Rob Lee: Welcome to The Truth In His Art, your source of conversations connecting arts, culture, and community. These are stories that matter, and I am your host, Rob Lee. Today, I'm excited to catch up with my next guest, a process-oriented sculptor and craftswoman currently based in Queens, New York. At the pleasure of speaking with her shortly after her 2021 win of the Janet and Walter Sondheim Arts Prize here in Baltimore. Her work has been shown nationally and internationally at venues including Thomas Park Gallery in Seoul, Korea, the Walters Art Museum here in Baltimore, and the Emanuel Barbeau Gallery in New York.
Her work has also been featured in the Washington Post, Be More Art, and Gallery Magazine. So please welcome back to the program, Hae Won Sohn. Welcome back to the podcast.
You're having me again. So, it's been a few years. I think we were, as we were talking in the pre-recording meeting, pre-recording meeting, it's been a few years, I think 2021, 2022 when we last spoke. So I'm eager to catch up because I see the moves. I see the movement. So before we dive in, could you reintroduce yourself to the listeners just authentically, just tell them who you are? Yes.
Hae Won Sohn: My name is Hae Won Sohn. My first name is Haywon. And originally from South Korea. And I'm a sculptor, craftswoman, and art educator. Those are the labels that I put for myself. I lived in a few cities in the United States when I was young. I grew up in California. I came back to school in 2016, living in, living in, studying in Michigan outside of Detroit. Then I found my way in Baltimore, now currently based in New York City.
Soon moving out, that can naturally come out. But yeah, I do a lot of, I double in ceramics. That's the focus of my work and my teaching. And then on top of that, I work with a lot of plaster sculpture, casting, mold making, which is where my teaching and studio practices revolved around.
Rob Lee: Thank you. See, I like to give folks the space because you mentioned the three labels. Like sometimes you get these artist statements and it's just like the grand sculptors. They prefer to themselves.
Hae Won Sohn: Yeah, the label changes throughout time. But recently I've been feeling comfortable with those three.
Rob Lee: I mean, I call myself an audio wizard. So just... So going back, I think it's really important to touch on some of those early experiences. I think of when I was growing up, I used to... I'm really into movies and pop culture. And I would regale my friends with just different obscure, weird movies I watched.
And I would do storytelling around it and just have a group of people around. I'm just sharing it. Those were one of those early experiences or even in high school, just kind of interviewing people as we're wrapping up the school year. That's probably one of the first attempts of me doing a podcast. Right? So for you, are there any early experiences or even environments that first made you feel connected to art making?
Hae Won Sohn: Yes. If I think back, I probably... The experience that I'm talking about, I didn't even have the concept or notion of what art is. But I do think... So when I was growing up back in South Korea, I was living with my parents, also my grandparents. It was a really small house in Seoul. And I just remember... I mean, this is like a typical story for a lot of artists where they're just naturally makers and drawers and they just love doing arts and crafts as they grow up. And I also had that in my household culture. But more specifically, my grandfather, he was a very crafty and nifty person, but not in the sense of being a craft person or pursuing art in any shape or form. But he wouldn't make sauces, like Korean traditional sauces out of scratch. And he had a very particular way of throwing out garbage. Like for example, if I finished a bag of chips, we usually either just throw it into the trash can or the best would be folding it and then again, throwing it into the trash can. But he would fold it in a very particular way where he can minimize the volume of that trash bag.
I think it was for a practical reason where because in Korea, you have to pay for a certain capacity of trash. So he was really compacting everything. But rather than just kind of like squishing it in, he would add a little bit of fun of like folding it into this like bird shape or this boat and then throwing it in. And then he would also use like a lighter to make the chip bag kind of like melt.
So they don't unfold inside the trash bag. And yeah, just like, you know, the way that he took care of the home, like there were those small behaviors that I really observed in detail. I gave a lot of attention to it. And I think that really created a foundation for me of how I interact with material and how I think about making. It's not about this like, oh, I want to make this original form or I want to make this beautiful drawing. It's just a way of, you know, dealing with a material for some kind of purpose.
And in that process, having a little bit more fun rather than keeping it more linear. For like another example, I had this sketchbook where I would doodle and then draw on. And if there's like 20 pages and I finish the sketchbook, and I would wind saying like, oh, I need a new sketchbook.
I want to do more drawings before buying a new one. He would always go through all the pages. And if there's any page that I was wasteful of the paper, like for example, I just like drew one or two flowers and then there's like 90% of the paper blank. Then he would go ahead erase that and say, this is a new blank page for you. And I don't know, like this story, it might for some people, it might sound very, you know, dry in the sense that like, oh, how could he like draw his, I mean erase his granddaughter's drawings.
That's so like emotional or cold. But I didn't take it that way. I think it just like made me appreciate, oh, okay, like I actually need to really be not wasteful of these materials that are given to me. And I think that is like the very foundation of how craft people also work through their medium. And yeah, you know, like I'm his granddaughter. So I'm pretty sure, you know, my aunt and my mother also grew up, you know, more intimately looking at how he behaves in the household and make things and repurposing. So, you know, my mother and my aunt, none of them are artists, but they all have this like really good hand skills, you know, whether it comes like in cooking or, you know, mending clothings or, you know, in those realms. So I grew up watching that and, you know, I would draw with them, doodle with them. And they always were able to, you know, reciprocate that.
So they're just like kind of brushing it off and saying like, oh, she's the artist of the home. Like, again, we had no concept of that. Like everyone was, you know, encouraged to play with materials. I think they call it, you know, the sensory play for kids. You know, like, you know, there's a lot of ways that parents these days try to design some kind of toy or a play so children can build their sensory ability.
