Master wood carver wins belated recognition

Small wood furniture master Um Tae-jo works with wood, his lifelong subject and teacher in life, at his workshop in Yeongcheon, North Gyeongsang Province in this file photo. He was appointed the Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 55 or small wood furniture making. / Courtesy of Um Tae-jo

Um Tae-jo says he learned about life through woodworking

By Kim Ji-soo

YEONGCHEON, North Gyeongsang Province —Walking into Um Tae-jo’s factory, one container-like building in Yeongcheon, North Gyeongsang Province, one immediately comes face-to-face with elaborate, traditional Korean furniture such as a full-length wardrobe, bedding closets, half-sized chests and wooden beds made from pine wood. They’re the type of furniture one would see in various Korean dramas and films. In fact, Um’s works have been featured in Korean dramas such as “Jang Ok-jeong” and the Korean movie “Gwansang” (2013)or “The FaceReader.”

The smell of the furniture, of the wood dried over several years, sometimes decades, imbues a sense of calm as one takes in the extraordinary craftsmanship.

“I would say wood or handling wood is the most important part in my work,” said Um, a newly designate “somokjang” or master in small wood furniture.

A low-lying bench that can double as a bed made out of pine wood

“You have to know how to select the right ones, how to dry them well so that they are not later damaged by humidity,” Um said. A somokjang creates traditional small wood furniture such as wardrobes, chests and boxes for wedding gifts sent by a bridegroom to his bride before the wedding. But a somokjang also creates items other than furniture, such as palanquins and wagons.

Um was appointed Important Intangible Cultural Asset No. 55 in September or master in wood furniture making for his knowledge and expertise with wood and woodworking. The title is the nation’s highest honor, which he earned on his third attempt.

“I don’t know. I am happy, but it’s nothing like the joy I would have felt in my 40s,” Um said as he was driving to his factory.

A set of green varnish furniture for the Korean reception room created by Um Tae-jo

Modestly, he said he went through a three-stage screening process. The Cultural Heritage Administration asked him to submit relevant papers and to demonstrate his carpentry skills on two occasions. “At the final stage, they asked us the candidates to create a desk from scratch in five days,” Um said. “So at 70, after 54 years in the trade, I took that test and made the desk,” he said. Um started learning the craft at the age of 14 and thus, instinctively knows how to select the best wood and dry them to perfection. Um has been working all his life with wood, making everything from small wooden jewelry boxes to half-sized Korean traditional chests to full-length Korean traditional closets. The latter, in particular, were staple furniture items for the Korean upper class until the 1990s, before “young people opted for clean, smooth-looking furniture,” Um said.

Born in 1944 in Gunwi-gun, North Gyeongsang Province, he belongs to the 1950-1953 Korean War generation who returned home only to find everything ruined by the war. At 14, he went to find work in Seoul and ended up learning carpentry.

“I remember it was somewhere in Seodaemun, Seoul; it was a furniture shop,” Um said. “For the first year or two, they asked me to sweep the yard and to make sure that the scratches that I make while sweeping run straight. Of course, I couldn’t produce the straight lines with my sweeping in the beginning,” Um said. However, after two years, he finally did and he was asked to come inside the workshop to try his hand at planing. After a year of doing that, he was finally asked to create a desk. He stayed with that shop for about seven years, he recalled. But during that time, he also began learning from a master artisan the late Kang Dae-gyu.

A Milyang-style cabinet that Um has worked on numerous times. In traditional Korea, blankets and clothes were stored in the cabinets.

Then, in his early 30s, he moved to Daegu, also in the North Gyeongsang Province region, to work in antique furniture shops near the U.S. bases there. “There, I learned that wood furniture could easily be reborn as a new after few repairs, because of the way it’s made and the way that the wood was used,” Um said.

Later, he began to seek the guidance of noted teachers and started his own business, the Geonge Wooden Workshop. His dedication began paying off when he was recognized by the Ministry of Labor as a “Korea Master Hand” in wood furniture making.

“The 1990s were the heyday of my career, I believe, when people rushed to have their main bedroom furniture made by me,” he said. His works are not the most affordable. For instance, his full-length closets, usually sold in sets of three, cost 100 million won.

“I give a reasonable price to those who appreciate the work but lack deep pockets,” Um said. “But I never give a discount to those who are ostentatious or just trying to bargain,” he said.

He used to make all of his furniture by hand but now uses modern equipment for certain aspects of the process. However, he still does the core part of the process, carving, by hand, to make sure that all parts fit well without nails and to create elaborate designs.

Um showed the wooden shelf that he made in the restoration work of the Triptaka Koreana, a 13th-century collection of over 80,000 woodblocks holding Buddhist texts at the Haein Temple in South Gyeongsang Province. “You can see here that all the individual elements can be disassembled and reassembled because no nails are used,” Um said. He said he learned so much during the 10 years he worked in the restoration of the Tripitaka Koreana, starting in 1997.

“I learned what the masters did 800 years ago to create the masterpieces,” Um said. He recalled one incident during that restoration work when one monk suddenly threw a bucket of water on the wooden flooring that he was working on. Um asked the monk what he was doing, and the monk replied that he was just checking the dryness of Um’s wood.

Um has passed on his knowledge of the craft to his son, Um Dong-hwan. His son said having the master artisan as a father poses constraints in trying new techniques or modern technology in wood furniture making.

But he agrees with his father regarding the importance of adhering to the traditional method of woodworking.

“I am sticking to this craft because I want people 50 or 60 years later to know that such pieces of furniture were made in the 2000s in Korea,” Um said. “Also, I learned a lot about life working with wood. I learned that even the dead parts of the wood, when reassembled and refurnished, comes to life,” he said.