Cracked with Chevonne Ariss

Diner Delight and Daily Life with Soeun Lee

• Season 5 • Episode 59

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Welcome to another episode of Cracked with Chevonne Ariss where we dive into the fascinating world of modern stained glass art and the talented artists who bring it to life! 
Today, I’m  excited to introduce Soeun Lee, a  stained glass artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Soeun's work stands out for its ability to capture the celebrate the essence of ordinary moments found in every home, using shadows to add depth and emotion to her art. Her love of American diners also often shines through with panels depicting scenes that evoke the charm of these quintessentially American spaces. Join us as we explore Soeun's personal journey, and her unique approach to depicting the beauty of daily life.

Join me as I crack it all wide open!
To see more of Soeun’s work, her instagram is @soooeeun  and mine is @runaglassworks.  For a lucky Patreon member Soeun is sending a really sweet little glass panel of a pear.  Panel measures approximately 4.5” x 6.5” and you know the drill... Patreon members watch your inbox and pay attention to my instagram stories for the winner announcement 12 days after episode is released.

Honorable mentions from this episode:

Adobe Illustrator
adobe.com
@neighborhoodstainedglass

Glass Calligraphy Pen
https://www.amazon.com/Signature-Calligraphy

Favorite artist:
Will Barnett
https://whitney.org/artists/61

Glass friends:
@sacharaps
@Lazuliblack
@thisthisthat.studio

Support the show

SPEAKER_00:

What's up, friends? Welcome back to Cracked with Siobhan Eris. Today, I'm speaking with Sewan Lee, an artist based in Brooklyn, New York. But before we jump in, I have to thank my sponsors. For stained glass artists who prefer to work lead-free, I suggest trying Canfield's DGS Lead-Free Solder. This lead-free solder works almost the same as 6040 and has a high luster finish, is easy to use, and runs an excellent bead. It patinas well and is environmentally friendly. Thank you to Bullseye Glass. Bullseye Glass has one of the best education programs. You can take online classes, but you can also take in-person classes if you want. in Portland, Santa Fe, I'd like to thank the Stained Glass Association of America. The SGAA is an energetic organization of craftspeople, stewards, and aficionados challenging the country to rethink what stained glass can be. Our members are a passionate community who believe in openly exchanging ideas and knowledge among beginning and experienced practitioners alike, who work together to host forums and conferences where attendees can network in like-minded glasses. to troubleshoot, collaborate, or share knowledge. And the members support the crucial education, scholarship, and mentorship needed to pass centuries of skill and dedication on to the next generation who will be creating and caring for our stained glass treasures. Find out more at stainedglass.org. I would also love for you guys to know more about Yakagini. Yakagini is a small manufacturing company that specializes in the production of stained glass sheets and glass products for the stained glass industry. Yakagini Glass is well known for its uncompromising quality and color art. Artistry, designed to recreate the magnificence of nature's palette. Yakagani Glass proudly introduces its newest line of art glass, True Dicro. TD Glass is a scientific breakthrough for the art glass manufacturing industry. It will change in both color and opacity depending on the surrounding light. The glass will appear opaque and soft in the reflected light, and it will come alive in vibrant pinks, purples, blues, and yellows in natural daylight and different transmitted lights. Find out more at yakaganiglass.com That's Y-O-U-G-H-I-O-G-H-E-N-Y glass.com. Okay, let's get into it. Today, I'm so excited to introduce to you Soeun Lee, a stained glass artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Soeun's work stands out for its ability to capture and celebrate the essence of ordinary moments found in every home, using shadows to add depth and emotion to her art. Her love of American diners also often shines through, with panels depicting scenes that evoke the charm of these quintessential We explore Soen's journey so far and her unique approach to depicting the beauty of daily life. Join me as I crack it all wide open.

SPEAKER_02:

Hi. Hi. How are you?

SPEAKER_00:

I'm good. How are you?

SPEAKER_02:

Good, good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Do I say your name soon?

SPEAKER_02:

So-in. So-in. So-in, kind of.

SPEAKER_00:

So-in. So, like sewing?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, sewing, but without the, I guess, the G at the end, like so-in, like kind of, like the past tense of so-in.

SPEAKER_00:

So is it so-in or so-in?

SPEAKER_02:

So-in.

SPEAKER_00:

So-in. You got it. Hi, So-in.

SPEAKER_02:

Hey, how are you? I'm

SPEAKER_00:

good. How are

SPEAKER_02:

you? Good, good, good.

