‘PAINstaking’

When I’m experiencing chronic pain I visualize it as a blanket enveloping my entire body. This even applies to lamenting over the loss of my body due to my constantly progressing muscle wasting disorder.

Physical and emotional pain can visit anyone of us. This is how it feels. In these moments all that’s left to do is find beauty...somewhere. Anywhere. 

This looking to the light is difficult and requires painstaking mental focus, but it’s necessary in order to continue the tether that connects me to this world.

This piece is also a nod to my Korean heritage. The cloak of physical or emotional pain is a loose interpretation of a “hanbok”, a traditional korean dress. Korea’s National flower is Hibiscus Syriacus or “Rose of Sharon”. The smaller flower graphics is the exact design from my childhood korean passport when I flew to America at four years old to meet my first family.

Wear your pain when you need to, but don’t forget to keep searching for the beauty in the world. Keep going.