The Last of a Series

I just published my third book of collected drawings done during the pandemic. This is probably my last, since I can’t keep on churning the same type of collection every year. The idea for Pseudologia Fantastica was almost a whim, and carrying on that whim for over three years is a little long. That’s not to say that I’m going to stop drawing using my current style, busy drawings that fill the full page, but I’m not going to do them anymore with the purpose of publishing. There are still many ideas that I feel like I need to push, so I’m still going to continue with it.

Also, the pandemic, which was the catalyst to my busy drawing style, hasn’t really affected me much recently in regards to my art. In fact, I’ve been much busier now and I’m finding less time to make art.

I encourage artists to make prints and make books of collections of their art. Not only are they an alternative way of selling your work, they are also an alternative way of showing your work, free from the confines of a traditional gallery. I kinda wish I sold prints much earlier in my career. I always thought that my works were cheap enough as it is, and a Glico print wouldn’t make sense as an alternative purchase. But now I find that prints are just as good a way of driving revenue as much as the original. It’s also a way of meeting your audiences halfway, especially if they don’t necessarily have the resources to purchase an original. The same goes for books of collected works.

Anyway, I hope the people who get my third book enjoy my collection. They’re basically the same images found on my Instagram and featured on this website, but it also includes explanations as well as a list of things found on the page, much like an I Spy book.

Time to Show Some Work

I started early applying for shows this year. Last year, I didn’t really do to many shows, but this year, I plan to be more aggressive. With most in-person galleries out of the question due to the omicron variant of the coronavirus, I’ve been more focused with publications and showing work online or either sending it to galleries overseas. What I do notice though is that North America and Europe to a greater extent is very open to international artists. There’s always opportunities for competitions, calls for submissions, and residencies. I’ve actually been accepted in a couple of residencies last year, but just before I’m about to commit, covid surges yet again and my plans have to be scrapped.

Two places I’m having the most trouble in trying to break into are Hong Kong and Japan. I’ve always loved Hong Kong. I used to go there quite frequently before China started cracking down on protesters. What I noticed in galleries is that they’re mostly interested in Chinese artists and not much else. I realize there’s a great trend for Chinese art, but what about locals looking for other artists? It’s very difficult to get my work in the city. The same goes for Japan. It seems that galleries, at least the ones looking for artists, are exclusively interested in those that make Japanese-style art or art about Japan. I don’t make either. I don’t make anime/manga, nor do I feel qualified to make any serious work related to Japanese culture. Heck, I don’t even think I make Canadian art! If anyone knows of any galleries in these two places interested in work that is more in my vein, please let me know.

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It’s my mom’s birthday today. She was a wonderful woman. I’m not sure if my dad realizes how lucky he was. I know I didn’t truly appreciate her when she was still alive.

…

My book is almost done and am now ready for test printing and perhaps even selling them locally. With the postal services being devastated by the pandemic, it still won’t make sense for me to sell them overseas, but I still plan to meet my schedule of making another book this year. I’m thinking of printing next month once I’m less busy with my taxes and getting my car fixed. And no, I really don’t plan on making money out of these publishing projects. It’s just a way for me to mark my artistic progress.

Book, Too

My second book has been printed and I’ve sent initial copies to my family as well as to Library and Archives Canada. I’ll be sending it out to galleries as well as to people who really, REALLY want it, but right now, selling it online just doesn’t make sense for me. Due to the coronavirus, the Korean postal service, which is normally amazingly cheap and fast, has been crippled. Sending out one book to California, I was presented with two options: $2 regular with no tracking which might take two months to get there, or $24 express which will get there in a week. Before the pandemic, I could send packages to California using the regular option and it would get there in less than a week. Damn you, pandemic!

두 번째 책이 인쇄되어 첫 번째 사본을 가족과 캐나다 도서관 및 기록 보관소에 보냈어요. 갤러리와 정말 책을 원하는 사람들에게도 보낼 거예요. 하지만 지금은 온라인으로 판매하는 것이 제게 말이되지 않아요. 코로나 바이러스로 인해 일반적으로 놀랍도록 저렴하고 빠른 한국 우편 서비스가 마비되었어요. 한 권의 책을 캘리포니아로 보내면서 두 가지 옵션이 주어졌어요. 일반 $ 2, 추적이없고 도착하는 데 두 달이 걸릴 수있어 아니면 특급 $ 24, 일주일 안에 도착할수 있어요. 전염병이 발생하기 전에 일반 옵션을 사용하여 캘리포니아로 패키지를 보낼 수 있었고 일주일 이내에 도착했어요. 젠장, 코로나 바이러스!