SPEAKER_00:

You're joining me from Brooklyn, New York. Yeah. And we do. I've met you. We've met. Do you remember?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, I do. Of course. I drew your daughter's portrait. Yes. Yes. Yeah. It was it was kind of hectic. It was so quick because, you know, I was just focused on drawing. But I do remember meeting you at Friend of All party.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Yes. So Flannery from Friend of All was having like a holiday market and Soen was doing like the three minute portraits and there was actually there was a line for you people getting they're so cute

SPEAKER_02:

thank you um i mean i meant that as a as a minute portrait or two minute portrait but i it ended up being five minutes and seven minutes um so fine the people kept coming up and i was just like rushing to finish one and then i kept going back to retouch some of them yeah but it was a fun experience it was just like i don't know like how the time went by it just went by so fast.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, they're so good that I can see why you'd want to like spend more time on them. I mean, the one that I have of my daughter, I don't know where it is. I got to find it, but it's so detailed and it's just, it's very pretty. It was such a good idea to do that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Thank you. That was really fun. I've never done anything like that before. And actually from that party, I ended up getting a job, like not a job, like a gig at someone's wedding. And I drew a portraits at the wedding. Oh,

SPEAKER_00:

my God, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_02:

It was really fun, actually.

SPEAKER_00:

That's such a good idea, too, for somebody to have that. Did you do like couples at the wedding or was it only individual

SPEAKER_02:

portrait? It was whatever whoever requested if they wanted a family thing, if they wanted their children. There were a lot of kids at the wedding, which was kind of hard for me because they just kept coming back for more. Oh, I'll draw one for them and then they'll like walk away and then they come back and they want another one with their other friends. But it was really fun. Everyone, I think, liked it. And it's like a souvenir you get from the wedding too.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. That's really clever. So you are an illustrator and a stained glass artist, but you were an illustrator before you became a stained glass artist, correct?

SPEAKER_02:

Sort of. I majored in illustration at FIT in New York. But since graduating in 2012, I did not work as an illustrator. I never really had that as my job. I just worked all these other jobs. I worked in a jewelry company. I worked in farmer's markets. I just found it really hard to find my style even after graduating. So I kind of struggled with calling myself an illustrator, although I drew all the time. And I really did not like being a freelancer. It's just so unstable for me. So and then I started, I just somehow started looking at stained glass. And I started working at FOA, Friend of All. And that just kind of got me, let me know what my style is going to be like, I guess. So that kind of changed things for me. So I don't know if I would call myself an illustrator.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, but it does heavily obviously influence your work. And it does translate. So what your style is going to be like? of illustration translates so well into glass pattern making that it's it all like in hindsight I'm sure you're like oh right like this this makes sense

SPEAKER_02:

yeah

SPEAKER_00:

yeah where are you from originally um

SPEAKER_02:

I'm from South Korea um so I was born and raised in South Korea and then I wasn't actually um exchange student um when in high school so I came to U.S. in Missouri in the state of Missouri to be an exchange student and after a year in Missouri I was just like I don't wanna I feel like I can stay here you know I just liked being outdoors more I mean it's just because in Korea the education high school college is really competitive and you don't really get to do anything else besides studying so like kids go to school from 8am to like 9pm and they're just studying studying studying and And so I was like, I don't know if I want to go back to that after this whole year of like living in the Ozarks, basically. So after that, I applied for more exchange student programs and I ended up going to Buffalo, New York. And I lived in Buffalo for two years. So I was junior and senior in high school in Buffalo. And I applied for Pratt, Parsons, FIT, all the schools in New York. So and then I got into FIT with which was a pretty good deal for me. So moved to New York, lived in the city for about eight to 10 years, I think. I don't remember the exact number. And then I ended up moving to Queens and we moved to Brooklyn just about two years ago.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. And who's we? Me and my husband. Okay, cool. Were your parents, how did they feel when you said, I'm not coming back? Like I want to stay here.

SPEAKER_02:

So they were, um okay with it i think i'm the i'm an only child um so it does it is kind of hard to stay like see each other so little um in a year or like every other year but um where i was i grew up very independently i guess and my parents both worked and we were never like very um together all the time kind of family um so it kind of worked out like us being separate so we kind of appreciate everyone uh each other more um and at now i kind of at the time i was a child so like i was a adolescent i'm like i don't want to go home i just wanna yeah i just wanna stay in the u.s uh but now i do miss being back with my family and i want to go back as much as I can but work and being an adult doesn't allow me to go as many times as I can I guess

SPEAKER_00:

right and then I'm sure you guys had a huge break from seeing each other during COVID

SPEAKER_02:

right right yeah and I did go back in 2021 after the vaccines came up

SPEAKER_01:

but that

SPEAKER_02:

was like a whole another ordeal where you know the process of getting approved and quarantining for I only had to quarantine for like two days but that was hard to do

SPEAKER_00:

yeah yeah since when you were growing up there was so much focus on school and studying and academia did you always know that you wanted to be an artist and maybe not maybe not focus so much on like the math and science side of things

