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. I know her best as just Kaycee. We met in one of my favorite, cozy Portland coffee shops. We discussed her life, her art, and “small happiness”.
Kaycee was born in South Korea, then ventured abroad for her education in design. In her journey from Seoul to New York, through Parsons School of Design and Central Saints Martin in London, Kaycee studied fashion, textiles, and city life.
During the pandemic, she felt that such city life had drained her. She was exhausted. She felt the call for something different, to pull away from the bustle, the hustle.
She sought to base herself in something more natural, something organic to help her heal. She wanted to live in an environment like sweet 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, smelling cut greenery.
I sympathize with this sentiment. I know what it feels like to be doused in anxiety, to taste bitterness, to hear sadness in myself. I try to find joy, easiness, and simplicity in the world around me.
Kaycee moved to Portland, Oregon.
She exchanged the sound of constant traffic for the crunch 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 takes what she sees on her walks and turns them into playful sketches. She says she tries not to think about it too hard, allowing her inspiration to be an entry point to greater investigation and expression. She explores freely as 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”.
It is in the sincerity of her approach that we connected most. It seemed as though enjoying the sunlight in her studio was as much a part of her practice as loading a tufting gun. Winding yarn for hours after a stressful day, leaning into the physical sensation of fiber between fingers; this is making art. This is “[finding] a small happiness”, as Kaycee puts it.
“I want to make the kind of artwork that brings up memories”.
I have thought about this phrasing a lot this 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 sunset over rooftops, the first sip of coffee, or the warmth of a new 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. I took inspiration from Mujer Woo’s attentive appreciation of the world; I crafted the prompt around the five senses. I separated the menu into sections: “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” woven in. 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, cumulative moments 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 marvelous. 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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