Book is done, so I could peacefully die now. Technically, my work is out there. It’s been out there for a while now. I don’t have children, but at least my art will hopefully live on for a bit. I’m not a rich person, and I don’t have much of value at all, but there’s always my art. My images, my ideas. For some reason, I keep thinking about Bob Dylan’s line, “…I gave her my heart, but she wanted my soul…” After my worldly possessions, my heart, and my soul… my art can live on past me.

책이 끝났으니 이제 평화롭게 죽을 수 있어요. 엄밀히 말하면 내 작업은 저 밖에 있어요. 한동안 밖에 있었어요. 아이가 없어, 그러나 적어도 내 예술은 조금만 살아남을 것입니다. 부자가 아니고 가치가 전혀 없어요 하지만 항상 내 예술이 있어요. 내 이미지, 내 아이디어. 왠지 밥 딜런의 대사를 계속 생각 해요.“… 나는 그녀에게 내 마음을 주었지만 그녀는 내 영혼을 원했다…” 내 인생의 소유물, 내 마음, 내 영혼 밖에, 내 예술은 살 수 있어요.

And no, I have no delusion that I’m famous or someday will be famous. But yeah, at least there will always be some art somewhere that proves I once existed, no matter how unsuccessful an artist I become.

아니, 저는 유명한 거나 언젠가 유명해질 것이라는 망상은 없어요. 하지만 그래, 적어도 저는 아무리 실패한 예술가가 되더라도 저는 한때 존재했음을 증명하는 예술은 항상 어딘가에있을 거예요.

Another Book No One Will Buy

Over the weekend, I was finalizing the design for a book I’m compiling. This is the second time I published a book and god bless Canada for letting citizens publish books and have free ISBNs, essentially encouraging everyone to be publishers. If I had known this when I was in high school, I would’ve published my horrible comic books with my buddy Duane. And now that I’m much older, I’m publishing my horrible art.

주말 동안에 저는 편집중인 책의 디자인을 마무리하고있었어요. 캐나다 시민들이 책을 출판하고 무료 ISBN을 가질 수 있어요. 본질적으로 모든 사람이 출판사가되도록 장려합니다. 그래서 한 책을 출판 한 것은 이번이 두 번째이에요.

In the US, ISBNs are $125 for one number. They are cheaper when you buy them in bulk, but that seems to be more aimed towards small publishers than your regular joe who wants to turn his pdf into a physical book. In Canada, all that’s asked for publishers is that they register their books in the national database and, if possible, send a copy to be archived. This was actually my first motivation to publish a book many years ago, to leave a mark other than in galleries or online. People might forget me in a few years, but in an archive somewhere is a collection of my works which I’m probably too ashamed of and doesn’t represent my current works and tastes anymore. Forget children. A collection of my shameful drawings will be my legacy.

미국에서 ISBN은 한 번호 당 $ 125이에요. 대량으로 구입할 때 더 싸지만 PDF를 실제 책으로 바꾸고 싶은 사람들 보다 소규모 출판사를 대상으로하는 것 같아요. 캐나다에서 발행인에게 책을 국가 데이터베이스에 등록하고 할수 있으면, 사본을 보내면되요. 이것은 제 실제로 수년 전에 책을 출판하고 갤러리 나 온라인 이외의 다른 흔적을 남기려는 첫 번째 동기였어요. 몇 년 후에 사람들은 나를 잊을 수 있지만 아카이브 어딘가에는 내가 너무 부끄러워하고 더 이상 내 현재 작업과 취향을 나타내지 않는 내 그림들이 있을거에요. 아이들은 잊어라. 제 부끄러운 그림 모음집 이제 유산이 될 거예요.

Anyway, it is time I updated my awful works and have a new book published. This time, I’m working on a collection of my full-page busy drawings which I started last September. Last year was horrible, and if something could come out of the awfulness of 2020, it might as well be a small collection of my works.

어쨌든, 이제 제 끔찍한 그림들을 업데이트하고 새 책을 출판 할 때이에요. 이번에 작년 9 월에 시작한 전체 페이지의 바쁜 그림 모음을 중이에요. 작년은 끔찍했고 2020 년의 끔찍함에서 무언가 나올 수 있다면 제 그림들의 작은 컬렉션이 될 수도 있어요.

I don’t expect to get rich off of this, so I’m not yet firm on how I’m going to go about selling and marketing it. So far, I just want to finish it.