SPEAKER_02:

oh yeah um actually I because I just don't do well with like instability I actually never thought about being an artist in high school, I thought I was going to like chemistry. because I really liked my chemistry teacher in high school, and it was really fun. But my mom actually encouraged me and pushed me, and she told me to go into art school. She's like, that's the only thing you should do. So with that encouragement, I did go into art school. But in art school, I kind of also struggled because of that instability or that unclear future, kind of. The first year... She told me that there's a lot of influence of my mom growing up. And I'm kind of like a people pleaser where I have to make sure that everyone's feeling good in a group. And when my mom told me to go to interior design, I was like, okay, I'll just go into interior design. And I hated it so much. There were so many decision makings in working in interior design. that I just had such a hard time with it because I'm very indecisive. So after a year of interior design, I told my mom that I'm moving to illustration and I moved into illustration, but then that also still wasn't enough for me. I think I still was like, what am I gonna do with this? There's so much insecurity involved too. I don't know if anyone's gonna like this. It looks like someone else's work. um a lot of anxiety and that kind of struggle um going through me in in college

SPEAKER_00:

yeah yeah I think that well I don't know I guess I can really only speak for myself but I feel like there's a lot of that in staying glass too like isn't anybody gonna like this does this there's somebody out here who's made this already

SPEAKER_02:

I know yeah exactly um yeah I do think glass really solidified me more um in that regards um it kind of told me what my it kind of let me know what my style would look like um but it's still every time I design a panel or make a panel I'm like is am I doing this again like is this already done like am I just pushed like um taking advantage of this one theme too much or like is this am I getting worse than before um because sometimes I really like my own project and then the next one I'm like what is this you know right

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And what does your husband do? He's a psychologist.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. He does therapy. This is actually his office area. So I'm borrowing his computer right now.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Oh, because he does Zooms probably to see a lot of his clients. Okay.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So now are you just doing Glass now full-time?

SPEAKER_02:

I have a part-time job at a retail store. Okay. So about three days a week, I'm at my retail store job. And the rest of the week, I try to spend as much time as I can in the studio. But, you know, life takes over sometimes. Absolutely. Before you know it, it's like five o'clock already. But yeah, it's been working out pretty great with just like three days at work and then coming back here to do my own thing. And where is your studio? Right. So it used to be in Greenpoint near where I live. And then in January, I... had some issues in the studio and I had to move to Long Island City. I'm sure you know, but it's also like 10 minutes from Greenpoint area because it's right next to each other, but it is in Queens area. So right now I'm in Long Island City.

SPEAKER_00:

So how long, what's the commute from your house in Greenpoint to Long Island City to the studio?

SPEAKER_02:

If I walk, it's 30 minutes. But if I take the train, it's also 30 minutes because the train station from My house is pretty far. And then the train station from my studio is also kind of a walk. So it ends up being the same time. So I usually take the city bike if it's nice out. Yeah, city bike really helps me a lot. It's like a 10-minute ride.

SPEAKER_00:

That's amazing. Yeah, yeah. I don't think I've ever talked to anybody who used them before.

SPEAKER_02:

much more freedom in moving around and commuting. Even to commit to my work, I'll take the city bike and it's in Soho. And normally by train, you'll take me 45 to an hour, just depending on the delays and all the MTA struggles. But with the bike, it's reliably only 30 minutes. And the city bike, they have an e-bike, so I don't have to pedal that hard oh nice yeah so it's pretty um very convenient

SPEAKER_00:

and is it better to do a city bike than to buy your own bike because then you don't have to worry about it like upkeep and or getting stolen etc

SPEAKER_02:

right right yes um i had my bike but i was really bad at upkeeping it like like my tire was always flat and um yeah and then i was you couldn't really lock it outside because i had bikes stolen before and um and also it wasn't an e-bike so it wasn't as easy to go over the bridge um yeah and also in New York City apartments we have a one bedroom and if I have a bike it's just gonna take up so much room

SPEAKER_00:

yeah yeah yeah that makes sense

SPEAKER_02:

yeah

SPEAKER_00:

So your bio is not very long online on your website. It just says, it's one sentence, illustrator and stained glass artist based in Brooklyn, New York. Yes. But I did see a comment on one of your photos, an Instagrammer named, she's also a stained glass artist, Blue Star Homestead Glass. She commented, your work looks like what a nap in the sun feels like. And I couldn't agree more. I think that should be your bio.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. That sounds good. Yes. I'm going to, I'm going to have to put, when I was making a website, I was having such a hard time. I just wanted to move through it as fast as I can. Yeah. So that's, I should really update that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, no, it's very clean and like minimalist, but like in a nice way, like it's very tidy and you can, you can get to what you need to get to real quick, which is nice, but I don't know what a nap in the sun feels like. It definitely describes your work. Oh yeah. Most of the colors that you use are very You do have some cooler toned panels, but a lot of them are very warm and it's very like muted, almost like... You use a lot of pastels, like a lot of like... pretty blues and pretty oranges. And I really like your color choices. Oh my, thank you. I

SPEAKER_02:

love bullseye glass. I think my, like now my main brand that I choose, I have, I mean, ended up choosing has become bullseye. Like, and their colors are so good. And in the sun, the opalescent glasses, they just glow like warm. Yeah. So I love using their glass.

