What is an artThe Flower by Chun-soo Kim  Blue flower, 2019 by Myungja Anna Koh The poem above is the work of Kim Chun-soo, a famous poet who gave the lyrical inspiration of Korean 21st century poets. It appears a lot on imperative exams, especially when most Korean were in high school. At the time, I was only memorizing for exam study, so I didn't know the deep meaning of "the flower" in this poem well.  Salvia garden With another flower, there is one childhood memory associated with it. Mirabilis, native to South Africa, is grown in many Korean gardens and is common in autumn. There are 5 stamens, and the fruit is round and ripe in black but contains white powder. The children collected the powder, knowing that peeling the black seed resulted in white powder. In fact, no one taught them. I just know from my older sister and my older brother in this way. Anyway, the children collected the powder and applied it like cosmetics on their faces, looking at each other and laughing and liked it. Then, in autumn, children wanted to make a pretty bride-like face, so they collected black seeds with small hands like rabbit hands. I still remember the moist and soft touch of the white powder in that black seed.
And the last memorable flower is the Impatiens balsamina. The flower language is "don't touch me." It is not clear when women used balsams to color their nails, but there seems to be a legend about a court lady who dyed balsams on their nails during the King Chungseon of Goryeo for a long time in Korea. The balsam flower is crushed with alum, tied to the nails, and dyed a day later. First of all, the red color means to defeat ghosts, so the meaning of the folk belief that balsam dye prevents all diseases is included. And there is a story that the first love succeeds if balsam water remains on the nails until the first snow comes. So the children picked the red petals, ground them well, put them on their nails, and bandaged them so that they could soak into their nails.
All the flowers I liked as a child had stories, tastes, and beauty. Children discover and share little joy and fun through flowers. Salvia, Mirabilis, and Balsamina flowers were all just ordinary flowers but they were memories and happiness in the hearts of children, and vitamins that helped them endure a boring and difficult life. Like poet Kim Chun-soo's flower phrase, before the name is called, it is just a gesture. But when I gave meaning to that existence, it became someone's flower. So is the picture. Which painting is the significance to someone. Gives some vitality to life, comforts others, and reminds others of scenes you want to remember. And to them, paintings that are merely canvases become meanings, artworks, and life partners who want to live together. Reference : |
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Leonardo da Vinci's anatomy
In my dream, by Myungja Anna Koh Notably, there are some scientists and doctors around me who are talented in art. For example, when I was in Germany, the mathematician who bought my painting "in my dreams" used oil to draw stunning Chinese landscapes, hung them all over the house, and invited us.
What is more, the Chinese dentist I met in Long island showed me some fantastic oil paintings he painted in his free time.
Hee-Doo Chung, who I came to know when working as a medical informatics researcher in Korea, is a surgeon and a person with an excellent talent for art. He is living a new life by creating prescription medical animations that explain to patients and achieves the challenge of commercializing it.
What is more, the Chinese dentist I met in Long island showed me some fantastic oil paintings he painted in his free time.
Hee-Doo Chung, who I came to know when working as a medical informatics researcher in Korea, is a surgeon and a person with an excellent talent for art. He is living a new life by creating prescription medical animations that explain to patients and achieves the challenge of commercializing it.
In fact, from my research, there are attempts at universities or graduate schools to create new careers by combining these two fields appropriately. For instance, the below screen announces an excellent example of both art and science into a rewarding career.
" Do you enjoy both science and art ? Are you having a hard time deciding whether you want to go get your bachelors in biology or graphic design? Good news! There are ways to turn your passion for both art and science into a rewarding career! Whether you think of yourself as an artist with an interest in science or a scientist with a flair for design there are many careers out there where skills and concepts from these two seemingly opposite fields can overlap. " (cited in reference)
Click on the screen below to see the full content.
" Do you enjoy both science and art ? Are you having a hard time deciding whether you want to go get your bachelors in biology or graphic design? Good news! There are ways to turn your passion for both art and science into a rewarding career! Whether you think of yourself as an artist with an interest in science or a scientist with a flair for design there are many careers out there where skills and concepts from these two seemingly opposite fields can overlap. " (cited in reference)
Click on the screen below to see the full content.
Returning to the story of the biomicroscopy exhibition, the beautiful artworks that I appreciated during the photography exhibition are still unforgettable.
For a moment, I'm going to introduce some of the most impressive works.
