We have come to Mokseokwan on a quiet rainy December morning without any clear idea of what will unfold on this visit. Visiting Jeju island in search of the fast vanishing Jeju onggi pottery tradition, the visit to Mokseokwon rock and root collection is a time filler before a scheduled afternoon appointment. And what exactly is a rock and root collection? Well its a collection of curiously shaped pieces of lava and gnarled stumps beautifully displayed in a landscaped park with many examples of the traditional Jeju thatched buildings scattered about. And all of this is the brain child of Baek Un Chol a native of Jeju who fell in love with the faces and stories he could see in the stones and trees. Although his parents considered him a bit crazy and enlisted the efforts of a shaman to change his behavior, he has persisted in pursuing his various dreams to this day.
After graduating from Seoul Arts University with a drama degree and pursuing a career as a photographer, he began to assemble a collection of rocks and stone grave markers. He auditioned his prospective wife with a wheelbarrow and finding her capable and willing he married her and integrated her into his scheme of landscaping. And somewhere along the way he decided to start firing the local clay in a small woodfired kiln built among the rock huts. He concentrates on figurative sculpture most of which illustrates themes of familial love related to the traditional Jeju story of the progenatrix who gave birth to five hundred hungry sons who accidentally ate her after she fell into the stewpot. His figures are rough and many have suffered from the hazards of woodfiring but the sheer vitality and the enormous number of them give them a power which many trained potters lack entirely.
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