SPEAKER_00:

They really do. So do you go to the Bullseye and the Maranek? Yes,

SPEAKER_02:

I do. I don't drive, but I'll ask my husband to rent a car and then go just to get glass. And they'll have a lot of sales. So I really take advantage of that. But I only go like every couple months. Oh, and also Rainbow in New Jersey is really

SPEAKER_00:

good. Okay. Is it just called Rainbow? rainbow stained glass? Um,

SPEAKER_02:

rainbow art glass, I think. Okay. Um, and it's, they're near Esbury Park area. Um, but they're really, um, great with like, um, materials like solder, like, uh, lead came, um, like the Bullseye Center in Mameronic is their glass choices are vast, but their, uh, materials that can be really limited, but rainbow carries a lot of the things I actually need to make the stained glass. So, So I love going there too.

SPEAKER_00:

How far is the drive to Rainbow? Is it for you?

SPEAKER_02:

I think from the city, it's about hour, an hour and a half. Okay. But, you know, in New York, like, getting through the city just takes half the trip, you know? Totally.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. I'm so surprised you guys don't have a supply store somewhere in Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_02:

I wish we had one. It seemed like there were some in Manhattan a long time ago because I've seen, like, glasses with stickers on them. It said, like, Manhattan Glass, like, something, something store. But I guess they all got priced out or moved out.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Well, that's true. makes sense too I was really digging into your work did you listen to David Scheid's episode um I don't think so so he's he's a glass artist in Los Angeles he did a panel um of this like sweet little corner of his house and we talked about how how it was like this very much like overlooked ordinary moment in time but that he really celebrated the magic of it and we talked about how um he wanted to do more of these kinds of pieces where he got to recreate a corner of somebody's home, like as in the client who would buy the stained glass. And I don't think there's any relation between your work and his work. I don't think there's any overlap at all, but you have done that. You have taken that idea and you've made it your thing where you capture a moment that is happening in every household across America and you really look at it and see the beauty and celebrate the magic in that moment. And I love that. Yeah. I was looking at your website first and out of the 25 pieces on your website, 20 of them have a window in them. And then I went to your Instagram and I started like counting more and then I was like, this is silly. I shouldn't be doing

SPEAKER_02:

this. Oh, I've never counted it. So that's kind of cool to hear 20 out of 25. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Yeah. But I mean, it makes sense. Is this where you start your design? Do you start with the lighting first and then build the elements of the room from there?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So I, do like what I love about stained glass and the theme of the stained glass is like you're gonna be putting it in the window but it also has a window so I kind of like to play around with it so it's like a window within a window and also in a way that having the window and the shadows solves a lot of issues for me when creating the pattern because it just creates that line those extra lines without something the pattern itself. So I do like the convenience, but I also really love that it shows a specific time of the day where it's early morning or really late in the evening, but before the sundown where the shadows get really long. I just love that like golden hour kind of a feel where it kind of, I think it kind of provokes some sort of a memory for the viewer. So I do tend to make windows um and put windows in the panels I think I guess I'm just um I just really like that

SPEAKER_00:

are a lot of your pieces moments that you have seen with your own eyes like that you were you know or are they moments that you sort of imagined um

SPEAKER_02:

I guess some of them are imagined or, but most of them, especially the first one that I really started with, which is a kitchen scene. It's three part series where the one is like a stove top with pots and pans. So that one, I really, that was my kitchen in Queens in 2020. And I really kept looking at it and because every day felt the same because everyone was Staying at home. And it was just like... that scene just got stuck in my head and I just wanted to see it in glass. And I also liked that how glass is so permanent. And so I just wanted to like capture that in glass form. And it's also very fragile at the same time. So I like the contrast. So you could see it in a second, but also it kind of lasts forever.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes. Oh, I say that all the time, how fragile it is and yet how sturdy it is at the same time. So crazy. Yeah. Yeah. warped and she warped like the framing of it yeah and so really looks like this panel almost melted yeah

SPEAKER_02:

it's so funny because um on one instagram post that i um put in all three panels i just kind of joked around that and on the caption i said don't leave your stained glass in a hot window because it'll melt and someone actually thought i was being serious um and it in the comments, he's like, really? So it was kind of funny. So the memory thing, the panel, it wasn't really planned in the beginning. And I saw after I made it, I really loved that panel. And I saw that the moment has stopped. But then in my head, it kind of started like melting away. And I wanted to make that into glass. And also, this is also another cool thing I love about glass. where you can make it look like it's fluid or soft, sort of, but it's still very rigid and fragile. The second one, you can kind of see that the lines become really curvy and distorted. And then the third one, you wouldn't really know what it was before. It ends up being like a mush. So I made it into a three-part series, and I really love that.