Yeah, but that wasn't designed in my household. It was really, it came naturally. And I think, you know, that's how it helped me. That was like the very seed of me becoming the artist later in life. Yeah.
Rob Lee: It's great to go back. It's great to go back. And yeah, you know, like I was thinking about it, and this is not a question that I have for you, but it makes me think about sort of just resource like allocation and just how that can easily pop back up later. Or even I have my own notepads where I'm like, all right, you can add more to here. You better box this out and add more notes. That's a lot of space left in there. You don't have unlimited money. More notepads, sir.
Hae Won Sohn: And if I like if I have to make, you know, a connection to, you know, I don't know if it will sound forceful, but for me, I kind of like again, looking back, I'm like, oh, that's where all these aspects of my studio practice comes from. Like, you know, I was mentioning how he was like trying to be anti-west wasteful with these materials.
And that's one of the big aspects of my studio practice where I like I do a lot of repurposing of material or like sculptural leftovers and they get reinserted into my practice. And I kind of, I think of him as he was both the minimalist and maximalist. I think like if you call someone a maximalist, they usually think that, you know, they, they hold a lot of things in quantity. But my grandfather was a maximalist in the sense that with one material, he would maximize the experience and really stress the capacity of what you can do with that thing.
But then in result of quantity or material, it becomes minimalist because you're really holding on to this one thing until it's like no longer usable. And, you know, again, that's quite the foundation of my practice right now. So, yeah, I had a chance to actually think about this like through the questions that you set me, but also straight out of grad school, I had an exhibition in the curator just like had no information about, you know, my personal background. So he was asking me to write a bio. And I wasn't thinking about the bio as the professional way where you say like, oh, I'm born here, I went to this school, that school. But I actually thought like maybe it's a really good idea to kind of like write an autobiography of myself. So I can really think through the very earliest memory of my life, whether if it has anything to do with art, just kind of walk through my life based on the memories that I'm holding on to and see, yeah, what can be extracted in relation to what I am right now and what I am doing right now.
Rob Lee: That's great. I think having that practice and going back through and thinking about it, I know that, you know, I've shared this on this podcast before. I have this, I don't know, it's family related as well. My grandmother was a seamstress and just that demanding thing, right? And she had this old like art bag that's damaged to it, right? And she took pieces of like my dad, he's a veteran, took pieces of his like old military bags and like stitched those together because the durability of that bag and sort of the weak points of the art bag. And that became my art bag when I was like a kid illustrator, you know, so all of my comic books and my art books, my color pencils in my studio currently. So take something from the early 90s when I was like, everything I was doing was just drawn doodling sketching is now here carried over into like my studio.
I'm doing this. It's kind of one of those totem things and it definitely connects and brings together, it may sound corny, but brings together sort of the generational component of something that my dad's incorporation. And I think that's where sort of my utilitarian nature, you can see me like, I'll have a backpack on, I have three different outfits. I'm like, Spider-Man, that's like, look, I want to the gym, I got a podcast record and then dinner. So having those those items together and really finding ways to get the most out of the thing, which is what I was hearing from you, which is, which is great.
And I love seeing it. I think you don't, a lot of times we don't think about it because it's just how we grew up or what we existed. But when we go back and things like, oh, that's why I do that, or that makes sense. That's a dotted line or very thick line. Yeah.
Hae Won Sohn: And it doesn't stay in like every aspect of your life. Like, you know, it's somehow stayed in my making in my studio. And I see that mentality also now starting to influence the way that I live my life outside the studio. So, you know, like I'm always about trying to bring my, you know, I don't think there's a concept of like non-art life, but just to make the distinction like out of studio life and in studio life. I try to really bring them as close as together because that to me is authenticity. Like if you're living a different lifestyle than the work that you're creating, you know, it just, I, it's, it's hard for me to trust the integrity of the work. If I see that contrast from the artist, so yeah, like it's been a while since I haven't like bought new clothes, not just because I'm like restraining myself, but like I genuinely don't feel the need unless like it's really necessary. Yeah.
Rob Lee: Yeah. And last thing I'll say before I move into this next question is I think in doing these interviews, it really, and over the 800 plus that I've done, it really, I nip, I nip from you artists, you creative types. And, you know, I was sharing with you, I was in New York this past weekend, I'm looking at the bag currently. I have small like waste bags, but besides like a camera bag, I have my mobile recording gear in there. And I was like, yeah, I always got that thing on me.
So when I was like in the community chatting with different people, I had this bag on and I was like, never know what I got to do an interview. I'm not separating like the podcast from this is me. And I think it carries over. And this is, you know, as you were touching on the sort of integrity component, it's like, it's right there. And that just comes from having conversations of like, Isaiah Winters and so on about like the best camera or whatever your tool is, but the best one that you have is on you. So that's what I think of. So I'm going to move into this one.
I'm very curious. So I'd like to look at in the last five years for the sort of next two part question. I think five years and 10 years are really good milestones. So I think 10 years is a little too far.
So five years is kind of where I'm at. So what are two to three insights that you've learned in the last like five years regarding that artistic life? That's a lot of insights.
Hae Won Sohn: Maybe I have like 0.5 insights that's like still building up. But I guess like the main thing is, it looks like an artistic practice. I started to, I realized that I was, you know, limiting myself in a way where I thought I was pursuing death.
