Choi Kyu-il: Seal Engraver

"Don't you think you should know where all that wabi-sabi came from?" asked Kang Joon-Hyuk, Korea's most creative and enthusiastic promoter and producer of contemporary ddfcultural arts, when we were working together on the 1990 Los Angeles Festival in Los Angeles.

Back then, I was completely captivated by my new (since 1985) study of  Chanoyu, Japanese tea ceremony with a master teacher/practitioner in Los Angeles Sosei Matsumoto. I could talk of little else to friends or any who was within 2 feet of me.

I must have been insufferable in sharing my then three (of a total of 8 to date) Japan  exploits with Mr. Kang. In 1989, a fabulous week of classes at the Midorikai program for foreign students in Kyoto's Urasenke school and visiting temples as part of the entourage of the grand tea master Hounsai, Sen Soshitsu XV, I took a trip northward to Kanazawa where I happened to be introduced to Nanen, a contemporary Japanese artist who carves stone seals utilizing kyujitai, the traditional pictographic shapes of Chinese characters. She was printing them in a variety of colors and gold leaf on various types of hand made washi, some of which were being converted into fans and lanterns. 

Here, however, was someone who knew how to capture my obsessive compulsive attention,   to get me to channel my enthusiasm toward a heritage that was and is in its own right superb without equal. He decided to introduce me to his friend Choi Kyu-il, an artist who is a stone seal carver, so we got in his car and drove to a nondescript neighborhood somewhere in Seoul.

Stone seals, used throughout Asia for their imprinting utility, figure into the full length and breadth of Korea's history, beginning with the mythic founder Tangun who is said to have descended from heaven to rule the people carry three stone seals. For centuries their creators have taken a backseat in the cultural hierarchy in deference to calligraphers. Choi prefers to be called an artisan rather than an artist.

Choi Kyu-il's brush paintings and seal carving.

The son of an itinerant pushcart worker father (and the usually under reported mother) Mr. Choi, then 67 years of age, had lackluster success at a number of small businesses following his college education. Most importantly, the family man of four children and an enterprising wife, was completely uninspired. At the age of 32 he tried his hand at seal carving, a solo venture informed by renowned books of Chinese calligraphy undertaken without "benefit" of teacher.

We entered the building from the sidewalk but immediately stepped down through a narrow corridor. Sunlight didn't seem to be a priority for this somewhat bent over man with a long white beard and hair. Stones in various sizes from palm-sized to those more like parking lot barriers, were scattered on the floor, leaning up against the walls and his work table. Also, there were lots of large sketches on white paper made with brush and ink.

Mr. Choi's "studio" was more like a quarry but in the basement of yet another 1950s concrete building that survived Korea's tumultuous 20th century of occupation and war, New and Old Village movements and general corruption. With the kind translation of Mr. Kang, I learned that Mr. Choi had a unique artistic practice. He carved but rarely printed his works on paper.

In my native enthusiasm, I recited the itinerary of my recent exploits in Japan, shared some photos of Nanen's work. It was pretty innocent, but in hindsight a bit rude to my hosts. 

Nonetheless, as one artist interested in another, Mr. Choi asked, "How fast does she carve?"

Speed is one of his well-honed faculties, and he exercises himself in other media, such as croquis, the rapid Western-style drawing technique. Only Choi uses brush and ink rather than the usual pencil or charcoal, and works on the floor. After "performing" a few female nudes, he handed me a brush and invited me to try. While I have seen more women's bodies in my life than he has, nonetheless, I was unsure where to place the first line and breathless when I called it quits ending, rather than completing the form. He beamed at the "finish line". Another "Ta-da!" He gave me his as a gift, along with a few others of lobsters and horses.

His fame spread slowly due to the fact that he is never sells his work, the stones themselves, and is reluctant at best to have them printed. His first exhibition was in 1985. His workplace, extremely cramped with stacks upon boxes upon crates of the soft "soapstone" used by seal carvers, resembled more likely his former construction supply store.

When one looks at a carving, whether it's the statue of "David" by Michaelangelo or anything before it or after, speed is not the first thing that comes to mind. Even Michaelangelo's fabled comment about just cutting away everything that wasn't David, doesn't seem to be relevant to Choi's process. 

Next, Mr. Choi took it upon himself to create his first Romanized image in stone by carving my first name into the narrow edge of a stone blank about 3" x 1" x 2", tiny by comparison to the seemingly baby boulders stacked everywhere in his workspace. Getting slowly up from his bench, due to a chronic physical disability, he took a thinner  tool and began to dig into what seemed to be his clenched palm. A cloud of white stone dust grew and spread over his hand. At once, he blew it away opened his palm fully to reveal a multi-lined poem scratched carefully on its wide surface. I almost wanted to shout, "Ta-da!"

  

Choi is said to profess never to repeat a knife stroke, believing that each movement has a life of its own. Thus it is easy to see this otherwise reclusive artist feeling content as a social being. It took him 12 years to develop his technique of il do il wek, or "one touch, one stroke" through which he calls into being Chinese characters in no less that 36 different styles, including those reflecting ancient Chinese oracle-engraved bones. He has worked with hieroglyphic forms as well as narrative images of nudes, Korean farmer dancers, and whatever else pleases him. 

He proudly showed me a low table top upon which as assembled 27 stones, the face of each were over 6 inches square, of the character for "travel" carved in myriad layouts. Each was a stunning, animated image;
together
they promoted great
movement despite
their
 collective weight.

I found his work hanging in one of Insadong's tiny tea rooms, a bartered exchange, I was assured by my friends. One of his works, the entirety of the Kumgang Sutra, (Vajrasamadhi Sutra) encompass 1,111 stones, 6 cm X 6 cm, when rubbed required 11 large, uncut sheets of paper. He has also done other sutras and many poems of his favorite Korean and Chinese poets, but few have been seen by the public.

Kyoto Journal #60 (2005)