SPEAKER_00:

Anyway. obviously had to sell all three together yes

SPEAKER_02:

um so I put that on the website just because I got sick of carrying it around every time I moved because I would break them really easily because I'm really not careful um and I was like I'll just put this up on the website I don't think anyone would buy it and then someone actually really purchased it um and was it just somebody bought it for like

SPEAKER_00:

a house their

SPEAKER_02:

home yeah yeah they uh their um home they didn't really like talk to me or anything they just went ahead pressed purchase and I was like oh thank you so much can I ship it to your house it ended up being the biggest package ever but it got there really safely which is I'm so grateful because I had so much worry about it getting there but I think it is in California I'm not really sure

SPEAKER_00:

and for the curved framing once it does start to melt did you just copper foil the outside or did you use like hobby came on the outside and just bend it

SPEAKER_02:

um so i used lead cane that's about quarter inch thick so it is thicker than hobby cane um but the hobby the the cane that i use are is very soft for some reason um i got it from flannery um from a friend of all um because she received it from someone else and then i got those um came and that was was the first time I've ever used Kame. And I thought all the Kame were this soft. But apparently it depends on the brand. It depends on the metal alloy percentages. But somehow the one that I ended up with that I started with was very soft. So I was able to just curb it around the edges and solder it on the edges. So I did put copper foil all the way around and then soldered that in between the cane and the glass

SPEAKER_00:

okay I got it yeah cool it's so neat and also I just want to say I really appreciate that you are charging what you deserve for your pieces you know you're a little bit more expensive and we should we should all be charging a little bit more so pat on your back for that thank you it is very hard to decide the prices it's so hard there's no metric for it I mean there kind of is you can you can definitely like pay yourself by how much time it takes and how much your materials cost. But then there's a lot of play after that just for the idea of it all. Yeah. There's another series you did. It's a black hole series. It's two panels, both of which have a black hole. The first of which there's furniture in it. And then the second one, the second panel is very warped. Yeah. Everything's getting kind of sucked towards the center. Was there any sort of experience or... theory or sort of like message that you're sending with this one?

SPEAKER_02:

for that series i don't think i specifically had the message when i make those panels sometimes i'll just see like an image in my head and i keep seeing the image over and over um and for that one specifically it was colors being sucked into a black hole and then losing all the colors i just got stuck on that idea and i just uh ended up making it into the panel but i'm not sure if the color to black and white is translating really well i feel like it big because of the sun and the light, it kind of becomes kind of a warm tone. Okay. That was the idea. I don't, I don't really have any. I just saw the image in my head.

SPEAKER_00:

Did that one sell yet? The two panels

SPEAKER_02:

together. So that one sold separately. I think people like them separately, I guess. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

I was, I was surprised

SPEAKER_02:

too.

SPEAKER_00:

So you definitely have, a theme you do a lot of breakfast you do a lot of or food a lot of kitchen scenes a lot of living rooms I'm seeing chairs I'm seeing lamps I'm seeing lots of windows yes but also you do a lot of diner scenes yeah and I think personally New York has the best diners in the whole country and I love that it feels like in an sort of in an Americana time capsule you can just enter and I love personally I love love love the employees at diners especially the servers that you can tell have like worked there for like 40 years it's like the most wonderful interactive people watching there is

SPEAKER_01:

i'm

SPEAKER_00:

curious what do you love about diners and what feeling does being in one give to you

SPEAKER_02:

yeah so diners diners are definitely my obsession i love going to any diners if when i'm traveling i actually had no idea it was like a east coast thing kind of but someone told me that um different states have kind of different vibe for or do all states have diners? Yeah, we all have diners. Yeah, okay, okay. But then the person that purchased my first ever diner with the two eggs, She was telling me how it gave her the memories of like New York, New Jersey kind of a feel vibe. I'm not really sure. There's my cat.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, hi, cat. This is Mian. Oh my gosh, what a beauty.