But I was really just going down one path. And this is the, I think it's the influence of like a postgraduate stage of an artist's life where, you know, in school, you have this opportunity where you are protected from the society as a student. So you have the freedom to really make whatever you can within this facility and the environment of the school. And you are obligated to be that as a student to dive deep in your research. And then after graduate school, you're kind of like thrown out in this life where you have to also sustain on your own while you're making your career. So that idea of a career rather than, you know, approaching the artistic career also in a creative way.
I think I was barring models from outside of art. So I almost started to like brand myself where like I say like, oh, I only do clay. I'm a ceramicist. And, you know, in terms of the technical skills, I do casting, mold making, like that's the thing I'm going to do. And I'm going to become a master of that thing, which is also, you know, good because you're basically honing your skills and you're, you know, gathering knowledge and, you know, becoming an expert in that field. But at the same time, you know, artists can't really do one thing for the rest of their life. It's, you know, overly curating my life.
You know, you have to leave that breathing spot or a breathing channel where you can actually derail from what you're planning and also be flexible around that. So I think in like two years in my New York life, I really hit this point where I was, I wasn't even running out of money. I just had no money.
Like it has been run out. And I had to, you know, like on top of the teaching I do, I also like started working at a restaurant. I'm really finding, you know, no time whatsoever to come into the studio and make work. And, you know, the scope, because I do a lot of like sculptural work, it just felt like my studio practice was weighing down on me. And like, I felt like I'm no longer able to call myself an artist because I don't have an active studio practice going on. I'm only sustaining it as in being able to pay the rent for the studio, but I'm not actually making time to go in.
And that's when I was kind of like really going down a dark hole in my mental phase because of that lack of confidence. And then a good friend told me that why are you trying to make work that you've been making and only limiting your studio practice within your studio? If you don't have to have time to go into your studio, you must be somewhere, whether if you're at work or whether if you're traveling back and forth between work and home or you're at home. And you just need to really find the material that is affordable or given to you already and trying to think more creatively again around this, what is a studio practice?
Maybe just exclude the studio part of studio practice and art practice is all about being flexible and then exploring. So I started to do drawings at home because it's a cheap material. And like sometimes you really disregard all these, you know, like I have a bunch of notebooks and sketchbooks lying around. And I just started to use my pencil and go down to the very basics. And although it is a very basic art form, it's just, you know, I was basically translating the way that I work through my sculpture on the paper.
So it's still holding the same weight, although physically it doesn't. So I was able to expand my studio practice and again, not limit myself into this idea of like, oh, I'm this sculpture, I'm a ceramicist. Yeah, I'm a sculptor and a ceramicist, but also ceramicist can draw and the grammar of sculpture and the grammar of ceramic art can be applied into different mediums. So yeah, that's like the one insight and challenge that I kind of overcame through my practice. Yeah.
Rob Lee: That's great. That's more than a point five. I think you're onto something there where, you know, sometimes I rebel against the thing. Like everybody has a podcast now and I do a podcast, but I try to not overly identify with it.
I don't do the goofy thing. As a storyteller, no, I'm very specific in what I do. I help facilitate people sharing their own stories. And I'm providing maybe a guide. I do that through a podcast and getting very specific as to what the thing is.
And I think a more specific, I get with it. And the further I go down to the layers, I find who I am somehow in there as to why I do it and why am I curious about it. And the folks that are on here, the questions that are asked, the way that is edited, there's all intention to that versus I'm just shooting the breeze with different people and there's no direction.
Maybe earlier on, there was a bit less direction, a bit less curation, because there's this sort of novelty and this push. But I think in doing it for as long as I have, I've shifted and I'll add this to it. Doing it as long as I have and in the last year and change, being an educator, you know, that's another thing that I've got to mention to you. I do that now.
Hae Won Sohn: Well, what kind of classes or what do you teach?
Rob Lee: I teach podcast workshops at a college here and I had some time at a high school. So I do a few things. So having both that and the years involved like coming up on two decades being a podcast or my notion of what that is has changed a touch, especially with people having an idea of what podcasting is right now. And it's not what it was in 2009 when I started. You know, I mean, it's not the same. It's I saw this morning on billboard on boardroom rather that 2024 podcasting was a $7.4 billion industry.
Hae Won Sohn: I can't even talk.
Rob Lee: We threw advertising and so on. So for me, and this kind of goes into this next follow up question, for me, it's shifted what my notion is. And I know it's going to come up in the class that I'm teaching this summer, that, you know, are you making the creative thing, the podcast, sometimes it's journalistic, sometimes it's a theater oriented podcast, it's storytelling in that way. Are you making it for that creative intent? Or is it just, can we get to this commercial because that's who's paying? Because there's so many ads in it now.
Hae Won Sohn: Oh, you mean like that you're for your podcast?
Rob Lee: Yeah, I see that all the time now as I listen to more for research and different types of podcasts for the students I'm talking to, I don't want to just go in there only with an interviewer of podcast mindset.
I want to listen to different types. And I just see that there's no care and attention to what people are making now. Yes. All right, we've got five minutes of content.
And here's this ad from this thing you're never going to buy. That now, which is not what it was, nor the reason why I do it, or how I teach in it, you know, I'll say an experience that comes to mine is, let's say like last last year, we're like in the second session of the class. And as remember, the students were asking, so how do we monetize? I was like, you don't even know what your podcast is yet. I was like, we're asking the questions out of order, you know? Yeah.
Hae Won Sohn: Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's kind of like reminds me, you know, how like Instagram back in the days, it was really just about you and sharing your life. And now it's like ad after ad.
And, you know, even if it's not an official ad, you know, I'm not free from it either. But the way that I curate my Instagram feed, it's no longer personal. It's more about again, like branding myself and promoting myself as an artist.