For a moment, I'm going to introduce some of the most impressive works.
Kissing (SEM 400X, Dongpyo Ryu) he took the joint of a long-bearded yellow Chim ant with an electron microscope.
Dandelion Flower fields (Kim Ji-young), intestinal glands, and goblet cells in the intestine split into yellow dandelion flowers.
Scream (Han-na Park), a cross-section of bamboo charcoal was sanded and taken enlarged. It is also reminiscent of the "scream" of Norwegian artist Munch.
Blooming (Choi Ki-Ju), a flower bud that just burst She removed the pimple on the rabbit ear and took an enlarged picture.
Indeed, people who have the ability to draw scientific data and evidence with their eyes by applying the expressive power of art with freedom as its essence make us take a step forward. The site below introduces non-profit organizations that are engaged in exhibitions or activities that combine art and science.
Art & Science collaboration INC (ASCI) http://www.asci.org/homepage.html
We hope that these joint efforts will create new forms of form in the future, and this form will develop each new area as if it were made from a tree branch.
Reference:
https://biochem.web.utah.edu/iwasa/PDFs/STEM_Fair_Careers_Infographic.pdf
http://www.paxnet.co.kr/tbbs/view?id=N00811&seq=16282797
https://biochem.web.utah.edu/iwasa/PDFs/STEM_Fair_Careers_Infographic.pdf
http://www.paxnet.co.kr/tbbs/view?id=N00811&seq=16282797
Healing in art
When I used to work in the hospital as a nurse, I have applied for the Nursing Literature Award hosted by the Korean Nurses Association.
Unexpectedly, after working, a poem written in the library was selected as the first winner. Here is the poem.
Paper boat in 1980 (by Myungja Anna Koh)
Pouring rainy day, like a sadly crying child in 1980.
Brother and I folded a piece of white paper so,
Made a paper boat.
Then we float a little ship away on the road that had become a river.
May my little carrier reaches my father, who suddenly left.
And pick up him and bring to come back home.
May he can read us a bedtime story again.
So we wanted desperately.
In a dark and small room,
In loneliness and worries without a single ray of light,
We waited for him, who had not returned.
Filled that dark empty with tears and sadness.
We wrote a letter with that heart and folded it.
One day, suddenly, someone sailed my father far away.
And he never came back.
So we made a small pity boat again
folded a paper boat like my father's heart.
Day after day, we ship it as a slender boat on the raging waves,
With a hope that someday he will get back on that boat.
May my family live together in a world like a sailboat for desire.
I'm still folding it, hoping that way again today.
The poem I wrote above is about recalling my childhood memories. At the time in Korea, it was common to arrest people with different political ideas or beliefs and put them in jail or torture. Then, like a poem, one day, suddenly detectives in plain clothes came to the house and took my father. My father wasn't only a spy, but also he was not a social activist against the government, and he was just an ordinary head of the household. However, making a person a victim and being promoted made it easy prey for detectives who wanted the desire for power.
We went to the police station searching for my father, who had gone somewhere in a vehicle without a license plate. But the police officer gave us some advice to treat it missing.
However, like a miracle, as we desperately wished, a few months later, my father returned home in a weary look. He was wearing bloodstained torn underwear and struggled to sit. The torn shirt is still evident in my memory. My father told me what kind of hardship he had been through.
It was that they would frame the innocent person and kill him in an electric torture chair, then put it in a bag of rice and throw it away in the Han River. Before my father entered the electrical torture room, he said he saw many bags piled up in the hallway. But did heaven save him? Before his turn, he said that he would write a will, and someone among them allowed him to do it. That's how he wrote his life story, and a detective said he had read it and released him. Since then, my dad had told me, " Write anything whatever you think". Anyway, my father hasn't seen the rice bag for a while. And he couldn't even get a call, knowing he had been wiretapping on for over a decade. Like all fathers in the world, the next day, he had to go to work after going through such distress.
The bloodstained underwear that my father wore at that time had already been thrown away and disappeared.
All the same time, the pain of my father that I saw and heard as a child becomes trauma, and It always wanders around me.
Art was like a friend who shared and listened to me. And it let me know why I need darkness in my paintings. My life seemed to sail toward the dimming around the sea at stake like a painting "La Barque de Dante." So the French painter Eugene Delacroix drew a picture called "La Barque de Dante, 1822" to depict Italian poet Dante on a ship headed to hell under the guidance of the ancient Roman poet "Vergilius".