SPEAKER_02:

He just likes to hang around and then be in the center of attention. I

SPEAKER_00:

mean, I can relate. Look at that pink nose. Have you had him since he was a kitty?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so I actually rescued kind of rescued him in korea and i had to fly with him which was very hard to fly with him because he cried for 14 hours

SPEAKER_00:

oh my god did you have to quarantine him or anything

SPEAKER_02:

no actually um no one really cared that's coming in i feel like um so in korea when i was leaving um the quarantine center was like do you have all the documents do you have do you have did you give him all the shots um because otherwise he's he might be rejected in your destination. So I really like prepared all the paperwork, got through everything. And then once I landed in JFK, no one checked. They just let me through. So

SPEAKER_00:

I was like, oh, okay. Okay. Oh my gosh. We've got some bigger fish to fry, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, so the diner back to the, I love that diners have something for everyone. Like no one has like, Oh, I don't, I don't want to eat anything here. You know, like no one ever says that. And I love how it's always open. So it's like very comforting place. Like any time of the day, you can just go. I used to bartend when I was in college and it would, I would go home at like 4 AM, 5 AM. And I, could always depend on the diner to like get me some coffee and maybe like really warm breakfast so i love that idea

SPEAKER_00:

is there any anything like that in korea is there any sort of

SPEAKER_01:

equivalent yeah

SPEAKER_02:

there are a lot of 24 7 um convenience stores, like a bodega in New York, I guess. And they carry a lot of ready to eat foods. So that's sort of a diner feel, but it's not something like someone's welcoming you and there's a person who's serving you that's been there forever. And, you know, it's like very comforting to know that you'll be taken care of.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

A lot of your work could be in any country. I mean, the diners, I guess, is a more of an American thing, but is any of your work, is there any Korean influence in it? I

SPEAKER_02:

basically, I spend most of my adult life in the US since I've been here since I was 14. So for about 20 years, I was like, and so it's a mix of a lot of like Americana and like, I think it has to do more with me being in Buffalo and in Missouri and in New York than the time I spent in Korea.

SPEAKER_00:

And you said you were in the Ozarks, right? I never asked you about that.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

That's cool.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. That was very interesting.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, yeah. Well, it's so different than New York.

SPEAKER_02:

New York is complete. It was a different country.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes. Yeah. I went to high school in Missouri. I

SPEAKER_02:

did. Oh, I had no idea.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. About an hour outside of St. Louis

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. Okay. We were, I was close to Springfield and I think we were four hours from St. Louis. So like more towards Arkansas.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. I've been to the Ozarks a few times. We had a boat for a while there. That sounds really fancy, but it's not you guys. It wasn't a fancy boat. It wasn't a fancy place.

SPEAKER_02:

I know exactly what boat you're talking about. And everyone has that boat because we had the river nearby and everyone would just go to river and fish and, and we just hook up the boat behind your truck and then just go to water.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. So let's see here. So this question is a little bit of a left turn, but on March 20th, you posted a piece and you said, I'm obsessed with the transparent gray glass. It reminds me of the water at the doors of Durin, mysterious and captivating at dangerous. And I was wondering, are you a big Lord of the Rings fan? I

SPEAKER_02:

am. I mean, I can't, say that I'm an expert in Lord of the Rings, but I was obsessed with the books growing up. And then I love the movies. So I just like the imagery. And the gray glass really reminded me of that door. And it's that door shape. And the glass, actually, it looks very transparent, but you can't really see anything behind it. So I thought that was really cool. So I like that reference in there. I love it.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you. teeny tiny pieces do you use a different size foil for those and what size foil do you use um i

SPEAKER_02:

like to use 3 16th which is pretty thin to begin with and this uh the tiny pieces i'll use it um i'll use the same size foil but i'll use the exacto knife if it's covering too much and i'll cut out the shape yes i

SPEAKER_00:

love that that's kind of a glass hack yeah oh yeah that's true do you have any other glass that you wanted to share today? I kept

SPEAKER_02:

thinking about it and I was I wasn't sure if I knew anything that was like special. I'm still very much experimenting with patina and polishing steps. I was listening to other episodes for like assembly class works. I love her work, Jacqueline. And she's always sharing like new tricks. So I probably purchase pledge according after listening to the podcast and I'm trying that out I'm not sure about it yet but I think I have to try a couple different methods of using it like waiting a day or like wiping it right away so it's it's funny how everyone has their own methods yeah I think this has been shared too but using the wrist strap between the glass oh yeah yeah So I love using that because the panels, when they get bigger and if there were any straight lines, they get pretty weak because also since I'm using very thin foil, I'm always afraid that it's going to buckle over time. But by putting the wrist strip, it becomes so much stronger. I love using that.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. Yes. Your lines are really thin. Yes. So I saw that you did a couple of collaborations. Tell me about the piece you made for, it's a store, it's a Scandinavian home decor store called Teak New York

SPEAKER_02:

yeah Teak is a Scandinavian furniture store that's located in Greenpoint and Caitlin the owner she actually contacted me pretty early on asking if we can do a collab and she wanted to feature some of the product that she carries in the store and you know I love lamps I love furniture I love chairs so it was really easy to collaborate on that the designs of the lamp that she had. I think it was a flower pot lamp by Burpin. That was really cool. It was so easy to just incorporate that in glass. So I was really grateful to have that collaborating opportunity.

