So excited to announce the first pins for my little pet project, KOREAN FOLKLORE, have been released!
If you don’t already know, this project was born to reacquaint myself with my Korean heritage. I’m sure is the case with any first generation born into a family of color, I’ve definitely lost touch with my heritage as I grew up. I’m not sure when the desire hit, but recently I’ve been wanting to relearn about my history and culture. A place I thought would be a great place to start was the mythology in Korean culture.
I mean, if you know me, you know I’m a big geek at heart. So starting with the mythology seemed like the natural spot. With that, I feel like all cultures are born from their mythologies & folklore.
As I dove more and more into this journey, images of these characters based on this tales started to come forth. And another idea hit, to share these stories. But not simply as prose, but something more tangible. And I decided on enamel pins.
And KOREAN FOLKLORE was born.
But why enamel pins? Well, that product may have risen in popularity in recent years, but for me, I’ve always loved enamel pins since I was a kid. The love goes back to the idea of the family we’re born into. For me? In happier memories growing up, there would be annual family ski trips. Every year my mom would always get me an enamel pin from the gift shop. For some reason they were always Snoopy pins, but I loved them so much.
So when it came to gives these characters form, definitely no question about making them into enamel pins.
This first effort includes 3 characters, 3 tales: Joseung Saja, Dokkaebi, and the Bulgasari. Each pin comes with it’s own backing card with a short summary about it’s tale on the back.
You can check out this first release on my Etsy store, The Button Depot and Other Sundries. Enjoy!