Ki Woon Huh - Master Potter

Growing up in the town of Inchon, South Korea, Huh always has felt a closeness to nature and a desire to express those feelings through art.

As a young boy, he was a skilled painter, whose work drew national attention. But there was something missing and he drifted in a different direction.

He felt a strong desire to be closer to his work, which wasn’t satisfied through painting. After some soul searching and exploration, he found his niche in pottery making, an art that has captured the imagination of people for more than 5,000 years.

It was a God-send and catapulted the young Korean to national fame. In a country where potters are held in esteem, Ki Woon finished his apprenticeship in his teens and quickly ascended the throne.

Speaking through his brother Won Huh, in the new studio he recently opened in his brother’s Sarasota home, Ki Woon recalled his early days.

“I fell in love with the pottery because it enables me to take a hands-on approach. By touching my work, I can express myself more and feel a sense of closeness I could not realize with painting. I love the touching part of it. It’s as if I am a part of the work itself,” he said.

In Korea, Ki Woon won all the top honors. His List of accomplishments and awards included “Golden Medalist” winner and a designated “Master Potter” and “Judge.” In 1988 he was awarded 3rd place at the Korean National Competition for the Olympic Games.

But what fuels Ki Woon have nothing to do with Awards. He envisions something beautiful and tries to give it life. He has been called a person who can take something simple and turn it into a piece of art because of an ability to see things that others cannot.

Ki Woon said there is not a message he wishes to impart to his audience. He wants people draw their own conclusions and generate their own feelings before he discusses his work.

“Ordinary people (non-artists) think differently then me,” he said. “There are all kinds of messages you can get, but my main objective is to bring my pottery to life. I try to show that it is alive. There are a lot of mysteries in color and design and I keep getting deeper and deeper into that.

There is a sense if perfection that resides within the 50-year-old Ki Woon, who has been a potter for more than three decades.

“I am never satisfied, even when I am told I am the best,” he says. “I still want to do the most-perfect piece of work. And with pottery that can be difficult because you are using clay, which does not always allow for perfection. It can be unyielding at times.”

Ki Woon left his workshop, located in a village near the outskirts of Inchon, and came to the United States about a month ago with his wife and two children. He feels America offers a greater market for him to create artistic vessels.

Ki Woon will exhibit some of his work today at The Sarasota Garden Club, 1131 Boulevard of the Arts.

“I came to the United States because I would like to show a lot of my ceramic pottery work and 17th and 18th century Korean pottery. We have a long history of pottery in our country that is second only to China and Japan,” Ki Woon said. “I prefer to do pottery for its art and I think I will be able to do that in this country. Eventually, I would like to do exhibits with American pottery makers and share my knowledge with them.

This is Huh’s second trip to the United States. In 1991, he was invited by Sarasota’s Ringling School of Art and Design to exhibit and serve as a special instructor.

1990-1991	Ringling School of Art & Design, Sarasota, Florida
Summer 2002	Seoul Fine Art Exhibition, Korea

Career

Judge, 6th-7th Workers Art & Culture Festival, Korea

Director of Committee, The Inchon National Fine Art Competition, Korea

Vice Chairman, The Committee of Inchon National Invitational Artists, Korea

Judge, Inchon National Fine Arts Department, Korea

Volunteer Teacher, Ringling School of Art and Design, Sarasota, Florida

Volunteer Teacher, Wild Acres Art Workshop/Ringling School of Art & Design, North Carolina

Presently

Director of Committee, The Inchon National Amateur & Professional Invitational Artists, Korea