SPEAKER_00:

It totally, it was a collaboration that totally made sense. When I looked at their website and the furniture that they carry, like it totally translates to the work that you're doing too. Very simple, very clean.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Another one you did was for a cat food company. It's called Smalls for Cats. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So they were, I think they had an event in Los Angeles up with art that was inspired by cats and their cat themed food. I guess it's like a fresh food company for cats. And they contacted me to do a collaboration. And I came up with couple of designs and that was their packaging design is really really cute and on the big box it has smalls all around it and so I kind of incorporated that into the panel with the big chair and the lamp and the cat so that was really cool and then I shipped it in time so that they could have that in their party where I think it was like a gallery opening I'm not really the details yeah but it was like a party with all the pieces that was curated by um

SPEAKER_00:

the brand so it says that the show was called for the love of black cats and it was curated by christine yes her instagram is christine

SPEAKER_02:

yes like mine is just so one yes

SPEAKER_00:

yeah um and that happened in la on monday october 30th yeah so not too long ago and then did somebody buy that piece or did they keep it

SPEAKER_02:

um i think they kept it i didn't really hear um after what happened but um they did send me a really cool package with all the food and cat toys that my cats are obsessed with

SPEAKER_00:

oh okay a little plug for that company if you got cat now the next two questions I have are just comments that I saw on your Instagram these are I just want to like do a disclaimer because I don't know they're not they're not questions that people sent into me to ask um but somebody said uh let's see At Nendy Lou said, I'd love to buy your patterns if you decide to sell those. Would you ever do patterns?

SPEAKER_02:

That is a really, really good question that is hard to answer. I've been thinking about it lately. But it's just, I don't make multiple of my own work. So most of the time, it's just one of a kind. And it takes me probably three, four days just to make the pattern just to from the sketch to make it work somehow, and then to decide all the elements in the pattern and I don't know if I want to see that same pattern. It is very flattering so it's really hard to say no to people who want to make similar work or they're inspired by my pieces but in the future I might make some patterns that's available but right now I don't have anything And I don't know if it's in any near future.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. What program are you using to design your patterns?

SPEAKER_02:

Illustrator, Adobe Illustrator. So I'll draw a sketch with a pen and pencil and I take a photo and I upload it and I just... take the sketch into, like I start playing with the lines and then make sure that it's possible to do with glass. And I love that part. It's figuring it out, problem solving, like adding elements to avoid as much as I can, like the crazy cuts. I mean, I do have a ringsaw, which is really, really nice to have it solve so much, so many problems, but I think I love the challenge of figuring it out, how it could be possible with glass. Would you ever do prints? I really want to do prints, but I just haven't gotten around to find the right printer or right printing company for the prints. But I was confused when people asked me for prints, if they want the design. part where it's like an illustrator file like a graphic design piece that's what I thought people were asking about but it seemed like some I think neighborhood stained glass I really love her work on Instagram and she was selling prints and they were photographs of the stained glass that were printed so I wasn't sure if it should be photographs of the pieces in the sun but I really want to I just haven't gotten around to them yet

SPEAKER_00:

that's so interesting I honestly I think I don't know what even I meant by that question. Cause of course I, I was, I meant the stained glass, but in my mind, I think I did mean the illustration.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. That's what I thought. But then I'm like, do people like the stained glass part of it or just the design part of it? Or are there just both parties out there that just are just separate? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. But have you, do you know neighborhood stained glass works? No, but I'm going to look it up right now. Yeah. Oh, neighborhood glass. Oh, wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's so good. Okay, I see. I see what you're talking about. I'm looking at her prints right now, specifically. Very cool.

SPEAKER_02:

And also, I think her glass choices have more texture to it, which really translates well in the

SPEAKER_00:

print,

SPEAKER_02:

I think.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, she's doing such an amazing job photographing her work in order to make a print out of it because... therein lies the rub, right? Like it's so hard to photograph your work in a way that would translate. That's incredible. The last question I wrote down has nothing to do with stained glass, but you use something called a glass pen often to do some illustrations. It's like ASMR on the Instagram and it's almost like you like dip it into a pot of ink, I think, and then you bring it back

SPEAKER_02:

to the paper. Yeah. It's like a pen, but like pen with the nip at the end, but it's made out of glass. I've never seen one of those before. Oh, okay, okay. Yeah, they're really easy to work with. Once you dip it in the glass, it has little ridges where the ink kind of follows up. So it's basically the same logic, same method as, you know, those old, very old pens where you have to dip it in ink to write. Yeah. Yeah, it's like that. But I totally forgot about it. That was a couple of years ago.