I do love this picture because I have a good counselor like Vergilius who has been my friend in a complicated life. So that Vergilius is an art to me.
Unexpectedly, after working, a poem written in the library was selected as the first winner. Here is the poem.
Paper boat in 1980 (by Myungja Anna Koh)
Pouring rainy day, like a sadly crying child in 1980.
Brother and I folded a piece of white paper so,
Made a paper boat.
Then we float a little ship away on the road that had become a river.
May my little carrier reaches my father, who suddenly left.
And pick up him and bring to come back home.
May he can read us a bedtime story again.
So we wanted desperately.
In a dark and small room,
In loneliness and worries without a single ray of light,
We waited for him, who had not returned.
Filled that dark empty with tears and sadness.
We wrote a letter with that heart and folded it.
One day, suddenly, someone sailed my father far away.
And he never came back.
So we made a small pity boat again
folded a paper boat like my father's heart.
Day after day, we ship it as a slender boat on the raging waves,
With a hope that someday he will get back on that boat.
May my family live together in a world like a sailboat for desire.
I'm still folding it, hoping that way again today.
The poem I wrote above is about recalling my childhood memories. At the time in Korea, it was common to arrest people with different political ideas or beliefs and put them in jail or torture. Then, like a poem, one day, suddenly detectives in plain clothes came to the house and took my father. My father wasn't only a spy, but also he was not a social activist against the government, and he was just an ordinary head of the household. However, making a person a victim and being promoted made it easy prey for detectives who wanted the desire for power.
We went to the police station searching for my father, who had gone somewhere in a vehicle without a license plate. But the police officer gave us some advice to treat it missing.
However, like a miracle, as we desperately wished, a few months later, my father returned home in a weary look. He was wearing bloodstained torn underwear and struggled to sit. The torn shirt is still evident in my memory. My father told me what kind of hardship he had been through.
It was that they would frame the innocent person and kill him in an electric torture chair, then put it in a bag of rice and throw it away in the Han River. Before my father entered the electrical torture room, he said he saw many bags piled up in the hallway. But did heaven save him? Before his turn, he said that he would write a will, and someone among them allowed him to do it. That's how he wrote his life story, and a detective said he had read it and released him. Since then, my dad had told me, " Write anything whatever you think". Anyway, my father hasn't seen the rice bag for a while. And he couldn't even get a call, knowing he had been wiretapping on for over a decade. Like all fathers in the world, the next day, he had to go to work after going through such distress.
The bloodstained underwear that my father wore at that time had already been thrown away and disappeared.
All the same time, the pain of my father that I saw and heard as a child becomes trauma, and It always wanders around me.
Art was like a friend who shared and listened to me. And it let me know why I need darkness in my paintings. My life seemed to sail toward the dimming around the sea at stake like a painting "La Barque de Dante." So the French painter Eugene Delacroix drew a picture called "La Barque de Dante, 1822" to depict Italian poet Dante on a ship headed to hell under the guidance of the ancient Roman poet "Vergilius".
I do love this picture because I have a good counselor like Vergilius who has been my friend in a complicated life. So that Vergilius is an art to me.
La Barque de Dante 1822, by Eugene Delacroix 1798-1863
Art in a pandemic
Nowadays, the weather is excellent, so I often come to the yard to see the crystal clear blue sky. If I remember, around this time of last year, the sky was as clear and bright without any impurities as today. Simultaneously, the picture-like-sky seen by us, isolated as a pandemic, was another form of comfort. So I took a picture like this to keep the message of hope.
Blue sky in 2020, Myungja Anna Koh
Now, people are getting vaccinated in earnest, and finally, cases are decreasing. The vaccination rate is 52.2% in our county, and the positive test rate is 1.4 %, and the vulnerability level is medium. So now, people are cautiously talking about hope for the future.
When I first heard the news that we had to shut down due to the Covid virus, I went to Costco to be sure to maintain at least a 30-day supply. But as you all know, the toilet paper was sold out, and there was no way to get eggs and bread. Later found out that it was really only trivial.
By the way, for a long time, I couldn't even take a step outside the house, so I was trapped inside the house and only listening to news about viruses, hospitals, coffins, and graveyards every day. Back then, my 3-year-old daughter made play-dohs and put them on her play pink table like below, and no one could touch them. It seemed like it was a kind of ritual to fight awful stress.
