8 Days (팔일)

Ghosts in the Studio (스튜디오의 유령)

I don’t particularly get along with people for long periods of time. I am pretty choosy about the people I spend my time with because most people tend to annoy me after about an hour. It’s probably the leading reason I can’t seem to keep a relationship for longer than a year. I’m not sure whether it’s because other people are boring or the other way around, I have never spent much time trying to figure it out. I don’t engage much in small talk or banter, unless it’s a situation which brings me some sort of social benefit, but I think that’s most people. I think that’s why Hak and I get along so well, we don’t really have to talk to figure things out.

Hak lands late Friday afternoon and is planning on staying for 8 days. I pick him up at the airport and he is wearing black boots, jeans, and a t shirt. “The weather here is much nicer than Seoul” he says as we drop off his bags at my house. Our first stop is the studio. I have gotten most of the essential materials, but tell him we will stop by the art store first thing in the morning tomorrow. Some friends stop by to say hello and we head out to a swanky little beer bar across the street from Dolores Park. There is a girl there who I used to see, but it’s nothing that a few drinks can’t fix.

We take a bar brawl down through Valencia to my favorite haunts: Elbo Room, Skylark, and finally Casanova. Me and Hak break off from the group and head over to Panchitas for some papusas. I can tell that the travel is catching up to him so we say goodbye to the group and we head back home for the night. We wake up on Saturday and go straight to work. The next week goes by like clockwork. Breakfast, studio, lunch, studio, dinner, studio. 

Quarter life Slump (분기 생활 슬럼프) 29x24 Mixed Media on Canvas

I ask Hak if there is anything special he wants to see, “Maybe the Golden Gate Bridge?”

“No, no. I didn’t see the Golden Gate Bridge while I lived here. I just want to hang out and paint.”

It was the answer I was hoping for. Although we live in different countries and speak different languages, our lives have taken very similar trajectories. We are both single and in our 30s. We have taken blue collar and menial jobs in order to survive. We don’t seem to be able to hold down steady relationships. But we are free in a way that most people are not.

We pick up where we last saw each other in Korea. The pace we work at is set to hectic. We are intending to finish 8 pieces during his stay, one complete piece for each day. I’ve always seen the way we work as improvisational jazz, a layering of distorted scales and vibrant color palettes, layered style over style until we deem the piece complete. Gesso, house paint, pastels, charcoal, acrylics, and oil paint. It is a constant flux of creation and destruction, building up and tearing down.

Exile (망명) 36x24 Mixed Media on Canvas

“How are things going back in Korea?”

“They are good. I’m going to apply to grad school this winter and I'm going to quit my bartending job. I want to dedicate my time fully to painting.”

“No new girlfriends?”

“No, sometimes girls try to talk to me at the bar or leave their phone numbers. I’ve just started to tell them I’m gay so that they leave me alone. What about you?”

“No, I don’t really have time right now, but my Mom bothers me about it every time we talk. When she asks when I’m going to have a grandchild I just ask her what nationality she would like.”

Man from Seoul (서울 출신의 남자) 36x24 Mixed Media on Canvas

We head out to burritos for like the 10^th time. Afterwards we stop by Hak’s friends place in the Tenderloin. A____ is a young painter still in school and has lofty dreams of moving to New York after school. His studio is like many artist studios I have visited in the Tenderloin, drenched in stale cigarette smoke, rows of empty liquor bottles, and a kitchenette doubling as a work space. He rolls up a joint and passes it around. It is a place that dreams are made and crushed, some place both Hak and I have been before. The young artist’s studio is a lonely and sacred place filled with uncertainty. We talk about life and art and school and the people we know.

“Just stick with it and you’ll be okay A____.” It’s the same advice I’ve been given a million times.

