Getting wrapped up in the fabric of their lives
By Victoria Gail-White
Advertiser Art Critic
| • | 'Wrappings of Happiness'
Honolulu Academy of Arts Through Dec. 7 |
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During the Ch™san Dynasty (1392-1910) and under the influences of Confucianism, a strict hierarchy, women in Korea were secluded from public society. Girls from the age of 10 were taught to sew, and sewing served as a monotony-breaker in their lives. In their isolation, they stitched together a variety of fabrics, including silk, ramie and cotton. Some were embroidered, while some were elaborately decorated with painted designs on cotton and cut-out paper patterns on oiled paper.
Many pojagi, generally square, were made from discarded cloths and stitched together in abstract compositions. The connecting stitches on these cloths (much like enclosed French seams) allowed many of them to be unlined (unlike European and American quilts) and showed the translucency of the silks to full advantage. The maker balanced colors and lines as a painter would. The gossamer Chogakpo (patchwork pojagis), wedged between pieces of transparent plastic in the center of the gallery, float like translucent Mondrian paintings. "Op Po" (self-patterned silk, 19th century, 95-by-95 centimeters) is a particularly fine example. Textures and patterns on predominantly neutral colors are sliced with patterned pieces of red, orange, pink, green and deep purple.
The various categories of pojagi are used for different purposes and different classes of people. Kung po were the wrapping cloths of royalty and court aristocrats, while min po were the cloths used by the common people. There are special names for cloths to cover the food table (sang po), wrap a gift of fabrics, jewelry and also one used to wrap a wooden goose presented to the bridegroom's family called a kiro gi po.
The handiwork these unknown women (there are no signatures) produced illustrates an almost poetic ability to create exquisite beauty from practically nothing. And in so doing, it brings out into the world, and historically documents stitch by stitch their love, inspirations, efforts and talents.
The "Wrappings of Happiness" catalog is available at the art museum, and a bilingual catalog of participating institutions' exhibits in this event will be released soon.