So yeah, like that's one thing that I've been also thinking about for a long time, not that I have any resolution yet, but trying to erase the final image of my artwork while I'm making it. It was kind of like a, it's a practice that I've been implementing. Because oftentimes that that vague image that you have, like to simply saying, I'm going to be photographing this work in this way already sets the limit to how that work can evolve. So I've been trying to erase that end point in my mind and really just like dive into the process and see where that takes me.
Rob Lee: Process is very much for the people involved in it, you know, or me, like, oh, you know, when they do the thing, you mentioned Instagram, of, hey, go behind the scenes with me and watch me do this. I don't need you to watch me making questions and doing. I'm not properly dressed.
It might not be wearing pants when I'm writing a question. So I want to see that. But we've been told that people want the behind the scenes. It's like, no, they want insights, they want these nuggets. If we're doing that from a sort of branding standpoint, and I don't know, it's just something that when you're, I guess, in it, and when you're doing it for a certain period of time, you have maybe some adversity, maybe some wins, but you see what it actually looks like, whatever it is you're you're you're chasing, whether it's an art, whether it's in so the cultural space, but having more time in there, you're able to see it with a sort of different perspective, a more informed perspective, I suppose.
Hae Won Sohn: Yeah, I don't think it can be a true behind the scene if you're already labeling as a behind the scene, because it means like there's a camera present. So, you know, it has to really be some kind of like Truman Show type of setup for it to be like.
Rob Lee: Yeah. How did that camera get here? So this is the and actually it's funny the follow-up you actually covered it. So see, you've knocked out two other questions, because you're just over there cooking, that you don't even know that you knocked out. That's great.
Hae Won Sohn: What was it I did read through? I tried not to like overly like remember it because I didn't want to sound like a robot, but it probably just like flipped out.
Rob Lee: It's fine. It helps me actually sound like I'm doing normal. I want to move into this next question that I'll say the inspiration for this came out of again, I like pop culture like film, right? And I find when people go back and they have different versions, let's say you might look at a George Lucas film like Star Wars or something and it's like you went back and you added this to your movie.
It's like, I don't know if that was a win. Like why'd you add this goofy CGI here? I don't know if we need this added to the movie or sometimes when directors are like, well, we didn't have the technology then. So I went back and do this movie over and try to add this elements in there because we didn't have the funding.
I think of like Sam Raimi and doing the first, the second evil did. So with some of the elements of your work, how do you approach it or look at the idea of revisiting maybe old work or old ideas and maybe adding to that maybe saying, all right, I maybe do this differently if I have the opportunity to revisit a certain body of work. What are your thoughts about sort of revisiting work, whether from an idea perspective or overly creating perspective?
Hae Won Sohn: I think it's quite important. For me, I also do it a lot because again, like my work is very process-based, meaning that I have several ideas of starting points and not all processes or like most of those processes don't see an end point. So it's almost about like picking up where I drop the ball. But if I were to just continue in a linear timeline, the trajectory would also be just straight and almost too predictable.
So letting it pause and then taking another angle and like rerouting. I think it's an interesting way of kind of collaborating with your past self. Yeah, so I try to really like write down a lot of ideas even though I'm not going to be acting on it at this moment.
But just to give some starting points for my future self, if I run out of ideas or if I feel very stuck in my studio process or if I feel like I'm no longer creative anymore and just planting seeds for myself. And it happens quite literally too where I'm a hoarder in the sense that I barely throw out anything, especially if it's like a sculptural leftover form. Although the form itself doesn't speak to me at that moment, I kind of like save it in one corner of my studio. And because I'm not the same person, that form or that shape might speak to my future self.
Sometimes it happens within the course of like a day or two a week, months or even years. I'm like, huh, that now I can see it differently because I have different eyes and I have different relationships with the objects that I've been creating in my studio. So yeah, it's just I think it creates a layer of time in my the aesthetic of my work too. Because again, like the idea of like branding comes in again, where like if you're too focused about creating this identity of yourself as an artist and identity in your artwork, it soon becomes like a product line. You know, you're overly focused on that consistency and that control of aesthetic and quality. So in order to allow yourself to be a little bit more colorful, I think you have to always be in that mindset of like anti-branding, anti-product. And I think about what makes a product, what makes a brand and then actively do something that is against that, which is clearing out the past.
Don't do the clearing out fail, keep everything that you have. And you have to really design your timeline where it's not just pointing towards one direction to one angle, but diversify it as much as possible.
Rob Lee: Yeah, that makes sense. It makes me think of a few things. Makes me think of sort of the packaging that happens a lot of times as you're touching on branding, you know, in terms of doing this. I don't just go through, sometimes I use similar questions, but it's not like I try to write individualized questions for each guest. There's going to be maybe a stem is what I call it, the maybe the roots of a question, and I'm going to go back to it. So I already started writing questions for folks that I'm going to talk to in a few weeks, right?
And I'm going to come back to it later to see how I'm feeling and what am I curious about and what am I consuming that gives sort of direction. And even the other thing about returning to something with maybe new eyes, and maybe two ears, if you will, is sort of revisiting guests. Like I look at these use of doing the second interview as this is a continued conversation. We already have some familiarity. I don't interview people like I gotta put it like a lot of times I've never talked to a person before the interview. So these instances of going back through an interview and guests again, it's like, yeah, we got some of the nonsense out of the way. So let's catch up, you know.