The last few months of my life have been fairly chaotic. There have been several curveballs thrown my way and I seem to always load up and swing at nothing but air. Hak’s visit is a welcome reprieve to my daily routine and the anxieties which plague my mind. When we paint together, all I really focus on is the next move, the next painting. A culmination of all the skills I have acquired and have yet to learn. It is a familiar place, a place I am comfortable, the need to produce under restraints and a tight deadline. It feels good to know that I have an art brother who’s going through the same exact things as I am across the sea.

5 Days Left to Go (떠난지 5 일 남았습니다) 36x24 Mixed Media on Canvas

We head out to the MoMa, we visit the De Young, and we stop by several gallery shows. Friends, family, and collectors stop by and say hello at the studio. We eat more burritos than I am happy to admit and the work comes fast and easily. We talk about the work during breaks, about the composition, layout, and balance. We talk about things that we intend to do or sometimes we just do them. We stop when we need to and we smoke too many cigarettes.

I’ve come to realize that there are no easy ways through life. As I grow older and life continues, there are only more responsibilities and more constraints. Life becomes a fight between work and personal life. And the older I get, the only certainty is death. A life of memories only dictated by what you put into it. The painting will be made no matter what, good or bad, it is the process and the time in between that really counts.

The week passes by quickly and soon enough the week is up. We stop by the studio one last time. We touch up, measure, sign, and name the paintings. We head over to Hak’s favorite Thai place in the Tenderloin for our last meal. I’m just glad it isn’t Mexican.

Flower Curtain (꽃 커튼) 30x24 Mixed Media on Canvas

“Did you enjoy your stay here? I’m sorry that we didn’t do more fun stuff.”

“It was the perfect trip, I did everything I wanted to do.”

We go back home and he packs up his stuff and I drop him off at the airport. I tell him I’ll try to sell the paintings as best I can, but you can never really tell with these things.

“Don’t worry about that. The paintings are good.”

“I’ll try to take a trip out to Korea next summer.”

“Ok. Thank you for everything Daniel. I will see you soon.”

The Artists in the Studio (스튜디오의 아티스트)

When I get home, the house is filled with sounds of celebration. My brother has invited friends and family over for his birthday and there is a feeling of warmth and comfort. It feels good to be done with the long week of endless painting. I have a flight to catch myself later that night and I settle in to some whiskey and banter. I hug and chat with friends, some who I’ve known for my whole life and it makes me happy to be in their company.

It might be the whiskey talking, but I feel overly sentimental and have a conversation about my personal life with a friend, something which rarely happens.

“What happened to S_____?”

“Nothing, just didn’t work out.” I pause for a moment. “Sometimes people just want different things. I love her to death, but it’s just not the way things were meant to be.”

“I thought you guys would work it out, you seemed to want things to work out. You’ve never tried particularly hard in relationships, until it was with her.”

I don’t know how to particularly reply to so I just say something stupid like, “There are plenty of fish in the sea.”

Waiting in Ambush (매복에서 기다리고있다) 48x36 Mixed Media on Canvas

I tell my brother “happy birthday”, grab my bags and a friend drops me off for my redeye. I have another whiskey at the airport bar and barely make it through takeoff. I wake up in a different country, in a different timezone, as a different person.  I make my way to my childhood home and say hello to my parents. We go visit my grandma who’s been in the hospital and not feeling too well. It’s nice to just sit with her while I write this story and reflect on the last few weeks. We don’t speak much, but I know that she likes it when I just sit around with her. She asks if I have a new girlfriend.

“No Grandma, no new girlfriend.”

“What happened to the last girl.”

“We’re still friends.”

“Well, then just forget about it.”

“Ok I’ll do that.”

“You should have a kid soon.”

“That’s not just up to me.”

As I’m sitting here writing this story I get a phone call from a number I haven’t seen in a long time. I step outside and answer the phone.

“Hello Daniel.”

“Hey.”

“How are you?”

“I’m in Taiwan, visiting my family. It’s nice to hear your voice.”

In 8 days, so much of life has changed.

