There’s someone who lives as if art quietly guides her days.
She moves between craft and painting,
between the everyday and the artistic,
shaping the atmosphere around her with care.
In a calm studio near Dosan Park in Seoul,
she spends her days thinking about how people live —
from the light in a room to the weight of a chair,
to the way a small object sits in someone’s hand.
Most of what surrounds her is made by hand,
things that carry time and patience in them.
We met to talk about the time of craft,
the way she sees space,
and what it means to live a life that stays steady.
It was during the 추석(Chuseok) holidays, when the air had quietly changed.
We spent nearly ten hours together —
walking, pausing, and letting the day stretch between words.
She spoke of time not as something to chase,
but as something that begins to move only when you stop pressing it.
Here is our conversation.
Time seems to play a great role in your work.
In the long, slow process of making, what matters to you the most?
To recognise and respect the points, lines, and planes of time itself.
We often ask, “Where are you from?” but rarely, “When are you from?”
perhaps because space has already claimed so much of our time.
So the word “contemporary” allows for many interpretations —
it is, in truth, an uncharted terrain where different systems of symbols and speeds coexist.
Craft, to me, is a way of tracing those surfaces and fractures of time,
trusting in the patient labor that reveals what is unseen or unheard.
It’s about handling the impossibility of translation
and welcoming the fresh distortions that arise when something is reborn
in one’s own language.
as Yoko Tawada once wrote in Transformation.
So I choose to believe in the time when time works,
and to see the sediments of one’s practice
not as graves, but as conversations still unfolding.
Is there an object or form that has caught your eye lately?
Or perhaps a scene that stayed with you?
“Expressions that turn slightly away.”
Those faces that appear
when one cannot quite avoid a discomfort that’s been long anticipated,
or when change must be met, however reluctantly.
During the Chuseok holidays this year, strong rain and wind swept the streets.
I noticed leaves fallen too early,
each holding three or four shades of emotion —
but it was the edges, tinged only faintly red,
that seemed to whisper, “I turn aside.”
A beauty made possible only by not being fully changed.
They looked as if they had faced the season with all their being,
yet fallen before they could take it all in —
a bit shy, a bit proud,
as if saying, “I did my best.”
Beyond the idea of imperfection or asymmetry,
it was a scene filled with honesty —
the courage to see things as they are,
without retreat, without embellishment.
How would you like your work and life to unfold from here?
To never be just a spectator —
even if I must linger at the edge.
As I often remind myself:
not to glance sideways, but to turn and face directly.
However clumsy, I’d rather melt metal by hand and drive the nail into the wall.
However embarrassed, I’d rather make the low sky of my hut my ceiling,
and hang weights on my body —
so that I may stay grounded, but never coarse.
If one continues to set down their burdens with care,
perhaps one day even that quiet room
will shimmer with curtains made of coral.
Everyone encounters their own Achilles at some point.
If you have faced yours, how has that shaped you today?
I used to think my closeness with my father was strength —
in truth, it was my Achilles.
His quiet faith shaped me, but it also held me within his outline.
When I chose to move to Germany, he doubted my resolve —
and perhaps he was right to.
So I prepared alone, not to win his approval,
but to prove to myself that I could stand apart.
It was the first time I stepped beyond the shelter of his belief
and carried the full weight of my own.
Since then, I’ve learned that a true choice requires testing —
to live it, verify it, expose yourself to it.
Meet the people, gather the knowledge,
and collect data through experience, not assumption.
Only a choice that has been lived through
can become a true decision — and a true responsibility.
In fencing, the épée allows the entire body as a target.
Both you and your opponent are open — head to toe.
The poised upper body is just a tool;
the real attack begins with the feet.
If you trust the step you’ve trained,
your arm won’t rush ahead,
and whilst guarding your own openings,
your blade will find its way naturally
to the heart of the mark.
Saebyeok wears Textured Loose String Pierrot Blouse