And yeah, I think that's a really good point though, to be able to keep stuff that's there. It's like, is this speaking to me in what way is it speaking to me? What lived experience have I had that kind goes into maybe how I'm going to view this material or view this work? I think that's really important. And I look at even doing this now, like having, probably when we did the initial interview was probably maybe 100, maybe 200 episodes in.
Now I'm coming up on 900 in. So I would have met, I would hope I've gotten better, but I would imagine my perspective is a bit changed and colored and more informed.
Hae Won Sohn: Yeah, I mean, yeah, like when I was, you know, invited for this podcast, you know, I had a, I had a podcast that was released in the beginning of this year with another artist in New York City, she interviewed ceramic artists. And I was, I wasn't able to listen to the whole episode because it was kind of unbearable to hear myself talking.
But that particular episode, I would I'm going to say compared to other interviews that I've done before. My friend was telling me actually about this that I laugh so much when I don't need to laugh. It's almost like the anxiety coming out as laughter because you want to just like fill in that silence and laughter is the most, you know, possible by closet to listen to. And so I was like, okay, I'm never going to do another podcast again because like it also stays online.
It's almost like cemented and this like online space. It's not something that you can like erase from the world. But I realized actually the way to erase that is just keep talking and keep showing up when there is an opportunity because people have to know that, I mean, people know, but you also have to show that you have changed.
And, you know, they might hear me talk from our our conversations like five years ago. I think like, oh, she's not the same person or she is contracting. I mean, what's the word? She's contradicting herself. But I think that, you know, that's how anyone should be. They should be contradicting themselves because otherwise it means that, you know, you haven't changed and you haven't improved or you haven't had friends around to help you change your thought. And the worst thing that a person can be is that it's
Rob Lee: like, it's you then as you plus time. Those should be different people versus like now when it comes to the contradiction and sort of the maybe hypocrisy that some people kind of talk about.
It's like if I interview you today and tomorrow your questions of your answers are vastly different. I'm like, hi. And I laugh a lot as well. So it's but usually I'm just laughing to fill that air.
Hae Won Sohn: But it was over. It was too much.
Rob Lee: I want to move into sort of this next group of questions and sort of like the last group of questions. I want to talk about surface tension. Can we talk about that? Yeah, yeah. So surface tension, could you give us sort of the elevator pitch, you know, of what that is? The surface tension is because I don't know anything.
Hae Won Sohn: Yeah. So surface tension. So it's the current exhibition that I have up in self point. It's at a space called E one five seven gallery. So that's basically the actress Eastern Avenue or Eastern streets. And it's hosted by Burkholder agency. So it's not an art gallery in terms of the white tube or the typical commercial or artist commercial gallery or artist space that you can see. But the agency, they hold a couple of properties. That's a living space that they actually book.
They have it out so people can look at it as an Airbnb. And every season, I think they do like to fight to artists a year. Now they expanded to like for artists a year. So every season, they invite an artist to create an exhibition in the body of work that can be displayed within that living domestic space. So only for the opening date, furniture get moved out.
Not all of them because they want to keep that domestic setting. And people are invited to engage with the artist. But then after that public opening, it becomes a space where you can look at the work through the booking or requesting a credit tour.
But their idea is that instead of separating the arts from living, they want to provide an actual example of how the work can function or interact within a living space. So the curator, I think she's no longer with them, but the creator that invited me, we had a, we worked together when I had a show at Sam Gallery at University of Maryland in College Park. So she was a student, student worker at the gallery. But she had wrote a couple of essays about my work then. And then we kind of like stayed in touch. And then she got this job as a curator at this space that she invited me, which was basically the reason that I wanted to do it. Because, you know, like it was a lot of work in the sense that I had to carry and transport the work myself to Baltimore every week when I'm commuting. So it really the benefit or the motivation for me to say yes for that show is first, it was a connection that I had in the past. And I wanted to really nurture that. And also it was a chance for me to reconnect with my friends and my community back in Baltimore. I did a horrible job reaching out to people because I was just like, oh, getting the work done last minute and also just like duggling so many teaching load at that time.
But still, it's just kind of like felt good to go back to Baltimore. And I made like a little timid post on Instagram saying like, hey, I actually have a show and I didn't know if it was going to happen because it was so last minute, but it's up. And I hope, you know, the algorithm reaches the people.
And then there were actually people who saw the post and then made the time to show up, which was really sweet. But yeah, this show, because of that very particular and special setting where it can't be just any kind of sculpture that I make in the studio because there's a limit of space. We also have to think about how people are going to be navigating within the living space and what kind of work people will be able to afford and bring in their house because not everyone is living in a mansion.
Not everyone has like a vast storage space. So I had to really think about that practical or even commercial aspect of my work, which I sometimes enjoy those kind of frameworks that can be a limit. But, you know, it's again, like a framework where you can. Yeah, just like because oftentimes in my studio, I'm just like doing whatever I want.
So having that kind of limitation helps me to look at my work in a certain lens and then do some problem solving. But in a way that it actually influences the shape and it was also a good opportunity for me to combine and merge my drawing practice that I've been mentioning before. You know, I was lucky to even have that I felt lucky looking back to have that phase in my studio practice where I had this like collection of drawings. And then I saw all the leftover like materials that I had in the studio where I had a lot of like plaster boards that I poured from leftover plaster of pouring sculptures. So I was like, oh, maybe I should start to draw them. And I started to carve in and then kind of incorporate this that I have in my drawing onto my sculptures.
So it does it is a show, a special show for me in the sense that it shows kind of like every different angle that I try to study in my studio.
Rob Lee: Yeah. Yeah, see, see, again, like I said, having you go through and cook like these questions of like, I can scratch that one off. I can scratch that one off. I can break that mold.