이것으로 부자가 될 것이라고 기대하지 않는데. 판매하고 마케팅하는 방법에 대해 아직도 확실하지 아니네요. 지금까지 끝내고 싶어요.

A New Project

Someone floated to me the idea of making an ‘I Spy’ book. This sounds quite daunting, but having a project that would last me a good while actually sounds very appealing to me. Like my previous piece, it would mean drawing much larger images in order to be much better for print. I wouldn’t rely too much on text because viewers could easily see them and psychoanalyze me to death. And come approximately five to six months time, I would have enough images for a small collection for print. The only downside is planning and coming up with images, but that’s already something I struggle with on a daily basis.

This wouldn’t be my first foray into making a book. I once published a collection of my thesis works. It was a way for me to exhibit small works and have people examine them at home at their leisure as opposed to being in a gallery. I didn’t really have any expectations when I made the book. I just wanted to have all of the works in a collection, and then I could move on. What I didn’t realize is that once I had it registered with an ISBN number, the Canadian book archives would also want a copy for their collection. It’s been years now, and many of the images in that collection is not as strong as I would like and not really representative of what I do these days. Looking at the image above, this isn’t really what I do now. I would like to think I am better than this. It would be a shame if I die and the only thing that survives of my work are those images in the Canadian library archives somewhere in Ottawa.

I think making an ‘I Spy’ book would be very much the same process as my previous book, but simpler due to the planned number of images. My previous book had roughly 60 images in it, while an ‘I Spy’ book would be more like ten images. It would barely be a comic book and more like a pamphlet. Due to the small number of pages, I’m hoping I could design the book and have it print to order, as in print them whenever someone buys them online, instead of having a minimum of 250 copies printed in the initial batch which would leave me with so many books I have no idea how to sell. I remember having my first book and looking at stacks of them and wondering, “Now what?” Do I call Barnes and Noble?

This “Now what?” situation is notorious especially living in Seoul and having no storage for anything. This is why I avoid doing sculptures these days. On my previous projects, I had all of these works and not know what to do with them. As pleased as I am with materializing what I imagined in my head into actual physical objects, they end up becoming more burdensome than anything. This is why I stick with small drawings.

In my previous work, the hunt for words and images is just a collateral activity. The main goal was to collect my works and present them to the public. Looking back now, it was obnoxiously arrogant of me. Who would want a collection of my works? I’m an unknown artist. Anyway, the purpose of an ‘I Spy’ book is the hunt for images, the artist and viewing his work (and knowing him) are the collateral. Older and more experienced, I know that no one gives a damn about me. Just make interesting images.

The biggest fear for me here is that it would mean stepping away from my usual style of work for a while, a style that I’ve been comfortable with for so many years now. But I guess we all have to change things up a bit sometimes.

Quick Boring Post About Editors

It goes without saying publishers need to invest on good editors.  They are almost as vital as the writers themselves. Being in Korea, I notice that editing English text seems to be more of a discretionary afterthought; that is if it’s even considered at all. It’s really a shame that a country that is so invested in learning English, people aren’t really concerned with being accurate in applying the English they paid good money to learn. It’s the reason why Koreans can sometimes be just as bad as a lot of Asian countries in misappropriating the English language (www.engrish.com/).

Editors are vital not only in ensuring grammatical accuracy but also in making sure that contents are appropriate, non-offensive, and sensical (a term which a good editor will catch as not being a “real word”). I’ve been studying Korean and using this book which was published in the country. I imagine it’s designed for foreigners who wish to learn the language in the hopes of interacting with Koreans and perhaps visiting the country. Instead, it gave me an insight into the writer’s xenophobia, lack of sensitivity and outdated grasp of reality.

Why would the writer want North Korea to go bankrupt? Doesn’t he/she realize that the country has millions of people, presumably former countrymen, starving? How about the rather casual use of cancer in a language training material? Classy! You also don’t catch cancer like the flu. Your body develops it. As for the bit about Salman Rushdie, I hoped that the book was written in 1989, but sadly, it was written long after Rushdie came out of hiding. Also, why would a news organization report that a writer, who is in fear of assassination, is still in hiding? Who is this news for? Terrorists?

This last bit turned me off the most.  The book was written by university professors… educators. And yet their jingoism reeks off the page. The Americans are not colonists in South Korea. They are partners. They have just as much to gain from being here as the South Koreans. How could such a sentence be of any help to the American wishing to learn Korean?

Korean publishers as well as anyone in Korean media using the English language, please hire editors. Hire editors and pay them well.