Trinity Cleary ......Tasmanian Hanji Artist

Last week during my travels to Australia I was fortunate enough to meet up with a fellow Hanji artist, Kyung Young Moon in Scotsdale, Tasmania. I'd seen her work and was anxious to meet this lady in person.

She is a Korean who has been based in Tasmania for the past 6 years. Her worked is exhibited in galleries around Australia including the cities of Melbourne, Sydney and Hobart. Her background is in Fine Arts and Industrial design and therefore she's been able to bring those skills to this craft by designing new pieces and painting on the articles she has made.

For the last 3 years Trinity, as she calls herself, has been one of the celebrity artists at the Deloraine Craft Fair in Tasmania.

Here is an excerpt from an article in the Tasmania Mercury by Nick Clark in November, 2011.

'A KOREAN interpretation of the Tasmanian landscape and lifestyle is behind much of the hanji paper work of paper artist Trinity Cleary.

Her persimmon tree and other works are on display at the Tasmanian Craft Fair at Deloraine.

Ms Cleary's work is one of the highlights of the four-day fair, which started with a bumper crowd yesterday.

"I want to be Tasmanian but actually I'm a Korean and cannot change all my brain and my Korean background and thinking," she said.

"I'm Korean but it's made in Tasmania. The lamps are made of wire, plastic and the hanji paper, which was used for centuries to insulate Korean houses.

"In Korea it is quite difficult to have a garden - people just have a little pot."

Ms Cleary, now of Scottsdale, became a paper artist after studying industrial design.'

This lovely lady met me at the Scotsdale Art studio where her work is being exhibited locally and we chatted about what it's like doing Hanji in Australia and the triumphs and trials of exhibiting and selling in Art galleries around the country.

Trinity's experiences have seen her overcome many hurdles thrown at her through government legislations in Australia but through a sheer determination to succeed she has worked through them and is now able to show her work confidently and creatively.

What I took away from this meeting was that I'd made a new friend and that if you have a passion for something then go for it, don't let small obstacles stand in your way.

If you wish to see more of her work for sale then you can go to this site:

http://saaf.com.au/gallery/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=15_18

Comments

Lotus symbol in Korean culture .....

In traditional Korean Hanji art you can see many different designs of plants, animals, letters and insects. I'm sure you've wondered what they all symbolise as they are repeated so often and in many different ways. In this post I just want to take a brief look at the lotus plant and what it symbolises for the Korean people. I've used this design on a few articles but I never really knew the full meaning of what it represented until I started doing some research for my book. Even though many of us aren't Korean we can still use these designs and in so doing, translate a deeper meaning to our articles. Here are a just a few of my favourites from the easiest to the more difficult to cut out. The lotus flower symbolises creation, birth, liveability and reproduction and therefore it's one of the most important symbols in both Korean culture and its traditional religions. In both Confucianism and Buddhism

The Buddhist symbol, Hanji & Korean culture ....

When selecting designs for my Hanji pieces I tend to make stylistic choices as to what will look best on each piece but the Korean designs all have very deep symbolic meanings. None more than the Buddhist swastika (manja) design. ‘Manja’ (만, Man is “卍” and 만자, Manja literally means “letter Man”) is also called Srivatsalksana in Sanskrit. It is one of the thirty-two (32) marks of excellence of the Buddha and is said to exist on his hands, feet, hair and waist. For those of us in the West this is often confused with the German Nazi swastika symbol but in fact it's been around for about three thousand years. The swastika is an equilateral cross with arms bent at right angles and all in the same direction, usually to the right, or clockwise. It's a symbol of prosperity and good fortune and it originally represented the revolving sun, fire, or life. The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit swastika which means, "conducive to well

Online Hanji paper store, in English .....

I'm really pleased to be able to share with you this website where you can order a variety of Hanji papers from Korea and it's all in English !!! The store is based in Daejon, Korea. HAMINBRIDGE ( Thehanji ) was established by Moonyang Park in 1983. It's a family owned 2nd generation business and they have a factory in Junju. They also have a factory in China where some of the paper is made. The website is at www. thehanji.com and it provides a selection of specialty Hanji paper (Korean paper) and products. I ordered some papers from them recently to see what it was like and they were extremely efficient in dealing with the order and it was here in the UAE within 5 days so I was really impressed. The prices were good and they even have some on special, the paper is beautiful and the ease of ordering was amazing. They do sell rolls of paper, traditional papers and lanterns but overall I did think the range was a bit limited for what I wa

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