Flowers in the Mouth of A Beast (짐승의 입에 꽃) 48x36 Mixed Media on Canvas

Going Off Grid

I've recently had a very serious health scare. So much so that it severely impacted all other aspects of my career and life, the anxiety always seeping into the back of my mind. I never thought much about my health and have indulged in all earthly pleasures without much pause to consequence and long term health risks. I've always somewhat believed that I was invincible, able to skirt through any hardships in life without the fear of death. And as I make my turn through my 30s, it's becoming more and more clear that I've got to really slow down on some things. I don't view this as necessarily an altogether bad thing, it just means now that I have to have a healthier respect for life.

As I have chased my two careers in the past decade, things have slowly picked up and I've found a little bit of success in each path. I've always loved challenges and each of the things I've chosen to do has forced me to constantly find creative solutions to problems. They've also taught me that no matter how much time, preparation, dedication, and desire you put into something, sometimes things just don't work out.

I am now able to coach high school water polo year round. I get to work with great student athletes and push their abilities and personal fortitudes to their greatest potential. Like with art, I put in everything I've got trying to motivate not only the kids, but myself as a coach and role model. How do I want these kids to grow up? What type of men and characteristics am I imparting on these teenagers on the precipice of adulthood? I am able to share formative years with these boys and to show them things that you can't really learn in a class room.

There are very selfish aspects to coaching. I feel like it keeps me young, fit, and hip to young people slang. It's a job that lets me release adrenaline, testosterone, and my deep need for competition, which I used to relinquish in other, more destructive manners. But with all forms of competition, it isn't always just wins and sunshine and rainbows. With every season, I have a pretty good idea of the potential of the team and have to tweak the team's playbook and training methods dependent on the athletes skill and ability levels. I spend endless hours preseason setting up tournaments, games, plays, and practices schedules. I prep and prep and prep prior to the season, in hopes of the maximum outcome to the season's schedule.

I love what I do. The pay certainly doesn't match up to my dedication at the moment, but that's how love and passion work. I've given up bachelor parties, weekend getaways, girlfriends, and countless weekends to coach tournaments. I've sacrificed so much for this sport in the hopes that I'm somewhat making a difference in a kid's life.

 It's been a very hard season. As much as I prepared, practiced, and trained with the athletes, it's been a very disappointing run. The first year I coached we were winless in league. This year, after a 10 year career, we have again gone winless in league. There were several factors which affected the team, but nothing I can put the blame on but myself. It's been such a bad season that I've actually considered my coaching career, maybe it's me that has lost touch.

Along with the health scare, it's really forced me to reevaluate the choices I've made personally and career wise. Sometimes love is not enough. Passion is not enough. It's the same thing with relationships and with women. Experiencing loss is something that everyone has to deal with. The difference I've found is how an individual deals with it. I don't think of myself as a quitter and sometimes the gods just aren't with you despite how much preparation and dedication you've put into anything. That's just life.

As the art career as taken off, the coaching and health have taken a slide. You just can't win everything and it's taken a long time to understand and come to terms with that. At some points I've wanted to scream and explode and unleash all the fury that lies just bubbling beneath the surface. I've wanted to just be destructive again and go back to the anger that I've been so comfortable with for so much of my young adulthood. It would be so easy just to let everything slide. But what type of man would I be? What type of man do I still want to become given a limited amount of time?

I've finally learned that my time is precious and limited. The people and friends I surround myself with has only expanded as I know that keeping an open mind and open heart is what gives my life meaning and fulfillment. I want to keep learning. I want to keep experiencing. I want to know that I can keep staying the course despite hardships. Sometimes failure and loss and disappointment are just a part of life, but maybe sometimes you have just got to walk away from things. Like a punched out boxer that just doesn't know when to walk away from the sport, I'm at a cross road.

For the next few days, I'll be going into the woods and going off the grid. I feel like I've been going and going and sometimes I've given so much to everything else that I've really let my personal life go. Maybe I'll just never come back. Maybe I've been blinded by my need for success. Maybe I'll never come back. Only time will tell.