Judge, The Inchon National Invitational Artists, Korea

Director, The Inchon Branch of Korean National Fine Art Association, Korea

Director, The Korean National Fine Arts Association, Korea

Owner/Teacher “Woodbin” Fine Art Studio, Inchon, Korea

Other Awards

1979	Special Recognition by the Kyunggi-do Art Competition, Korea
1981	Selected by the Kyunggi-do National Art Competition, Korea
1983-84	Bronze Medalist, The KBS National Ceramic Competition, Korea
1984	Silver Medalist, The Inchon National Fine Art Competition, Korea
1985	Selected by the Inchon National Fine Art Competition, Korea
1986	Selected by the Korean National Ceramic Competition, sponsored by the Seoul Sinmun-sa Newspaper, Korea
1986	Bronze Medalist, The Korean National Fine Art Competition for the 1988 Olympic Games, Korea
1986	Silver Medalist, The Kyunggi-do National Art Competition, Korea
1987	Selected by The Kyunggi-do National Art Competition, Korea
1993	Silver Medalist, The Inchon National Fine Art Competition, Korea
1996	Special Recognition by The Inchon National Fine Art Competition, Korea
1997-98	Selected by The Inchon National Fine Art Competition, Korea
1998	Bronze Medalist, The Korean National Fine Art Competition, Korea

The Studio
All are invited to come see the latest pieces.
Please call 941-809-2137 or email the studio for directions.

at The Longboat Key Center for the Arts
6860 Longboat Drive South • Longboat Key, Fl 34228

Manatee Community College - Fine Art Gallery
5840 26th Street West, Bulding #10 • Bradenton, Florida

Crafts should pursue both the aesthetic and functional value. Above all, pottery is the task which requires endless trial and error, and technical perfection, because of its medium of clay as well as it’s modeling form (for example, because of unexpected variances including the limit of raw materials, their function, the difficulty of glaze and color, the use of fire and pottery-baking technique, and the regional quality of the earth etc.) In addition, it is closely associated with the social and economic structure of the day as well as cultural aspect owing to its practical value. Historians have always remembered pottery artists as the flowers of craftsmen since pottery was produced from the Neolithic era to the present. Thinking of that, I find it exciting for me to go in search of Ki Woon Huh’s workshop, which is situated at the unfrequented village on the outskirts of InChon. I came to picture the prototype of a true craftsman in my heart, in the course of having a pleasant talk with him, appreciating his works, and seeing his great performance in the workplace where the shrill chirrup of cicada struck the hot air of the late summer.

“Craftsman” means the professional who technically produces the industrial arts required by the times with modeling-sense (by social, economic, and cultural demand), and the lives his life by the incomes obtained so. Of course, to receive the title, the high degree of professionalism and affection in the area will have to be premised. Only then can true masterpieces reflecting contemporary trends of art, not mere domestic goods, be ultimately born.

In this meaning, Ki Woon Huh is thought of as a pottery artist equipped with the craftsmanship, quality, and disposition. He is the very man who finished apprenticeship (beginning in his teens), in traditional teaching method, which inherited pottery art technique of all ages in search of master hands. That is to say, he is such a pottery artist as finished traditional “rite of passage” necessary to experience in masters’ or seniors’ workplace, though it was hard work such as cleaning materials, making glaze, and making fire. In fact, the work is a necessary course in pottery art, it is very important because the conditions of material, glaze, and fire decide the destiny of the pottery. Therefore, masterpieces which artists want passionately can be born through the perfect combination between material, instrument, and medium. Of course, it is needless to say that the combination depends on the pottery artist.

In this respect, I am sure that Ki Woon Huh realizes the relation of clay, glaze, and fire (he has lived his intense life with clay for thirty years). His works display various forms and originality, equal to his distinction. The beautiful form of the works based on his skill and knowledge is many sided. Some works show how modernistic modeling through traditional life-needed pottery, and others show a stage parting from tradition. Namely after he produces traditional pottery on the wheel like a turtle bottle, a dish, and a bowl, he transforms them into those of modernistic sense. Also, he creates the works of liberal form Modernistic Ceramic Sculpture based on the peculiar beauty. For example, to ornament pottery facet with finger form, to make patterns by pressing wire net, to inlay so as to feel like collage, to form by products of modern society. His experience is moving; he makes complicated forms perfect with circumspect manual dexterity. In other words, he freely and perfectly creates everything with the earth as if Renaissance masters (painters) had done in paintings. Hence, American pottery artists were deeply moved in the early 1990’s (when he wo

November 21, 2006 article in Sarasota Herald Tribune

Tradition, innovation blend in potter's art