Womxn we love
Mujer Woo | Small Happiness
Mujer Woo | Small Happiness
Interview by Delaney Cerna.
I recently had the opportunity to meet Youkyung Kaycee Woo, the textile artist known as Mujer Woo. We discussed her life, her art, and “small happiness”.
On her journey from South Korea to New York, through Parsons School of Design and Central Saints Martin in London, Youkyung Kaycee Woo studied fashion, textiles, and city life.
During the pandemic, she felt the call for something different, to pull away from the hustle. She sought to base herself in something more natural, something organic. She sought something like moments from childhood. She described to me a memory: laying on the grass at the Seoul University village garden with her parents on a light summer night looking at the moon and smelling the grass.
I sympathize with this sentiment. I know what it feels like to be doused in anxiety, to taste bitterness, to hear sadness in yourself and search for joy.
She moved to Portland, Oregon.
From exhaustion and competition, she exchanged the sound of constant traffic for the smell of leaves on the ground.
She says she can smell when spring comes; that Portland has the fresh, natural smells she likes to wrap herself in. It is on her walks around this town, woven with pavement and evergreen trees, that she pulled her inspiration for her latest collection of work: “Between the City and Nature: Somewhere in my Mind”. Kaycee, also known as Mujer Woo, takes what she sees on her walks to playful sketches. As if advocating to not over chew the inspiration, she says she tries not to think about it too hard. She allows her mind to explore while she plots out the landscape of a new piece. The interpretation from a photo of a rose to a rug is loose, one not reflecting the other exactly but rather holding the essence of a flower from Kaycee’s thoughts.
She says, “the main idea is getting away…telling a story in the yarn…[to] move forward and just make it”.
“I want to make the kind of artwork that brings up memories”.
It is in the sincerity of her approach that we connected most. Changing colors to what feels right and winding yarn after a stressful day, this is making art. This is “[finding] a small happiness”, as Kaycee puts it.
I have thought about this phrasing a lot through the winter, and I will carry it with me beyond this season, I am sure.
All we can do in this life is find small happinesses. Whether it is in the tension of a paintbrush in your hand, the sun breaking through a crack in a fence, a single sip of perfect coffee, or a new favorite winter coat, there is life to be enjoyed and art to be made.
On a women’s retreat in November, I guided my peers through a writing prompt: to create a menu of small happinesses. Taking inspiration from Mujer Woo, I separated the menu into sections by sense “To Taste, To Smell, To See, To Hear, To Touch”.
I asked them to list four things under each section of their menu. At the end, we each shared a cumulative moment, either imagined or real, with several of these happinesses. The tenderness in each moment was immense. We were authors of life’s joy.
And when Kaycee steps back to see her own immense rugs of vibrant colors and gentle textures? She says she sees a “different kind of garden, [a] shelter… to lay down in”.
The goal is not so much to make something grand, though her pieces are. She aims instead for the peace of “[finding] happiness in [herself]”. “You have to find yourself…The background environment does not matter”.
About the Author of this Blog Post:
Delaney Cerna, also known as LaLu, is a Portland based multi-disciplinary artist. She is an avid maker and collaborator in photography, community events, design and more. Find out more about her and her work on her site: www.delaneycerna.com
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