the seashore, daily life, village
A coal mine reminds me of Taebaek. Im Gil-taek’s collection of poems, “The Children of the Coal Mine Village,” also comes to mind. Also paintings of Taebaek in the Imperial City. Black powder flies away. Snow-covered streets are rare and only the cold wind blows. The head of a household who lives on the line, the family who lives with anxiety, the father who suffers from pneumoconiosis, and the children go to school and play with their friends.
Most coal mines come dark with black. But there is a coal mine next to the sea. It’s a coal mine with the sea, so it doesn’t seem to match anywhere. But the sea with the coal mine is so beautiful that it is dazzling.
The book shows a day of family living in a coal mine village by the sea. The day could be yesterday or tomorrow. It repeats almost exactly the same. Just as everyday life repeats itself, the book also intersects the daily life of a child and the daily life of a father working in a coal mine. The landscape of the coal mine, painted in black, is spread out on two pages in a landscape-long plate. In a small space, my dad bends his back and works hard. As the page goes by, the space where dads are gets smaller and smaller. The black ceiling, the black wall, is gradually crushing my father. Oh, something’s ominous. I think something is going to happen to my dad. What do I do?
The child lives his or her daily life as if the father were living his or her day in a coal mine. I go on an old swing with my friend and run errands for my mom. I go to my grandfather’s graveyard, which was also a miner, and I look at the sea that is especially sparkling today. It’s so rare for a child to have a day. Finally, in the evening, I can see my father outside the door. My dad came back safely today. Now the family dinner begins. Dad changes into clean clothes and sits around everyone for dinner. After the meal, the family comes out to the terrace to drink tea and look at the setting sun and the sea. So, another day went by without a hitch.
The writing is calm all the time. The child recites the daily life of the day one by one without any particular escalation of emotion. The picture also responds calmly and smoothly to the writing. Black is cast and black is painted, but the sea that glitters in the sun is colored green, jade, and gold. Light green grasses and the subtle yellow sunlight of the evening also come a little softer and clearer within the black outline.
Painter uses various pages of the book to connect the flow of writing.
Increase the echo of the text.
The sea fills two pages. It’s beautiful.
The coal mine is also two pages full of black. It’s hard.
At the end of the day, the four families, lying comfortably in their chairs and looking at the sea, are also close-ups on two pages. A grateful heart and a sense of relief come to me even more from the sight of a father hugging his child from a coal mine, two close-up teacups, and a family looking at the setting sun.
There are pictures that unfold across two pages, but sometimes a few separate sections show the flow of time and emotion. The scene where a child swings with a friend is divided into 6 sections. In the compartment, the swings on which the children ride ‘creak’ and ‘creak’ move quietly back and forth.
Over time, the shadows of the evening sun enter the house little by little. This figure is drawn in four sections. If you follow, you will see the flow of time. And the child’s thoughts are divided into large and small sections. A sunny summer day, a dark tunnel, the sea, Dad.
Like his grandfather and father, the words of a child who says he will be a miner come to me calmly.
His life is no good.
It’s a hard, hard life exposed to danger.
That’s why it’s hard, it’s dark, it’s unhappy.
No one will be able to talk to you casually.
The daily life of a child and family is hard.
The child’s heart is strong, living his or her life day by day.
It may be a monotonous repetitive daily life, but it brings together one by one to make our lives.
It is a blessing to have such a comfortable and peaceful time at the end of the day.
this one picture
I can’t stretch my back.
You have no choice but to bend your back.
Dad goes one step at a time silently.
The black ceiling presses Dad more and more.
Dad keeps his body down, even lower.
There’s nowhere else to go now.
There is a sea glistening in the sun above it.
a sea of green and white light
an endless sea
The sea is beautiful even though it is a painting.
be dazzled with ecstasy
In a coastal village with a coal mine,
The family lives a ‘determined daily life’.
After reading this book, the phrase ‘hardness of daily life’ always comes to mind. I haven’t had a decent routine with Corona 19 for months. That’s why I chose this book as my first drawing book. Only when the daily life is solid can everyone live a solid life doing their duties in place, which is messy and jagged. The days when they are just living their days of anxiety and hopelessness that may end. Now we are vaguely realizing that our daily lives were precious.