So one of the questions I had in a your retouching on the carvings and sort of the in late surfaces in your work, like lid and tray reflect your connection to SenGom technique?
Hae Won Sohn: Yes, it's called Tongdom. Yes, very close.
Rob Lee: So could you could you describe what that technique is for for the listeners who undip?
Hae Won Sohn: Yes, so it has many different names. The traditional Korean name for the technique is called Tongdom. I can get call like a mission mile or just, you know, a ceramic in like where you use either a needle tool or carving tool in the Korean technique specifically. We use the carving tool that has like a V shape hook on the end.
And it's really thin. So you carve out lines when the clay is still before it's bone dry. And if you look at Korean Celadon where there is a lot of like drawings that are not applied on the surface, but it's very flush to the clay. So you carve out drawing and then you use a brush or tool to dab in another color of clay into those drawings.
And then you either trim it off or sand it down. So you're kind of like revealing the drawing going through this process of like carving out and putting in the clay and then scratching it off. So that's the technique that I just knew about because of, you know, the history of Korean ceramics and something that you learn when you go to school in Korea for ceramics as well. And yeah, that's just I didn't think of any other options when I was thinking like, oh, I should start drawing on my plaster sculptures.
You know, it was the technique that immediately I thought of because back in back when I was an undergrad, my professor always. He would say that, you know, or treasuring and valuing tradition is important, but you should or younger artists should also be able to make these traditions more contemporary and modernize it rather than keeping it in the form of how you learned it. Because again, that means you're seeing tradition as a tradition and just kind of preserving that in a very literal and stagnant way.
So how do you transform that? Because that's how tradition is even built. Things, way you interact or do things kind of change through time and then that becomes a tradition.
You don't want to fetishize your own tradition and then keep it as is. So that statement just stuck in my mind for a long time and applying those ceramic techniques onto my plaster sculpture. Although I'm not doing ceramics per se, I felt like I'm kind of keeping the mindset of the potter while dabbling with another material.
Rob Lee: And, you know, and I'm going back into it, I'm thinking like kind of what you were touching on like earlier of sort of, you know, the drawing becoming a part of it. I just see like sort of how you just described like the work there, that it's moving in this direction, that your style and the way that you're going about your work is like growing and developing. And it's like something that's familiar, but then something that's also new.
And I like when people are broadening the idea of what it is and what their work is and not being refined as you were touching on earlier, not the brand thing, you know. And it makes me think of just when people say, yeah, I'm a drawer, I'm a quilter and people come to mind, like S.B. Frazier comes to mind when she talks about like she's a, she draws, but really she's doing it with like thread. She's making these images, but it's the thread or this other guy named Michael Booker who talks about he makes quilts, but he actually draws the quilt and it's very intricate in his work. And you're like, no, that's not that. But isn't it?
Hae Won Sohn: You know, So I think drawing for me, maybe because I'm going, you know, I'm letting my sculptural practice and my drawings not the other way around, which is more typical, you know, like you design or do a sketch and then try to recreate that into a 3D.
So there's this generic. Tritium path of like a 2D form being transformed in 3D, but I don't think of drawing as a 2D practice. It is 2D. Maybe if it's on the screen, but I still think of drawing where it's not me just leaving mark or leaving lines behind, but it's me holding a pencil that has graphite and that graphite graphite is touching. The texture of paper. So depending on what paper you're using, what kind of tool that you're drawing with. It's to material kind of like hitting each other and creating frictions. So if you just add a little bit more thickness to that paper and then change the material to plaster, I'm basically, you know, using a plaster paper.
So how does the tool kind of glide and slide on to the surface? Am I able to draw the same line that I do as on paper? And then kind of like letting the material, you know, define the way that I move my hands. It's a very sculptural practice in a way. If you look in very like in the microscopic lens.
Rob Lee: I'm like, oh, I'm going to tell me more. That's tight. That's tight. And so I want to move into sort of this last real question before I go to those three rapid fire ones. And, you know, with this in mind, so surface tension is currently on view in Baltimore, Burr-Corder, Burr-Corder. I actually interviewed Scott.
Hae Won Sohn: Oh, you did. Okay, I should actually listen to that.
Rob Lee: This is a little bit, I've been to the space before as well. I missed the invite. So I just, you know, I'm sorry.
Hae Won Sohn: Okay, you're back on the pause. No hate me. So with that, you know, having the ties to Baltimore coming back to see friends and sort of connecting on, you know, the opportunity down here and spending the last few years in New York proper, New York City. So I'm curious on the, you know, what's your experience been like, like living and working and sort of a long established art hub, art center in New York, and how is that compare not like one is better or worse just they're different, obviously, to how does that compare to a smaller but vital arts community like here in Baltimore?
Hae Won Sohn: New York is definitely, you know, as much as it's resourceful, because there's so many things happening and artists tend to gather in New York City for the sake of being in New York. It's resourceful, but it pulls you away from the core a lot. So you have to, I think you have to really be prepared for that. You have to invent a new way of really using your time, because when I was back in Baltimore, it was first right out of grad school.
So I have that momentum of just always being in the studio. And at first, when I got a residency at Baltimore Clayworth, and it became official that I'm moving to Baltimore, I was, it was like the only choice that I had. And I wasn't either like negative about it or positive about it. But I did think like, okay, this is going to be interesting. Like Baltimore, if you just like Google it on YouTube and like based on the videos that you see, it's very contrasting compared to New York. And like coming in as a foreigner, I felt more of that anxiety of like, oh, okay, I don't know what I can do in this city.
