Hyewon Grigoni, one of our beloved Duke Arts Create Instructors, has engaged in a variety of creative practices since childhood. Her work and writing have appeared in art shows, in print, and on air for public radio. She has taught art and art appreciation at the K-12 level, and her favorite discipline to teach kids and adults is Drawing 101, which Hyewon considers as the “Art of Looking.” Her next painting exhibition will be at the Durham Arts Council in March 2025.
Read the Q&A below to learn more about Hyewon Grigoni’s art practices, inspirations, and experiences with Duke Arts Create!
I call myself a pottery obsessed painter. I paint and will always paint, but last year took a wheel throwing class at Liberty Arts (with Duke Arts Create’s Julie Hinson!) and was hooked. Mud, physics, glazes, fire… it’s a wild and gratifying medium that you can also eat soup out of. Absolutely insane. I practice other artforms but those are my big ones.
No idea. It’s more a compulsion maybe, a reaction to being human.
To be honest, as I get older, it’s enough to just make something that I like to look at. But ultimately, yes I always hope to create things that comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. To bring more understanding and joy to the world.
If politics play on people’s fears, I definitely believe art plays on our hopes -perhaps our greatest, most secret, most protected hopes. After the elections I kept hearing people say art would save our democracy, and I think that is sort of a lazy way to think about this. It puts too much onus on the artists. I hope people who partake of, consume, or purchase art will also step up to responding to art with more than an emotional response. Art teachers love to tell their students, “Good art evokes an emotion,” but I want more than that. I want action. I want connection, self-acceptance from people, I want an honest look, more risk, joy, and understanding.
Not to take oneself too seriously.
Tin types! Because fun. And growing indigo and this particular Korean tree whose flowers dye a lovely yellow, and making medicinal tinctures from my garden some day because potion making. And I’d like to see more collabs with the visual arts and singers and dancers.
People are so appreciative of the time to just get into whatever we’re getting into. We know the arts are vital to our quality of life, to a healthy, empathetic, and worthwhile existence, yet we sometimes forget to bring the arts into our regular lives. Duke Arts Create makes the space for people to do that (and for free!), and people always leave a little bit better off than when they showed up. I love that.
The first artwork that ever stopped me in my tracks was Marc Chagall’s The Birthday. My 2nd grade art teacher, Ms. McCoy, had a poster of this in her room and I remember being a little obsessed with it. The last artwork to seriously mesmerize me is Stephen Gill’s series of photos from The Pillar. Karl Ove Knausgaard wrote about the series. An artist I love is Ransome – who lives in the Hudson Valley and mostly paints with paint and paper. Another artist I love is Lydia Ricci because her entire aesthetic is super Gen X childhood and that feels good.
Enjoy it! Don’t work too hard… but also don’t waste your precious time. There’s a delicious balance between being productive and being present, find it. And never lose hope.