Hanji Happenings

Beginner Hanji Classes  When:                   May 2nd - June 6th                             10.30 am - 12.30pm Where:                 Station master's Art Gallery ' Red Hen' workshop                            20 South Terrace,                             Strathalbyn, South Australia Phone:               +61(08) 8536 4263 Level:                ...

My twin sister, a Buddhist nun ……… My twin Young Dam when she was younger One of the many highlights of my journey was a visit to the Youngdam Hanji Museum to meet the director Young Dam, a Buddhist Nun who's spent decades making Hanji paper and doing 2D and 3 D Hanji art.  I was impressed that she’d done her research about me before I arrived and knew what work I’d  want to see on this visit but what surprised me the most was that she realized we were the same age and decided that because we both love Hanji and have similar interests we must be ‘Hanji twins’. At first I was a little apprehensive to meet her as my image of a Buddhist nun was of a person who was quiet, genteel and almost ethereal, who obediently went about her daily rituals, never questioning, demanding nor being confronting.   I’m not saying any of those traits are undesirable; in fact I admire them and those that have the willpower to be devotionally serene and obedien...

I've just returned from a fabulous tour of France which covered over 3,000 kms of bus travel and included visits to old paper mills, UNESCO sites and artisans studios. It was a trip of a lifetime as it just happened to coincide with us being in Europe and the last such ttrip was held in 2008. It was a very specialized tour and there was so much wonderful and excitingly new information for me to take in, in a short space of time, that it's taken me a while to sift through everything and decide  what I need to take on board.  I took thousands of photos, as I usually do, and those too need sorting out but I'm getting there and I can now begin to enjoy once again those wonderful paper tour experiences. Hand made paper products I won't even try to explain all of what we did but instead, over the next few posts, I'd love to share some of the highlights of the trip so you can come on my second-time-around journey.  There were 16 very different and gifted ...

Last week one of my students came along to class with a lamp where the shade had been broken and wondered what we could do to make a new one for it. She wanted it to look Art Deco, black and white, not too big and something that threw out plenty of light, all of this  using Hanji techniques.  There's nothing like a new challenge !! ART DECO -  'It is an eclectic style that combines traditional craft motifs with Machine Age imagery and materials. The style is often characterized by rich colours, bold geometric shapes and lavish ornamentation ...... 'During its heyday, Art Deco represented luxury, glamour, exuberance and faith in social and technological progress.. - Wikipedia                                           This was never going to be a t...

      S ince my return to Australia, I've had so many people ask me           'What does Hanji mean and what is this craft?'.  Because I've been doing Hanji for the last 15 years I sometime presume that everybody knows what it is so I've prepared a short explanation as a handout for my students and thought that I'd share it with you.                  HANJI - a traditional Korean Craft     ‘Han’ refers to the Korean people and ‘ji’ means paper. Hanji is the term used to describe Korean paper and it is also used to describe the art of making objects out of the paper. It’s a paper made from the bark of the mulberry tree ‘dak’ and is one of Korea’s oldest and most durable products, dating back to the Three Kingdoms period around 130 AD. Mulberry bark produces a low acidity paper. The quality of...

I was doing some  research recently at the Adelaide State library and I was surprised to come  across a poem about Hanji .  It was written by Suji Kwock Kim , and published in her collection of poems, " Notes from the Divided country' . She's a Korean American poet and playwright and has won numerous awards for her amazing work. This particular poem talks about the hardships of the papermaker and she dedicates it to Liu Yoon- Young. I found it fascinating and I'd like to share it with you along with some photos I took during my visit to Korea earlier this year. Hanji : Notes for a Papermaker           Shaped like a slab of granite           marking a grave, but light,           airy as "spirit-sheaves" lashed           from bloodroot or star thistle,   ...