Spools Unravel Traditional Beauty
By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
Thread was one of the seven essential items of ``women's seven friends." The others being needles, scissors, thimbles, ruler, thread, ``indu'' or a heart-shaped small iron with a long handle and a big iron women used in their quarters during the Joseon Kingdom.
Thread symbolized longevity in the past. If a baby picks up a thread during the first birthday party ritual where the child is placed in front of a table of food and objects such as string, books, brushes, ink and money to foretell the child's future career, it is believed he/she will live a long life.
But spools winding the threads haven't received much attention despite their traditional beauty and practical functions.
To shed light on the spools with various designs and patterns, the Museum of Korean Embroidery is holding an exhibition featuring Korean traditional spools until Nov. 10.
It is the first exhibition to focus on spools although numerous others have featured the seven essential sewing items as part of women's culture.
The museum said that the spools were used for preventing the threads from getting tangled but later on they evolved from practical purposes to diverse and creative craftworks
The museum displays 200 pieces of seven different kinds of spools made in the 19th century.
The spools vary in materials from wood, mother-of-pearl, silk, and stone, to ivory, embroidery and ``hwagak.'' Hwagak or ``brilliant horn,'' is the traditional art of inlaying ox-horn pieces, which have been flattened paper-thin and painted, onto the surfaces of furniture and household objects to create vivid intricate designs.
``We've decided to show our traditional spools because they were undervalued despite their practical and artistic excellence,'' Huh Dong-hwa, director of the museum, said in a press release.
``Spools were one of the most precious treasures for Joseon women as they always kept them beside them as needlework was one of the few ways to express their aesthetic desires and inspirations under the constrained social atmosphere in women's quarters,'' he said.
The museum opened in 1976 to present Korean embroidery, the highest state of intellectual pursuit of women, who had to lead cloistered lives during the Joseon era.
Since its inception, it has displayed about 3,000 pieces of embroidery and patchwork.
The museum has also held 45 exhibitions in various countries, such as the United States, France, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand and Japan since 1978.
The museum is located at Hakdong Station, exit 10 on subway line 7. For more information, call (02) 515-5114. Entrance is free.