SPEAKER_00:

They're really cool. I I don't know. I've never, I've never seen one before, but it's, it's like a glass rod. And then she's right at the bottom towards the tip. There's like this like spiral on the outside of the glass. And then when she dips it into the pot of ink, it sucks it up into the channels of the swirl and then releases it slowly. It's so cool. It's really, really neat.

SPEAKER_02:

They are really cool. I should really find them again and get back into

SPEAKER_00:

it. I was like, maybe it's like a Korean thing. I don't know. I've never seen that before. No, I think you can, I think you can find them on Amazon. I think, you know, actually. Okay. Well, I'm going to look and link it if I can find it. Are you ready for your final three questions? I think so. I'll try my best. Okay. Well, I'll, I'll start off with the easier ones. I think, I think they're easier. I don't know. It's probably different for everybody. Who is your favorite artist outside of glass? One

SPEAKER_02:

of my favorite artists is Will Burnett. He's an American artist who did fair Thank you. kind of graphic design like paintings of like women and sometimes cats a person reading a book with a cat on top of her and it's it just gives you that like quiet calmness when you look at it the colors are kind of muted I love

SPEAKER_00:

his paintings and who was your favorite stained glass artist

SPEAKER_02:

stained glass artist so I have this community or this group of people that we all worked at friend of all which is which was great and so we became this group that kind of support each other in brooklyn sacha as you know um is my good friend she is one of them and there's jess and suman we all kind of like share tips and tricks and encourage each other i think it really helped me to start my own practice or or my own website because I had such like good support system. So I love Satya. They all do stained

SPEAKER_00:

glass, Sumin and Jess. Do you know Sumin and Jess's Instagram? Satya, I have, but let's give a shout out to your other glass

SPEAKER_02:

pals. So Jess's Instagram is Lazuli, like L-A-Z-U-L-I black. Lazuli black? Yeah. Jessica? She's doing really cool stained glass. So Suman, I think she is working on starting her website. So right now, I don't think she has an Instagram website. Okay,

SPEAKER_00:

but her name is Suman. How do you spell that? Suman, S-O-O-M-I-N. Okay, you heard it here first, folks. Watch out for this glass gang. Yeah. This tough glass gang from Brooklyn.

SPEAKER_02:

It's like, I'm so glad I got to meet everyone at Friend of All and Flannery was so great I've learned everything from Flannery and I just had so much freedom and I got to use the studio in the non-work hours that really helped me get the start otherwise I think I would be I was very I'd be too afraid to go on to my own business I think

SPEAKER_01:

yeah

SPEAKER_02:

but

SPEAKER_00:

having that support system really helped me a lot i love that okay your final question is what are your five to ten year goals

SPEAKER_02:

i don't like to plan things ahead of time because i don't want to be disappointed so i just try to take it as i go and um you know tackle things as it happens but this starting uh starting my own business thing it just it kind of came back to me where i should have planned things first but I just kind of went into it thinking like, let's just tackle things as they come. Um, so yeah, In five years, I do hope that I still have this practice and business of mine and I'm not somehow burned out or just decided to stop. I just did a residency at Arrowmont School in Tennessee, which was really, really, really cool. That was my first time doing a residency. It was just like a week of getting to make my own work in the in the school in the middle of Tennessee. I loved it. And I really hope to do more of that. And I hope to get more opportunities to connect with other people.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today.

SPEAKER_02:

Thank

SPEAKER_00:

you. I'm so grateful that you said yes to come on to Cracked. And I just, I really appreciate your work. Oh, you know what? There's one more thing I wanted to mention before, actually. I say goodbye. I put the call out on Instagram, right? To say like, does anybody have any questions? and I got this from Karina Oswald she said do they know they're changing the way people see stained glass and then like heart eye little smiley face and so that's just like what I want to leave you with is that you truly are just changing the way that people see stained glass and we just we just love you for it so thank you

SPEAKER_02:

thank you so much that's so sweet I've never I don't think anyone has ever said that to me I mean mean I'm just grateful to you know have found stained glass somehow and got to show my ideas through it and I'm grateful to have this opportunity to

SPEAKER_00:

talk about it so thank you well I can't wait to see what's next have a wonderful and productive day in the studio today and I'll talk to you soon

SPEAKER_02:

thank you so much

SPEAKER_00:

to see more of someone's work her Instagram is at so it's s-o-o-o-e-e-u-n and mine is at runaglassworks for a lucky patreon member someone is sending a really sweet it's so cute it's a little glass panel of a pair the panel measures approximately four and a half inches by six and a half inches and you know the drill patreon members watch your inbox and pay attention to my instagram stories for the winner announcement 12 days after this episode is released next week is heather dawn glassworks till then i hope you guys have the best week ever And I'll talk to you then. Thanks for listening. Bye.