But her destiny changed when she met a man at a church near the university. His dream was to be a pastor. The two fell in love and got married two years later, in 1991. The man began his career as a pastor in Yeongwol, Gangwon-do. She had been born in Seoul and had grown up there. She thought, “Our rural life won’t last long, because someday he will continue his ministry in the city.”
In 1994 when he moved his church to Hongcheon, Gangwon-do, however, her husband made it clear that he would devote himself to rural ministry. The woman who wanted to be an artist now became an ordinary pastor’s wife in the country.
In 2001, she started making art, taking the advice of someone who told her, “It’s a sin that you’re wasting your talents.” She began using iron and stainless steel to make her artworks. The cross has been her main theme since 2006, when she had a solo exhibition at Methodist Theological University (MTU) in Seoul, on the theme of “cross.”
Jeong Hyeryena (52, photo; her mother named her Hye-rye-na, meaning grace, courteousness, and beauty), is the wife of Pastor Park Sun-ung (53) of Dongmyeon Methodist Church in Hongcheon. Kukmin Daily met with her on May 1 at the church. What was the “Cross-Loving” story hidden inside her?
Dongmyeon Methodist Church is situated in a quiet agricultural village. In the church yard, a meek-looking dog was napping, not at all bothered by our visit. In the garden were pansies and dahlias. I noticed a worn-looking tent, about 6.6㎡, next to a freight container. Inside the tent were Jeong’s crude tools including hammer and welding machine, and piles of the iron and stainless steel pieces she uses for her artwork.
“I was busy this morning on the farm,” she said, greeting us with a bright smile. The couple grow potatoes, corn, and sweet potatoes on a 13,223-square-meter (4,000 pyeong) piece of land.
“It has been more than 20 years already that we’ve lived in Hongcheon, raising one son and three daughters. We’re really busy every day. Farming is pretty challenging, and on afternoons during the week we teach arts and English after-school classes at a nearby elementary school and a middle school.
In the past, she used wood or clay for her artworks. Now that she is focused on making crosses, her main materials are iron and stainless steel. Compared with wood or clay, raw materials that require much time and labor to dry, steel takes much less time. She makes crosses in the in-between hours of her busy daily life. So far she has made approximately 100 crosses. Once in a while she also makes other artworks with Christian messages.
“After my exhibition at MTU, I constantly received orders for crosses. So making crosses naturally became my main artistic work. When I make a cross, I meditate a lot about the Biblical Cross. I’m reminded of the saying, “Life comes with suffering,” and I’ve also come to realize God’s providence of blessing through suffering.”
Jeong has had more than 100 exhibitions so far, including nine solo exhibitions. She said, “Because of the costs of the production itself, my artworks are not cheap… But I don’t sell a work just because someone wants it. I respond to an order only when I feel the client empathizes with the message I put in the artwork.”
Jeong places various images in her crosses. For example, in one where a large group of people are set within a cross frame, it seems as if she has placed many emotions, such as joy, anger, love, and pleasure, in the different individual human shapes. Like her multi-layered artworks, her thoughts on what the Cross means are wide-ranging also. She explained, “The cross is a holy item that embodies a message about abandoning the false self and seeking the real me.”
“The Cross is where Jesus was hung because of the discord between humans and God. Therefore, when humans look at a cross, they feel they’re communicating with God constantly. If life is a journey seeking the ‘life direction’ that the Creator wants, the Cross is the tool that teaches me that direction."
This is Jeong’s 15th year of creating artworks, but she does not call herself a full-time artist. Maybe that is because she also raises children, farms, teaches students, and serves her church as the pastor’s wife. From now on, though, she is hoping to devote her life entirely to her art.
“I often feel physically challenged, because the materials I use, especially the metals, are heavy. And there is always the risk that I’ll burn myself while welding. I feel the greatest joy, however, when I’m creating my artworks, so I can’t quit making the crosses. From now on, I will make crosses with straightforward, powerful messages to the world, and to Christians in this land.”
Reporter Park Ji Hun (lucidfall@kmib.co.kr), from Hongcheon, with Yeara Ahn-Park (yap@kmib.co.kr)
Photo by intern reporter Heo Ran, from Hongcheon
Click here for the original article in Korean
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