In these times of uncertainty and COVID (mostly COVID), it’s hard to remember how things used to be. Activities that used to be mundane, such as eating in restaurants or going to a movie theater, feel like things of the past, forever lost to memory.
Eager to give some hope in these trying times, Korean 3D pen artist Sanago and calligrapher Lee Eun-hee collaborated on a piece that highlighted their best work. The art in question is the Korean characters for “everyday life,” suspended on strings and covered in moss.
Eun-hee provided the characters for the project. Using a “meok,” or ink cake, she carefully wrote out the letters to the words on paper. According to her, ink cakes provide more than just the classic black everyone sees. Different types of ink cakes, when used differently, provide different shades of black. This aids in her calligraphy and allows her to get creative with her lettering. Once the characters were finished, she sent them over to Sanago.
While Eun-hee’s writing process is freehand and traditional, Sanago’s 3D pen art is more modern. First, he digitally traced Euh-hee’s letters on sheets of paper placed over the original work. Then, he took out his 3D pen and outlined her work. The 3D aspect of the 3D pen came afterward. He carefully made mesh frames that encompass the body of each letter.
You may be wondering why the frames aren’t solid. That’s because Sanago had to first fill them up with soaked sphagnum moss. Brown in nature, sphagnum moss stays alive for a long time due to its ability to hold up to 20 times its weight in water. Once the moss was set, Sanago closed off the letters with his 3D pen.
The final piece of the puzzle required Sanago to gather some of the ordinary feather moss you see every day. He wrapped the moss around the letters and carefully trimmed them down to shape them accordingly.
Sanago suspended the letters using string before watering them. Currently, the finished art piece hangs in his café, aptly called the Sanago Café. Combining Eun-hee’s expert calligraphy and Sanago’s creative use of moss and a 3D pen, they hope the piece will bring a sense of comfort in these trying times.
