life as one continuum, as opposed to something fragmentary.
A few years ago, my mom and I visited Seoul, Korea, and during our time there, we took a sewing lesson at a traditional handicraft gallery with a bojagi textile artist. We spent the afternoon in her workshop admiring the precision of her handiwork, while she taught us how to make Korean pouches, knots, bracelets, and bojagis. Bojagis are meant to be viewed bi-directionally. By using cyanotypes and dyed sheer fabric, the backside of the curtain also appears that is a simpler, more traditional composition. I also used a reversible seam stitch and because there are no exposed hems, I connected the core idea of beauty being visible from both sides to the technique.The Korean aspect of this project was the initial driving idea, as I’ve been exploring my culture through my art. I work part-time for Leewha Hanbok and Wedding in Los Angeles’s Koreatown, photographing traditional Korean dresses and accessories, and documenting the stories and craftwork of a fourth-generation hanbok maker. Thinking about my own identity and image, and placing it so directly on something traditionally Korean has been very illuminating for me, as a mixed-race Korean.
There is a strong use of color in the piece. Varying shades of white, Prussian blue and indigo are sewn together with two patches of pink from my childhood bed sheets. I hated pink and Barbie dolls as a kid and always claimed blue as my favorite color. Recently, that has completely changed, and pink is now my favorite color. In the bojagi, the blue fades from top to bottom; the deeper shades represent the person I was born as and fade as I have come into my own person. I’ve never explored self-portraiture, yet I found this project to be the right setting and technique for this experiment. The rectangles were sewed row by row connecting 1-3 squares together side by side and constructing the 7 final rows together at the end and finalizing with an off-white ramie boarder. The 79 rectangles are each patched together in a size and color gradient, smallest to largest in a vertical orientation. The asymetrically placed images grow in size as I grow in each image. this piece is a visual representation of my personal growth as I've explored my gender, identity, culture and adolescence.