Celina's work during Pandemic
Eventually, it had become a daily routine to see the coffins or bodies on the news. But, the thing that hurt me the most was when I had heard a plan to use an ice rink in the neighborhood to store body. It was a horrible nightmare, although the idea later changed to use the farm's old freezer.
In Spring 2020, we felt unfamiliar when seeing and hearing the beautiful sky, fantastic weather, and pretty bird sounds. We became prisoners of fear for almost a month and did not even go to our backyard.
Then, by the time we accepted the sad routine as part of us, we could go outside. Worried that there would be a virus in the cool breeze, we came out cautiously, but my daughter ran to the bottom of the tree like a spring in a machine. She danced, watching the beautiful singing bird on the branch. Also, I have a similar experience when I took her for the first time to the school last September. Everyone was standing at the school's door to send the children to school, wearing masks and carefully holding them 6 feet. At that moment, everyone is tired of long isolation life, and no one dared to speak. Just then, a little boy looked up at the sky and shouted out. "Mom, look at that! It's a moon." Children are excited when they see the moon appear white in the morning. Only then that people began to relax and laugh.
From my perspective, the sound of children's songs and laughter in difficulty and hardships, like candlelight coming out of darkness, are messages of hope that we must keep. And it is art itself.
In the past, during the Spanish flu, our senior painters drew a picture with such a childlike mind fighting fear. In New York Times Style Magazine, I can discover in the meaningful related article, "What Can We Learn From the Art of Pandemics Past?"
" We will all have our own metaphors and images to make meaning of this time: art or reportage or our own witnessing, the visuals that endure, reflecting us back to ourselves." (By Megan O’Grady).
Slowly running in a dark tunnel towards the light, we all became witnesses and companions to share the testimony out of grid life.
"The 2020 pandemic will change the way we see art forever, too, and artists and writers have already begun doing the work of illuminating new shifts and losses, documenting the small kindnesses and cruelties, the large failures of leadership, technology and society." (cited part of the reference article content)
Above all else, I will try to leave something like a picture of last year's blue sky, like the play diagram my child has accumulated on her desk. It is a privilege of art to be able to look back on what remains so that even if it remains like any interesting event.
Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/t-magazine/art-coronavirus.html
In Spring 2020, we felt unfamiliar when seeing and hearing the beautiful sky, fantastic weather, and pretty bird sounds. We became prisoners of fear for almost a month and did not even go to our backyard.
Then, by the time we accepted the sad routine as part of us, we could go outside. Worried that there would be a virus in the cool breeze, we came out cautiously, but my daughter ran to the bottom of the tree like a spring in a machine. She danced, watching the beautiful singing bird on the branch. Also, I have a similar experience when I took her for the first time to the school last September. Everyone was standing at the school's door to send the children to school, wearing masks and carefully holding them 6 feet. At that moment, everyone is tired of long isolation life, and no one dared to speak. Just then, a little boy looked up at the sky and shouted out. "Mom, look at that! It's a moon." Children are excited when they see the moon appear white in the morning. Only then that people began to relax and laugh.
From my perspective, the sound of children's songs and laughter in difficulty and hardships, like candlelight coming out of darkness, are messages of hope that we must keep. And it is art itself.
In the past, during the Spanish flu, our senior painters drew a picture with such a childlike mind fighting fear. In New York Times Style Magazine, I can discover in the meaningful related article, "What Can We Learn From the Art of Pandemics Past?"
" We will all have our own metaphors and images to make meaning of this time: art or reportage or our own witnessing, the visuals that endure, reflecting us back to ourselves." (By Megan O’Grady).
Slowly running in a dark tunnel towards the light, we all became witnesses and companions to share the testimony out of grid life.
"The 2020 pandemic will change the way we see art forever, too, and artists and writers have already begun doing the work of illuminating new shifts and losses, documenting the small kindnesses and cruelties, the large failures of leadership, technology and society." (cited part of the reference article content)
Above all else, I will try to leave something like a picture of last year's blue sky, like the play diagram my child has accumulated on her desk. It is a privilege of art to be able to look back on what remains so that even if it remains like any interesting event.
Reference: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/t-magazine/art-coronavirus.html
 Edvard Munch's "Self-Portrait after Spanish flu"(1919) by The Munch Museum |
Myungja Anna Koh
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