Don't get your hand stuck in the kimchi jar!
Artwork & Text by Grace Gittelman
The generosity of the craft community is vital to my practice. I owe my proficiency in Korean ceramic tradition and skills to the dedication of my mentors and peers who shared their knowledge. Experiencing firsthand how this generosity can shape one's artistic growth, I prioritize sharing the artistic techniques I use with my students and creating a safe space for all knowledge and concepts to be shared freely between artists. Engaging the human spirit in craft is currently an important value that I convey in my practice.
During the fall of 2019, I learned more about my halmoni’s experiences and the kidnapping of Korean ceramicists during the Japanese occupation of Korea. At the same time, I was going through an incredibly difficult breakup and experienced the sudden, earth-shattering loss of my aunt Suhae. Suhae Imo and I shared a silly childlike nature. We became especially close when I lived in Korea for a semester the previous fall. I was in school when she passed away, so my mom wouldn’t let me leave to go to Korea to mourn. I was devastated. I was forced to create art when all I wanted to do was lie in bed. I made a piece that was as dramatic as my feelings, thus began my creation of Don’t get your hand stuck in the kimchi jar!
During the fall of 2019, I learned more about my halmoni’s experiences and the kidnapping of Korean ceramicists during the Japanese occupation of Korea. At the same time, I was going through an incredibly difficult breakup and experienced the sudden, earth-shattering loss of my aunt Suhae. Suhae Imo and I shared a silly childlike nature. We became especially close when I lived in Korea for a semester the previous fall. I was in school when she passed away, so my mom wouldn’t let me leave to go to Korea to mourn. I was devastated. I was forced to create art when all I wanted to do was lie in bed. I made a piece that was as dramatic as my feelings, thus began my creation of Don’t get your hand stuck in the kimchi jar!
The cabbages were the start of my mission to create art that I would have wanted to see while growing up as a mixed non-binary kid — art that feels like home. |
I was looking through images of midwestern American cabbage ceramics and studying how onggi (traditional Korean fermentation vessels) are created. And then I had the idea to make an onggi in the shape of a cabbage--an embodiment of what I learned about Japanese colonization and American imperialism in Korea, but in an Americana kitsch style.
I have always been attracted to kitschy ceramics that look like the food they hold, such as cookie jars that look like cookies. When making my onggi cabbages, I wanted to create a surrealist mythological object that lived in the imagination of my heritage. The cabbages were the start of my mission to create art that I would have wanted to see while growing up as a mixed non-binary kid—art that feels like home. |
For the viewers to fully realize the sense of absurdism and childlike wonder, the onggi needed to be as large as life. I started by building a large cylindrical vessel with a lid. I threw the base with 15-20 pounds of clay, then began attaching large coils and slabs while the piece was rotating on the wheel. When the piece was about halfway to its finished height, I dismounted the piece from the wheel and brought it to my studio where I continued to build coils, paddling and pounding the clay between wooden panels to compress it and keep its shape. After the main part of the vessel was built, I attached coils and slabs off the outside wall and the top of the lid to create the illusion of delicate cabbage leaves.
The intense physical process allowed me to release some of the intense emotions that I was struggling with. |
Each piece uses about 180 pounds of clay. I had to work incredibly quickly to ensure that the piece wouldn’t dry too much, and I could keep attaching wet clay and building on top of the last coil. I spent about one month building each cabbage before putting all of them into the kiln. The intense physical process allowed me to release some of the intense emotions that I was struggling with. After they came out of the kiln, I used house paint and oil paint to create the kimchi juice dripping down the side of the cabbages as if they never dry. I added gochuggaru into the oil paint to resemble kimchi juice and reveal the physical and cultural heritage of Korean ancestors.
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Cabbage grows from the ground. Onggi can be buried underground and used during the fall and winter when the earth is the perfect temperature for fermenting pastes, sauces, and kimchi. I displayed the cabbages with dirt underneath to play on the idea that they grew from the ground and allude to the tradition of burying onggi.
My hybridized Korean and Jewish ceramics preserve cultural practices while expanding the definition of authenticity. My food vessels are the bonding ingredients that celebrate and unite my family history. Growing up in North Carolina as a Korean and Jewish non-binary person has taught me the importance of not making assumptions about others and giving people space to feel heard.
My hybridized Korean and Jewish ceramics preserve cultural practices while expanding the definition of authenticity. My food vessels are the bonding ingredients that celebrate and unite my family history. Growing up in North Carolina as a Korean and Jewish non-binary person has taught me the importance of not making assumptions about others and giving people space to feel heard.
Grace Gittelman graduated from School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a BFA in 2020. They’re a Korean and white Jewish American currently based in Chicago, originally from Raleigh, North Carolina, who explores the intersections of their identity through the creation of hybridized traditional Korean ceramics. They received a 2021 National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts Multicultural Fellowship. Their most recent exhibitions include The Things We Carry at Eutectic Gallery, State of Emergence at The Clay Art Center, and a solo show, Say “Kimchi!” at Jude Gallery in Chicago. | Website: gracegittelman.com, IG: @lildogbigdreams