Releasing the inner artist one small fluffy white dog at a time

I have been attempting to draw lately. Which has been a little depressing as it has reinforced something I have long known about by myself. I have no talent. My first sentence should really be rewritten to, more accurately, state that I have been attempting to improve my scribbles lately. Here are two pictures. One is mine and one is from my five year old. The one at the top is way better, yes? It is not mine. 

Despite my incredibly obvious lack of ability, I am continuing to persevere because: it serves as a life lesson for my kids (if at first you don't succeed); it provides an excuse for me to continually avoid all housework; I can't afford any real art so have to make my own; and I dream to one day illustrate my own book. But I have to say that it is a little dispiriting attempting to draw here in Seoul: as if my own awareness of my limitations regarding artistic talent was not enough, I am attempting to conquer the coloured pencil in a city that just seems to be exploding and oozing prodigious talent. 

Art can be found on every corner here in Seoul, ranging from the usual pictures on paper to cleverly designed flower pots, green gardens, prettily designed corners, meticulously thought out shop fronts and stationery galore in an organised world. Even Daiso - the 1,000 won shop is a pleasure to be in with its ridiculous number of coloured plastic baskets (I challenge you to leave Daiso without purchasing another hot pink basket). Because art is everywhere, it got me thinking about a possible escape cause. Maybe I am being unfairly harsh on myself and I really do have artistic talent - I have just not expressed myself in the right medium to date. So, in an attempt to redeem some hope I decided to expand my artistic pursuits from the coloured pencil and embarked upon a week of art experimentation to find my inner artist.

First, I decided to design an iPhone case or some sort of stationary item. Koreans, in general, take immense pride in the little things. Like stationary, pencil cases and phone covers. The choices are endless here. Here is my attempt. I call it: "Taking your bag to the shops." No phone company liked it.

I moved onto the idea of designing the interior of a cafe. There are no shortage of artistically designed cafes, with carefully considered shop fronts, an abundance of greenery and just that little dash of cuteness, not kitchness, that Koreans do so very well to make their spaces so inviting. Examples. 

 

even the plumbing store looks artistic...

Having bought duvet covers for three girls and put up pictures in their rooms, feeling house proud of my personally designed pink striped cushions and having taken lessons in patterned dressing from adjumas (one should never be afraid to mix leopard with zebra) surely this was going to be my calling. No. It was not to be. Apparently, it is a good idea to own a cafe, or perhaps even work there, before you start rearranging its furniture and accentuating with your own soft furnishings and and cat paraphernalia (apparently every good cafe needs a cat statute. I hate cats).

So I moved on to the more overt: performance art. Over in Seongbuk-dong, I have occasionally walked past run some fancy looking young men who chose to stand still on a street corner for a while. It looks like a magazine shot from the 1920s. Surely I could do this. 

Turns out that I can't. Well, I did for around 5 minutes on a street corner down the road by the park. But it kind of got weird. For starters, standing still is really hard for me. As is keeping my face motionless. But when people started offering me money, food, drinks, pointed to a seat, motioned the policeman nearby and then the adjumas conferring in front of me decided to call an ambulance followed by the US Embassy I thought I had better stop. Maybe I should have aimed a little lower to begin with and joined in with these guys. 

Or these. They were singing. 

I thought about sculptures next. Seoul already has a lot of these (Seoul sculptures blog post) but, surely, you can always have some more. My three favourites so far are:

1. The big dog (I am partial to anything that is made out of recycled materials). 

2. The coloured cubes. 

3. And the man and dog walking out to greet the towers of Seoul.

This is what I came up with. 

I hung it up just down the road. But it got taken down by the local cardboard collector as I walked away.

Knitting was my next idea. I used to be totally into knitting when I was in primary school. We had a gang of knitters that would meet before school started and sing songs like "Kumbaya" as we knitted (these were my rebel years). I came across this in Jung-no recently.

But then I couldn't find any knitting needles. When I eventually located some I discovered that knitting without my Grade 5 gang just felt wrong (that, and I have actually forgotten how to do it). So I abandoned the idea.

Graffiti. Hello! Surely a winner. I grew up in an area where there was quite a bit of tagging (the writing of one's name or code name in a special script) -  as in you can't see the train carriage for all of the tagging - so surely this put me in an advantageous position for this particular art form. But, here in Seoul, even (or especially) the graffiti is beyond brilliant. 

My bear does not compare.

Just when I was beginning to lose all hope, I stumbled upon the "Annyeongdeulhashimnika?" poster art movement, started by a university student last winter (it has since died down). Annyeongdeulhashimnika translates as "How are you, guys?" (I think the literal translation from Korean to English is "Are you tranquil?") The posters  mostly handwritten, were put up at universities mostly but also around train and bus stations and recorded people's concerns, worries and un-happinesss.

I particularly loved the fact that people consciously considered their thoughts, put pen to paper and then stuck up their reflections in prominent positions for others to know what their worries were. Surely this has to be an astronomical cathartic experience. 

So with that in mind, here is my own poster.

I taped it to the green charity clothes bin just near our apartment yesterday. It had gone by the afternoon. I made another copy and took it up to school this morning. But the Principal caught me, said it was a bit strange and thought it best that I take it home again. Sigh. 

So where does all of this leave me? While it could be true that in this great city, art, in any form, would be best left in to the ones who live here and that I should just be happy with the fact that at least I get to experience it and, in some small way, feel connected to a world that is not my own, I feel that it would be remiss of me to not at least try to master some form of public expression. Korea has a lot of dogs that get carried around in handbags. I like dogs. I found a really friendly dog the other day when walking back home from a disappointing graffiti attempt. I think the dog's owner was inside yet another cute Seoul cafe and had, conveniently, left the dog outside. I may have found my creative muse in this dog. Either that or I just went crazy with the cans of spray paint I had in my handbag. The owner was speechless. I told him no thanks was required and went on my way, with a spring in my step:  graffiti dog artist extraordinaire. Who would have thought?