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Apprenticeship Guidelines and Application

Round 3 (2001-2002) Award Recipients

Other Apprenticeship Rounds

Round 5 (2004-2005)

Round 4 (2002-2003)

Round 2 (2000-2001)

Round 1 (1999-2000)

Korean seal carving or engraving is a specialized art form that requires mastery of traditional calligraphy and artistic creativity to transform a block of stone, wood or ivory into a unique "signature." Although he made his living as a neurosurgeon, Sun Wuk Kim never lost his love of calligraphy, which he has always continued to practice, along with seal carving, for the past 37 years. With many years of experience in calligraphy, Tae Sun Hwang will take this opportunity to learn to translate that art into seals by training under Dr. Kim, who is one of the best Korean seal carvers in the United States.

o this writing is the critical and essential factor to make a seal carving. That's in order to carve seals we have to complete the writing skill ... This is not only the technique or skill of the hand. This is also the skill of the spirit. This is a skill of calligraphic spirit.

—Sun Wuk Kim

	On Tuesday mornings, master artist Sun Wuk Kim meets with a few students in the back room of an art gallery in Garden Grove.
	Apprentice Tae Sun Hwang prepares to draw her calligraphy on the surface of the seal.
	Students must master several types of calligraphy before they can learn to carve seals. Tae Sun Hwang perfects the calligraphy that she is preparing on the stone's surface. “Even when someone is able to carve better in the stone, that's not the factor. The essential one is how we make the best calligraphy writing on the stone.”—Dr. Kim
	Because the calligraphy is traced in reverse on the surface of the stone, the carver uses a small mirror to check the accuracy and aesthetic of the design. “Seeing this through the mirror, it makes it clear what the result on paper will be.”—Dr. Kim
	The strokes of Dr. Kim's writing reveal the importance of line, shape, and space in calligraphy, an art essential to excellent seal carving.   Read more about Sun Wuk Kim

 

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