Header Photo: Hyewon Grigoni leading the Duke Arts Create workshop “The Art of Noticing: Field Notes”
In a sunlit studio, a picture of possibility emerges: a painted rock rests on the corner of a table, jars of cloudy paint water slowly evaporate, and half-used materials fill the space not as clutter, but as inspiration. To Durham-based artist and Duke Arts Create instructor Hyewon Grigoni, nothing is entirely insignificant. Even the smallest discarded object holds the potential to become something worth paying attention to again.
That attentiveness lies at the center of Grigoni’s artistic practice. Not attention in the productive sense, nor the hyper-focused kind demanded by achievement and constant output, but a quieter form of noticing: the act of slowing down enough to recognize value in things that otherwise disappear into the background. A bug crossing the sidewalk. A scrap piece of wood. Excess paint wiped carefully onto a stone instead of rinsed down the sink. For Grigoni, sustainability begins there.
“I don’t think sustainability is just about brown coffee filters and composting,” she says with a laugh. “It’s more about achieving balance. Or not even achieving balance, but working toward balance.” That mindset quietly shapes every corner of her studio. Grigoni paints, teaches, throws pottery, leads workshops, makes kombucha, and creates with whatever materials are already around her: sticks, rocks, scraps of wood, discarded objects. “Anything can be a canvas,” she explains. “You can put gesso on anything.”
Her studio practice is rooted less in consumption than in attentiveness. Acrylic paint, she points out, is fundamentally plastic. After years of rinsing paintbrushes directly into the sink, she began rethinking her process entirely. Now, she wipes excess paint onto rocks, scrap wood, or found materials before cleaning her brushes separately, allowing leftover acrylic residue to evaporate before disposal.
“Anything can be a canvas. You can put gesso on anything.”
Hyewon Grigoni, Durham-based artist and duke arts create instructor
Still, Grigoni resists positioning herself as some idealized model of environmental perfection. In fact, she is quick to point out the contradictions that exist within artmaking itself. Pottery kilns require enormous amounts of heat. Acrylic paint is still plastic. Total sustainability, she argues, is impossible.
“If you do the zero-waste thing, you’ll give up,” she says. “We live in a world where it’s hard to just not participate.” Instead, her work asks a quieter question: What does it mean to move through the world with care? That question extends beyond materials and into the way Grigoni teaches others to engage with their surroundings. Through Duke Arts workshops like “The Art of Noticing: Field Notes in Nature” she invites students to slow down and reconnect with the natural world. The workshops often take place outdoors, guided by observation rather than productivity. Participants draw what they see, but the point is not technical mastery. It is learning to notice.
Grigoni describes many Duke students as having a “laser beam focus” on achievement. While that drive can be valuable, she believes it can also narrow a person’s relationship to the world around them. “Everything not directly useful becomes invisible,” she explains. Her workshops attempt to interrupt that pattern, even briefly, by placing value on things that often go unseen: insects, leaves, textures, sounds, fleeting moments outdoors.
“We live in a world where it’s hard to just not participate.”
Hyewon Grigoni, Durham-based Artist and duke arts create instructor
That philosophy emerged repeatedly throughout our conversation with Grigoni. While discussing insects and the changing seasons, the interview drifted into reflections on cicadas, bugs, and the strange beauty of things that exist outside the realm of human utility. “Just because something is of no use to me does not mean it has no value,” Grigoni says.
It is a simple statement, but one that feels central not only to her environmental philosophy, but to her understanding of art itself. Grigoni’s perspective on sustainability is also deeply tied to her upbringing as the daughter of Korean immigrants. Waste, she explains, was never normalized in her household. Containers were repurposed. Objects were kept, repaired, and reused rather than discarded. “If you value something, don’t waste it, even if it’s in abundance,” she reflects.
That orientation toward care continues to shape how she approaches both artmaking and daily life. Sustainability, for Grigoni, is less about constructing an environmentally perfect identity andmore about remaining mindful of one’s relationship to the world and the people within it. At one point in the conversation, she pauses to reflect on what it actually means to be an artist. Her answer arrives slowly, almost as if she is also discovering it in real time: “To have an open heart is what makes a good artist,” she says.
For Grigoni, openness is inseparable from creativity. It allows people to care for themselves, for others, and for even “the smallest among us.” Art, sustainability, and community all become interconnected through that shared practice of attention. Through Duke Arts programming, Grigoni sees opportunities to extend that openness outward. Many of the workshops she teaches are free and open not only to Duke students, but to the broader Durham community. That accessibility matters deeply to her. “Duke might feel like it exists in its own bubble,” she mentions. “It doesn’t.” Art, in her view, should create connection rather than exclusivity.
In Grigoni’s world, sustainability is not performative perfection. It is painted rock drying beside jars of cloudy brush water. It is slowing down enough to notice a cicada shell on the sidewalk. It is reusing what already exists, not because someone online told you to, but because the act of caring itself feels worth the effort. Most of all, it is learning to approach the world with an open and attentive heart.
“If you value something, don’t waste it, even if it’s in abundance.”
Hyewon Grigoni, Durham-based Artist and duke arts create instructor
Watch the video to learn more ways you can intentionally show up for the environment through your art!
This series is written and produced by Duke Green Devil interns Jenna Arafeh and Yuchen Chen, who are working with Duke Arts through the Duke Office of Climate and Sustainability internship program for the 2025–26 academic year.
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