But because of that rawness, I was able to stay focused in my studio practice. There wasn't as much as opportunities as I had in New York City. But I was lucky enough to get right into the community through the residency.
So I needed just enough of what I, I was able to find just enough of what I needed in order to maximize my studio practice. So that two and a half years that I had in Baltimore, I wasn't realizing at that time. But when I was about to move out, I actually did have a significant body of work that is separate from my graduate practice that helped me to build a foundation as an artist out in the world. So when I first moved to New York City, for the first couple of years, I think I was really focused on this like settling down, finding work.
I was barely able to make art, but I was still able to be an artist because the work that I created back in Baltimore was sustaining me. And in two years, that the power that my past work had was starting to fade because, you know, you can't really sustain too long with your old word. You always have to be like, you know, renew yourself as an artist. But about when the impact of my past work was starting to fade out, I was settled in, into New York, and I was able to, yeah, make more time in the studio and then build another practice. I do think, um, particular to me, Baltimore was when I was getting fatter in my studio practice, whereas in New York, I got denser.
Someone told me that their professor had told them that artistic practice, it's not always about being productive. You go through this stage where, you know, even a kid, you see, they suddenly grow so tall in like high school. So you just have to eat a lot, just have to build up that nutrition in order for you to kind of grow taller in that growing season. So I was growing fatter in Baltimore in the sense that I didn't think too much. I was just focusing on the making and then keeping that momentum. So I had that quantity and the abundance. And then with that, in New York, when I wasn't able to make in the studio, I still had the work that was speaking back at me where I was able to start to make sense of why I did this, why it made that, and then go deeper and then taller conceptualizing my work and then reading and doing the research. Kind of building a trunk of a tree that's leased with.
So later when it becomes summer, leaves can grow from there. So that was, you know, that was my experience between Baltimore and New York. And I don't think it's going to be the same for a lot of artists, but I do, typically if anyone asked me about the New York life and, oh, should I go to New York as soon as I graduate? I want to jump right into the art hub. I usually say, no, take your time and you're only going to get beaten up by the city and you're really going to lose that momentum. So go to a place where you can find your colleagues, but also keep the priority to the making and making space for yourself to do that.
Rob Lee: That makes a lot of sense. And thank you for that. Thank you for sharing that because I think of the sort of the same thing where I know in some of the spots that I go into, some of the opportunities that I go in that to sort of getting fat. And I'm conscious of it, getting fat.
Yeah, I got skinny, so I got tall. I'm tree-like as you were saying with your analogy, but I think is sort of the amount of work that I'm able to do here is, yeah, I wouldn't in five years get to 860 plus episodes, but being in another space. And as you're touching on that, I saw it, you know, first hand the sort of hustle and the grind. Like I was tired when I came back from New York and I was like, I did three things. Oh, right, because I'm hustling and I got to go to this thing and I got to go to that thing.
And I found that like I did a few things that were podcast related, but I can see the amount of work and time disappearing because I'm doing so many cultural things that and I can just forecast it almost. I'll be doing this. I'll have to go to this. I'll be invited to this. And the other thing is this is a collaborative project. If I'm to make it internal, it's a collaborative project. So being able to get a hold of people some selfies, like getting that access is cool. And I'd like where you close closed out of like probably give yourself a give yourself a second. You know, if you're graduating, give yourself a second and almost do those sort of small step stones to the next thing. Maybe it's if you're leaving for Baltimore, maybe it's Philly for a bit. Maybe it's Connecticut or Rhode Island. And then when you feel like you're good and you're tight, then try to, you know, do the New York thing.
Hae Won Sohn: Yeah. So yeah, like I think I'm now, you know, getting like on my next on the way to my next chapter where I can grow fat again. So you want to expand, you know, you want to take steps of expanding horizontally and then vertically. So I've been, I think I've been doing the vertical for some time, but I'm just like growing too skinny. So I want to expand again side to side.
Rob Lee: So that's kind of it for the real questions. And thank you for for sharing. I think that's a really good insight. It's a gem there. So I got three rapid fire questions. I want to rock with you really quickly. And here we go.
The first one. What is the last thing that and it could be anything. It doesn't have to be art related.
It can be early, but it doesn't have to be. What was the last thing that genuinely amazed you? Like, wow, how did they make that? It could be like a dessert. I like dessert. But anything that comes to mind that you're like, I'm amazed by this.
Hae Won Sohn: I hope it's not a boring answer. But my roommate, she's like six years younger than me. And she's been starting to build her like running practice these days. She wanted to like go for a marathon. So she's been like running Central Park almost like every other day.
And I don't know, like, I mean, I mean, I felt, I feel like this is such an generic answer. But like her discipline and like the motivation that she has when I asked her, like, how do you, how do you be so disciplined? And then she just said that she enjoys seeing herself improve day by day, although it's just like by inch or by centimeter. And it was just refreshing to hear that again and see it, you know, not through like a YouTube video that's supposed to be like motivational, but seeing like a real life example in a person, because I can be really lazy and stagnant, although, you know, the progress that I'm making in my career or in artistic practice, like as a person, I think I often get squished from the exterior facade that I have. So just like seeing someone who's really trying to cultivate them cultivate themselves from within. Yeah, that mindset was really inspiring.
Rob Lee: That's a great answer. You know, I was sharing with you like earlier sort of this visage and sort of some of the changes that I've made and the look I get from people, they almost don't believe me. Like I'm lying because like, hey, I get up and consistently do this every day and I like it. No, you don't.