Somewhere Along the Coast

I’ve felt like I have been stuck in San Francisco for a long time. I’ve always entertained the idea of moving away, but relationships, school, and work have always put an end to those thoughts. I made the excuse that if I couldn’t make my career happen in San Francisco, I didn’t want to run off to another city to have to start over. When I told a friend why I was moving she said that it sounded like the plot to “Eat, Pray, Love” whatever that’s supposed to mean.

I pack my car for the two-month journey and head down on a beautiful, clear day. I take Highway 1 and take my time. The roads are open and I really let loose around Monterey only to be pulled over for going 91mph in a 55 zone. The officer cuts me a break and puts me down for 75.

“Are you an artist or something?” He asks gesturing to the paintings in the backseat.

“Yeah, just doing a little stint in LA.”

“Good luck.”

I spend the first few nights in LA on a friend’s couch before I move to my place downtown. The apartment I sublet is above a tire shop on Central Ave and 7^th. I share a live/work studio with my roommate D____ who works at the library of a prestigious art school. The studio is 2 blocks away from the heart of Skid Row and there’s quite a bit of runoff. I wake up to drug and alcohol induced screaming matches outside my window routinely. It takes awhile, but the traffic and late night debauchery soon just become a soft background noise.  I am looking for change, but not quite sure where to find it.

Downtown LA and Struggles the Cat

I wake up to coffee and cigarettes on most days. The apartment has a large patio and I meet my neighbor P____ and the property cat, Struggles. He’s an actor and Uber driver which I soon learn is a pretty common occupation around here. Struggles is a white cat with black spots and meows loudly at my feet every time he wants to be pet. P_____’s got on black jeans and boots, a jean jacket with no t-shirt. Struggles is covered in a thick layer of dust. P_____ is still up from the night before and I’m sure Struggles has been` too.

“I’m still tripping on acid.” P_____ says wide-eyed and grinning, “I mean it’s pretty good stuff.”

He is manic and gesticulates wildly, he gives me a monologue from a class he participated in the night before. I listen patiently and have another cigarette and sip my coffee.

“This is the last bender for a month. I’ve really been going at it pretty hard” he says more to himself than to me.

Studio Downtown LA

I paint all day and go out nightly. The tire shop downstairs starts going around 8am and blasts the Top 100 hip hop radio station, but it feels more like 10 songs on repeat. I live on bread, lunch meat, bags of spinach and canned soup and binge watch the entirety of The Office in a few weeks.  I start and set a deadline for the dot paintings. There are set parameters, guidelines and rules which forces me to focus on the technique and color choice. Painting cut down to the very basics. I need to simplify things in my practice and in my life.

My friend R_____ comes over one night and we split a fifth and a few beers. He’s a real slick guy and with lots of energy. He tells me that him and his girlfriend are in an open relationship. We go out Echo park and end up at a club having a salsa night. We spend the night chasing women and I end up with a date with a girl named D_____ the following day.

D_____ picks me up from a show in the Arts District and I can tell she is nervous. During the date I get a call from my brother saying that our Grandfather has passed away. I tell D_____ and she is understanding about the whole ordeal. I never see her again. I drive back to SF a few days after because my passport is at home and I fly out to Taiwan. It is a depressing trip and I manage to get in a bar fight a few days after the funeral for good measure. It’s something I’ve tried to stay away from but I guess that some demons are harder to get rid of than others.

I fly back into LAX and spend two more weeks downtown. I have a black eye for a few days, but only a college friend ever really notices it or at least brings it up in conversation.

“Dude, did you get punched in the face?”

“Yeah.”

“I mean how does the other guy look?”

“Worse than me.”

“Daniel, aren’t you a little old for bar fights?”

“Apparently not.”

Redondo Studio Cat

After a month downtown, I move out to a little place in Redondo. It’s quite a drive away from most of my friends and that’s what I really wanted anyways. I’ve rented a private room in a little house about a mile from the beach with a couple and their 3 year old son.  I’ve never lived near a beach before but am willing to give it a try. The town is small and the beaches are pristine and clean. Most days I wake up and paint until the sun is high overhead and make my way to the water.

