Hanji Happenings

Tomorrow I'm heading off to Korea for a week with two of my Hanji ladies, Tricia and Anna and a few husbands. The ladies are going to explore the Hanji shops and meet up with like minded friends who love doing Hanji whilst our husbands check out the Art district of Insadong. It's been two years since I was there and I'm looking forward to seeing any new papers that are available and checking out the latest designs in the Hanji paper, Hanji craft creations and hardware. It's always much nicer to be able to see and feel the papers rather than ordering online.  I also have a long list of things to get for other people so it's going to be a challenge to find everything, but I'll do what I can. On Sunday at 4 pm I'll be giving a talk at Jankura Artspace in Itaewon, Seoul called 'Hanji - after Korea'.  This came about because  so many people have been asking me questions about  Hanji. If you're in Seoul do come along. It'll be aimed at  exp

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

This year is racing by and the dates for the annual Jeonju Hanji Culture Festival in Korea for 2014 have just been announced.  When May 3rd to May, 6th, 2014 Address Pungnamdong1-ga, Wansan-gu, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do 전라북도 전주시 완산구 전주천동로 20 (교동) Location Jeonju Hanok Village, Hanji Industry Support Center area Telephone • 1330 Travel Hotline: +82-2-1330 (Korean, English, Japanese, Chinese) • For more info: +82-63-271-2503, +82-63-281-2931 (Korean) Street performers The Hanji Festival is organised t

'Hanji' is the Korean word for paper and Hanji artists work with this amazingly versatile material in many different ways.   The delicate attributes of Hanji paper lends itself to being used in 2 dimensional paintings, using paper instead of paint, and  in 3 dimensional art which includes, moulding the paper over cardboard  and layering and shaping the paper into highly detailed sculptured objects. I recently came across  the work of Cheong-Ah Hwang, a Hanji Artist, in a book called, 'Creative Paper Cutting'.  Cheong-Ah Hwang was born in South Korea and now lives in Ohio, USA.  Her parents ran a print shop in Seoul and as a child she developed an affinity for experimenting and creating with paper.  In the late 1990's she began exploring paper sculptures and studied carefully different artists' works before  experimenting and teaching herself  a variety of techniques that suited the style of pieces she wanted to achieve.  Cheong-Ah  cuts and mo