That can't be true. And this is like, what do you mean? And seeing someone that does it or even this, even this, years ago, I was applying early on in this whole podcast, they hadn't been a podcaster for like maybe five or six years. I was trying to get a job in podcasting, but at Hopkins. And I remember applying, I had to clean up my podcast profile because I was a very inappropriate podcaster at a certain point.
Everything was comedy and everything was a bit, it wasn't like problematic, but I was like, I don't know if I want to present this as a portfolio. And I remember I wrote this article and I did a podcast that supported this, I put together a package. And I did this article about appreciating the ordinary as extraordinary. And I find that we don't do that enough.
Like it's, we need the best, most intense version of it. Otherwise, it falls flat and we have this sort of lack of confidence of whether it's worthwhile. And I think the ordinary in itself is extraordinary. I still think that just, you have a look at your like, your breathing system is just some of the functions that go on that happen day to day. You're like, Oh, right, I'm breathing properly. Yeah. And you're making your work just the fact that this did not exist. And now it does. That's extraordinary. That's amazing.
Hae Won Sohn: Yeah, put us in my room. You do on a commercial.
Rob Lee: So with so much art out there, that's a second question, with so much art out there, how do you stand out it and keep, keep going? You touched on sort of the branding piece and sort of the online piece. And I run into that as well with what I do. There are 700,000 podcasts or something out there. And what is that unique trade or that unique thing that you do to just make your stuff stand out?
Hae Won Sohn: To make my stuff, my stuff stand out, my work. I honestly, I don't think it has been standing out the way that I wanted it to. But this is a realization that I had recently, and therefore, why I had pursued the full time teaching opportunity that my work really shines when I'm talking about it and making it in the classroom setting more so in my own studio setting. Because in my studio, I realized that I actually, because I think every artist has an audience in their mind, whether it fits their, their peer artists or collectors, galleries, museums, the general public. For me, it was the students.
If I really boil it down, I was thinking about my students. Because I think my work in one aspect, it's about the sculptural possibility once the craft kind of derails from the traditional way of like making a utilitarian object. And I enjoy those kind of like mistakes that I make or the failures that I have in the studio, because it's a chance for me to find a solution for that failure. And that solution becomes a possibility that can be created into a system where you're exploring new forms and new shapes.
That is, that is different from the typical success. And so, just naturally, when I was in the classroom and teaching students, and usually I use my work as an example to demonstrate how you should do a process, I was like, wow, like my students, you know, they're not just seeing me slowly as a teacher, but the way that they are, you know, their eyes are shining when I'm showing them something and also like the process and the final work, their eyes are like, they really have that, you know, attention. And they're so curious to pick up all the information that I'm trying to relay through my words and the work. And that's the ideal, that's the idealistic response that I want to get from the audience who see my work in like an exhibition or, you know, anywhere. So, yeah, so that's why I accepted kind of like, because in the past, I think I kind of separated my teaching practice from my artistic practice, because I wanted to, you know, I had this elusive idea that I can be a full-time artist, and I don't need to have a job to sustain my artistic practice.
I can, you know, sustain by selling my work, blah, blah. So I wanted to somehow like in my mind, keep it separate. I have a teacher ego and I have the artist ego, but more and more, I've been realizing and also accepting that it's very intertwined, almost inseparable. And the moment that I kind of bring my teaching and even see it as part of a craft that I'm conducting in my studio, my work really shines within that context. So I had to kind of pursue this path of becoming an educator, because the more I go down that route, it only nourishes my artistic practice. Yeah.
Rob Lee: I think so much sense. I feel you on that. And yeah, you know, the little bit before I go into this last one, a little bit of the encounter is that, you know, that experience in teaching and just made me kind of like, fill back in some of the things, like, oh, I'm a master at this, I don't have to think about this. It's like, no, you're explaining this to someone. Back up my own process and how I do about it keeps me honest, if you will. So here's the last one. This is going to be the shortest one possible. I like this one, I think. What was the last thing you ate? What was the last thing you ate today?
Hae Won Sohn: The last thing I ate was sweet lemon and orange mixed with a bunch of water. It's diluted orange juice. That's my last thing I ate or drank. Or should I go for what I ate rather than drink? I had Greek yogurt with a drizzle of honey, a lot of peanut butter, and sliced apples. I like this.
Rob Lee: I like this. That's probably what I'm going to have for this post podcast. I think I got some Greek yogurt. I think I got blackberries though. I think it's going to be blackberries.
Hae Won Sohn: It's a very simple, healthy meal. I've been doing less cooking and more whole, raw food together. Just to keep it simple, but also keeping up with my gut health and all.
Rob Lee: Like bio is so important. It's been great to catch up and tap back in with you. Such a fun time. I'm happy to hear from you. There are two things I want to do as we close out. One, I want to thank you so much again for coming back onto the podcast and spending some time with me.
Two, I want to invite and encourage you to share with the listeners who, one, they should listen to your first interview. You have a chance to go back. Also, where can they find you? Where can they check you out? Social media, website, all that good stuff? The floor is yours.
Hae Won Sohn: Yes. If you want to find me physically, maybe hold on to it since I'm wrapping up my life right now. Maybe in a few months, find me at Alfred, New York, near Canada. Online, you can find me on Instagram, H-A-E-W-S-O-H-N, but I encourage you to go to my website, which is tanwantsong.com.
Rob Lee: Yes. There you have it, folks. I'm going to again thank Haywon Stone for coming back onto the podcast and catching up with me. This has been great. For Haywon, I am Rob Lee saying that there's art, culture, and community. And then around your neck of the woods, you just have to look for it.