During the weekdays the beaches are almost completely empty. Vast stretches of sunbleached sand and clear blue sea. No tourists, no kids, just me and the ocean for miles. There are no clouds and it is a pleasant 75. I listen to the waves crash rhythmically like a lazy metronome. I think about going back to coaching, I think about the little things I worry about from day to day. About money, about work, about family, about not getting where I want to be. And in the moment it all seems very silly, these worries. Crash. I sit and close my eyes and take the sea in. Crash. I dig my feet into the sand and feel at peace with things. Crash. The moment is perfect and I wish that it would last for a little bit longer, this feeling.

Redondo Studio

Each day I go through this routine and I am happier than I have been for a long time. A girl I’m seeing, S____, spends a couple of nights at my place. She’s wearing one of my T shirts and sitting on the bed when she asks, “Will you miss me when I’m gone?”

“I’m not sure, it’s not something I’ve thought about.”

It doesn’t seem to be the right answer. We leave the conversation at that and she seems to forget about it in the morning. I tell her I’ll call, but that I’ll be on the road for the next few weeks.

The night before I leave Redondo I make a little sketch for M_____, my host and her family. We smoke some pot together and chat about what I’m doing and where I’m going next. She’s wearing a low cut one piece bathing suit and a negligée. The suns been down for hours.

Somewhere Along the Coast

“I’m going to drive down to San Diego to see a college friend.”

“And after that?”

“Probably just couch surfing for a bit. Silverlake or back to the Artists District. I’m not sure yet.”

“What a life you live.”

“It’s only for a few more weeks. It's not like my entire life is rainbows and flowers.”

“It sounds like your life is a party. I still like to party you know, but A____(her husband) is over it. Maybe when you come back from San Diego we can go out.”

“Yeah that might be a possibility, I’ve really enjoyed Redondo.”

“You know if A______ came out right now and I was sitting in your lap he wouldn’t care.”

I excuse myself as courteously as possibly and go back to my room.

I have lunch with a few friends in Santa Monica the next day before I head down to San Diego. The traffic isn’t bad but my A/C decides to die halfway there. I spend the next few days playing with his two kids and seeing a glimpse of the insanity of being a parent. I learn that kids are easy to trick and that chips and candy can solve most problems. I eat pizza three meals in a row and don’t regret it until my stomach explodes. Sometimes I am a little envious of my friends who have a family life, but the grass is always greener.

San Diego Studio

I drive back to the Artists District after San Diego and crash at a friend’s condo. I feel listless and antsy. I have one more week to go before I’m supposed to go back North. I stay a few more days in the Artist District and decide to cut the trip short and drive back home on a Tuesday morning. I call S____ and tell her that I won’t be able to see her again.

“I thought you were going to stay for another week?”

“Yeah, just don’t think I can couch surf anymore.”

“You can come stay over my place” she offers, “You could stay as long as you like.”

“I’ve got to go back, I’ve already set up some meetings and…”

“When are you coming back?”

“Maybe sometime next year after I finish my coaching stints.”

There’s a pause as she’s trying to figure things out.

“I just didn’t want this to happen.”

“What to happen?”

“This. I mean you’re just going to take off and it’s like it all meant nothing.”

“We both knew this was going to happen. I’m only a flight away.”

“I just thought that ... nothings never mind. I hope you have a nice drive back.”

This time I take the 5 through the valley and make the trip in 5 hours. The two months passed by in a blip and I return to the same house and the same studio and the same life. Nothing has changed. The routine remains, the past intact, because wherever you go, your troubles will follow you.

Back Home Studio

I’m hoping I’ve moved past some of my fears. I’m hoping that I’ve taken a few lessons away from this. If anything, at least I’ll always have the few weeks of bliss on the beach. The waves and the memories of a moments tranquility. Life is long and full of ups and downs, and nothing lasts forever.  When I am in need of it, peace will always be there along the coast of California.