What Falling Leaves Teach Us About Art and Life

What Falling Leaves Teach Us About Art and Life

​When do we truly feel that autumn has passed?
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For me, it is the moment when the branches are completely bare.
As long as the ground is still covered with scattered maple leaves—these delicate pieces of colored paper floating quietly on water—I feel a sudden wave of regret. It is only then that I realize how easily I let such brilliant beauty slip by.

Photo by Prof. Youngshin Kim

Life feels the same.
Every day, every small moment is radiant and full of color, yet only afterward do we understand how vivid and precious those moments were. What could be more important than loving one’s own life, oneself, and the day placed right in front of us? There is no need to look around and compare. Nature never competes; it never complains about why it blooms or why it falls, why it cannot cling to a branch forever. It simply appears and disappears, blooms and fades, without asking for meaning.

And that is how I want my art to be—quiet, natural, and honest, like an old sage hanging on the wall, smiling gently.
There was a time when painting made me unbearably tense.
The anxiety arrived before I even picked up my brush.
What if I can’t paint well?
Should I spend this precious time doing something more productive?
What if this painting doesn’t sell?
What if it ends up stacked in a dusty corner of my studio?
What if someone laughs at the way I painted it?
In those early, fragile days, I sat before the easel full of nerves and self-doubt.
But once I realized that painting is profoundly connected to life—that it is simply another form of nature—those fears gradually dissolved. Now I sit before my work with no stress or worry. A painting is like the autumn leaf: beautiful on the branch, and still beautiful when it falls. That, I believe, is art.
After years of wrestling alone with blank paper, things that once felt impossible began to feel natural. It was like opening a door in a game and stepping smoothly into the next level. I was exhilarated. My paintings began to sell more often, and people who once said “That’s nice” began to ask, “Can you tell me more about yourself?”

I became even more excited—not because of praise or awards, but because I knew I had crossed into another world.

Yet as I kept walking, I found another door waiting for me.
A bigger, heavier one.
Whenever I stand before it, I feel like the beginner I once was.
At that moment I turn to the works of the masters. I want to reach that realm someday. I want to feel the limitless freedom that breathes in their paintings. And I know that when it finally happens—when that impossible door opens—I will recognize it instantly, without anyone telling me.
The world of painting is remarkably fair.
No one can pretend.
No trick can make a painting live longer in someone’s heart.
I love this about art.
Imagine a white wall hung with countless paintings. You look at one. Before anyone tells you, you do not know who painted it. The artist has nothing but beauty, emotion, energy, and a quiet message to stand on. The title is often a single word. No lights, no tricks, no signatures glowing like neon. Just canvas, pigment, paper—equal for all.
If a painting fails to catch someone’s heart in that brief moment, it returns to the storage room.
If it succeeds, it finds its way into someone’s home.
And if it remains in people’s memory—if it becomes a story, a legend, a tiny piece of history—that is the greatest gift an artist could hope for.
But winning that chance on a sheet of paper barely a millimeter thick is no easy task.
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That is why I approach the easel each day like a fencer stepping onto the piste, not to impress anyone, but to see whether I can be freer than yesterday. Whether I can step away from the noise of the world and become fully myself. Without that mindset, I cannot paint well. My everyday life becomes meditation. I dislike being interrupted. People who cross my boundaries exhaust me.
Watching autumn slip quietly away again—and looking ahead to the horses I will paint for next year—I remind myself to stay steady in this daily race. To continue showing up. To keep opening doors. To trust that the path of painting, like nature, will reveal itself if I walk it honestly.