Next door to the onggi studio of Lee Hak Soo, the onggi cultural treasure from Chollanamdo, we watched a farmer use this geegay. Refered to as the “original backpack” geegays have been used for thousands of years in Korea to carry many things including large onggi jars.
BEGIN OUR KOREAN JOURNEY AT “THE KOREAN CERAMIC JOURNEY” (Above Bar)
INFORMATION:
Navigating Our Blog:
Under “Journal Search…” (right column) you will find three major headings. Pages, Archives and Categories. We suggest that you look at “Pages” first and then you will want to visit “Categories” to find additional photo postings and comments. The “Archives” heading is simply a repeat of the other postings you will find listed under their original posting dates. It is not really necessary and a little confusing.
The “About” page below discusses our history and what brought us to the point where we have now developed a blog and are working on additional blogs and web pages to provide more information on what we do and why we are doing it.
The “Our 2008 Tours” page gives a brief itinerary of our August 2008 tour: The International Ceramic Artist’s Tour.
The “Korean Ceramic Journey” page is really the heart of the blog. It contains photos and information on some of the ceramic artists we have visited and more importantly postings on our blog that come mostly from members of previous tours. It may give you a sense of what we have been doing and the quality of our tours as expressed by previous partiicipants.
Under “Categories”, click on a title to view an image and on the image to enlarge it. Sometimes, especially when enlarging and viewing a photo it seems necessary to use the “back’ button on your browser to get back to the page you are viewing. Then click on the title Korean Journey at the top of the page to return to this page where you can continue through the blog. I hope this helps you tour our blog. AKJP
ABOUT US:
In 1895, my father, Julian Chun Suph Park, was born in San Francisco. Korean authorities believe him to be the first Korean born in America. Large numbers of Koreans did not come to the USA until 1903 when they came to work in the pineapple fields of Hawaii. My grandparents and father’s story can be found in the magazine Korean Culture Vol. 23, No. 3 Fall 2002. I grew up with little knowledge of Korea or its rich culture. When I became interested in ceramics, now more than 50 years ago, I learned that Korea had a rich ceramic history. It was then that I began to research Korean ceramics. My sabbatical in Korea and many trips with Mary, my wife, since strengthened that research.
Mary was an art teachers and I taught ceramics at a university. When we used the Korean forming processes I had learned in our classes we discovered remarkable improvement over the work our students and other students were producing using the forming processes they had learned earlier. In 1996 we received a grant to teach these Korean ceramic processes to teachers. Those teachers made the same discovery. The Korean forming processes, both hand building and throwing were easier to learn and helped the student achieve a higher lever of work more quickly.
As we continued to give workshops, interest in traveling to Korea grew. Our workshop participants asked us to take them to Korea. Our first tour was in 1997. Since that time Mary and I have been to Korea sixteen times. The group we took to Korea in September 2007 was our sixth group.
Because our tours were so successful, the County of Gangjin, Korea has asked us to form groups of ceramic artists and teachers and bring them to Gangjin. In addition, they promised to help pay the land cost, present hand’s-on workshops conducted by master Korean ceramic artists and during the Gangjin Celadon Festival exhibit our work. What a deal! For the last two years 2006 and 2007 we have hosted Gangjin sponsored International Ceramic Artist’s Tours to Korea at very reasonable costs.
Our tours are not only to Gangjin. Participants on our tours witness the full breadth of Korean ceramics. Among the studios we visit are several Intangible Human Cultural Treasures in ceramics. We visit ongee potters, teabowl masters, Silla style, buncheong masters, porcelain masters and even the last man in Korea to make roof tiles by hand. Of course we don’t neglect the contemporary ceramic artists. We visit many of the museums dedicated to ceramics — there are too many of them to see them all. And, we visit historic sights along the way. In essence we try to become immersed in the rich ceramic culture of the beautiful and spiritual country Korea.
What do we get out of it? We make no financial profit since we know that most ceramic artists and teachers are not wealthy. What we get is the knowledge that we have helped Korea regain some of the cultural importance it had before it became occupied during the first half of the 20th century.
About 120 ceramic artists from Australia, Canada and the United States have joined our tours. The camaraderie is wonderful and many lasting friendships are formed.
We hope this “Korean Journey” blog will also act as a catalyst for those who have been to Korea with us to write about their tour experiences, discuss ceramics in general and/or Korean ceramics in particular.
Finally, we also hope it will help to develop interest in future ceramic tours to Korea and answer any questions future Korean tour participants might have. If you can’t find the answer here, email us at morningearth@sbcglobal.net.
We developed this site for you.
Respectfully,
Arthur K. J. Park
and
Mary R. Park
Morningearth@sbcglobal.net
