A Village Girl named City Girl

MY STORY

A village girl named City Girl

I was born in Yangya-ri, an hour outside Joenju, South Korea. My mom named me City Girl. (Kyong-ok) Did she know my future? Because I now live in a city. I have lived in many cities, from Dallas, SF, LA, and Berkeley to Augsburg and Würzburg.

There's something in a name. It's a prophecy. It's a map. It's a gift.

As a child, I loved getting lost in the rice fields, around the lake and small hills, where I felt other beings talking to me. I would talk to trees, rocks, and small flowers.

I would sit for hours listening to them. I wanted to know how they could be so exquisitely small and perfect. I tried to understand their nature and how God whispered their beings into the universe and planted them in my village. How their many roots, like antennas, could draw up the nutrients from the soil and make them so beautiful with their violet, red, and yellow petals.

Forever daydreaming until I had to go home to eat dinner, I watched the fairies, listened to the witches, and roamed about the land talking to Mr. Kim. He was the Oxen that Dad used in the rice fields. I had my faithful dog. Sometimes, he would accompany me on my journeys. We would look up at the stars, graze the waters, and listen to trees playing music with the wind. With its invisible fingers, the wind played with the leaves and branches of trees. Sitting on a large rock, my dog and I would listen, lost in the melodies as I painted the skies with my imagination.

Shortly after my 8th birthday, we immigrated to the US. Coming from a small village, I learned the art materials available to kids like me. I never held a colored pencil until I moved to Dallas. That's where I discovered acrylics, watercolors, crayons, colored pencils, and oils. That is when I knew I could bring my fantasies to life through art.

Not only that, I could also bring into existence other visions of beauty.