Kim.Deuksin-Seongha.jikgu

📝ONGO's Reflection

This genre painting by Kim Deuk-sin holds a domestic scene of weaving straw sandals on a sweltering summer day. The painting's master is not some grand affair but the labor of plying the hands to braid a sandal. I see here the worth of patient handwork. A straw sandal takes form only when braided strand by strand, and even on a hot day those hands do not stop. A household turns on the repetition of such small handlings. Because someone does the unseen work each day, someone else walks the road in those sandals. Ordinary labor is never trivial.