Hojin

Hojin. A severe shot of her, but I've always liked it. And Hojin could be quite solemn when she was working. Upstairs in Room 491, the old Visual Studies studio. About 2007, before I shifted my classes to Room 170, downstairs. (These upstairs rooms had been the same since Wurster was first built--the cabinets, the moldings, the plywood walls, the worn desks.)

We'd first met when she appeared in the doorway of the room adjacent, a year or two before--I was there with Katie, reviewing a huge stack of 11A portfolios. A beautiful, long-haired Korean woman with very much her own air--both self-assured and yet diffident--who announced in a whispery voice that she'd come from Cal Arts, in Animation, and was interested in the MA in Design. We talked for a long time, I learned parts of her story, and she showed me a set of remarkably fine collage drawings on large sheets of black paper. I can still see them. Hojin. We accepted her, of course--although (as I later learned) she didn't have a penny, and was doing school by very skillfully readjusting the pieces of her financial life, through small loans at I-House, deferment, and a grant or two from distant sources. She never seemed concerned, though--these balancings were how the world worked. And through her whole time here, Hojin made beautiful work--always with these qualities--present in how she addressed the unknown.

I remember the first time she visited me at my El Cerrito studio--Hojin paused at the threshhold, and bowed. Her Korean acknowledgement of the place of a teacher. It was beautiful moment--although Hojin, in her presence as an artist, always made me feel that I was learning from her as well.

It's funny, to think back on that time----the specifics don't come to mind as much as Hojin's inspired presence, which I have no doubt continues to animate her world. She returned to Korea, sent me a letter once (an email) with pictures of a recent project. The university there had chosen to cut down a row of old ginkgo trees--there was a protest, of course, but the trees were removed. Hojin's response--to regrow the trees--to reanimate them--by painting them again on the wall behind... Living shadows, perhaps...

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