Hanji and traditions......

I've been working on my magnolias project this week but as I have a full time job as well I don't get as much time as I'd like to concentrate on it. Despite that, it's going really well and I'm experimenting a bit at the moment with the 3 cutouts, doing each one in a different way. I'll show you them all very soon.

Next week I'm off to Korea for a week with 2 of the ladies from my Hanji group we have a jam packed week in store as we go searching for Hanji supplies and we'll even fit in a visit to the Andong Hanji factory and a 4 hour lesson with their resident hanji artist, Gui-Sook Yang. It's all very exciting and going to be lots of fun.

Whilst we're in Andong we'll be staying in this traditional Korean home in Andong Hahoe Village.

Traditionally, Koreans slept on the floor and so will we. In an old-style Korean house, the ondol (underfloor heating) warms up the thick masonry floor, making sitting, eating, or sleeping on it cozy and comfortable. It wasn't until around the 1970s that the nuclear family came to be considered standard in Korea. Before that, most families consisted of at least three generations living under one roof. With no separate dining or living rooms, at meal times family members would bring in a low table. They would sleep in the same room by bringing out their folded mattresses (yo), blankets and pillows at bedtime.

The rooms are generally lined with hanji paper over the windows, on the walls and on the floors as well.

Comments

Lotus symbol in Korean culture .....

In traditional Korean Hanji art you can see many different designs of plants, animals, letters and insects. I'm sure you've wondered what they all symbolise as they are repeated so often and in many different ways. In this post I just want to take a brief look at the lotus plant and what it symbolises for the Korean people. I've used this design on a few articles but I never really knew the full meaning of what it represented until I started doing some research for my book. Even though many of us aren't Korean we can still use these designs and in so doing, translate a deeper meaning to our articles. Here are a just a few of my favourites from the easiest to the more difficult to cut out. The lotus flower symbolises creation, birth, liveability and reproduction and therefore it's one of the most important symbols in both Korean culture and its traditional religions. In both Confucianism and Buddhism

The Buddhist symbol, Hanji & Korean culture ....

When selecting designs for my Hanji pieces I tend to make stylistic choices as to what will look best on each piece but the Korean designs all have very deep symbolic meanings. None more than the Buddhist swastika (manja) design. ‘Manja’ (만, Man is “卍” and 만자, Manja literally means “letter Man”) is also called Srivatsalksana in Sanskrit. It is one of the thirty-two (32) marks of excellence of the Buddha and is said to exist on his hands, feet, hair and waist. For those of us in the West this is often confused with the German Nazi swastika symbol but in fact it's been around for about three thousand years. The swastika is an equilateral cross with arms bent at right angles and all in the same direction, usually to the right, or clockwise. It's a symbol of prosperity and good fortune and it originally represented the revolving sun, fire, or life. The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit swastika which means, "conducive to well

Online Hanji paper store, in English .....

I'm really pleased to be able to share with you this website where you can order a variety of Hanji papers from Korea and it's all in English !!! The store is based in Daejon, Korea. HAMINBRIDGE ( Thehanji ) was established by Moonyang Park in 1983. It's a family owned 2nd generation business and they have a factory in Junju. They also have a factory in China where some of the paper is made. The website is at www. thehanji.com and it provides a selection of specialty Hanji paper (Korean paper) and products. I ordered some papers from them recently to see what it was like and they were extremely efficient in dealing with the order and it was here in the UAE within 5 days so I was really impressed. The prices were good and they even have some on special, the paper is beautiful and the ease of ordering was amazing. They do sell rolls of paper, traditional papers and lanterns but overall I did think the range was a bit limited for what I wa

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