Faculty View Art as a Practice of Love and Joy A conversation with Yoon Soo Lee, Graphic Design You are loved. You are not alone. These are the messages that Graphic Design faculty Yoon Soo Lee wishes to share—not only in her own creative work and her pedagogy, but with every cell of her being. In a time when isolation and distancing reign at large, Yoon Soo’s message is all the more impactful and necessary. But according to Yoon Soo, love, just like art, is an ongoing practice. “I love the word ‘practice’ because it is both an action as well as a description. It is a process-oriented word and is
generous and forgiving,” she says. “The idea of ‘practice’ doesn’t judge a book by its cover and doesn’t assess a human of their worth by its portfolio or resume.” The word practice came to Yoon Soo when she began painting in 2003. She found herself in need of a title for her seriesin-progress. “I realized the work was about love. And about how to practice love. Not the Hollywood love, but all the other types of love. The kind that feeds your spirit and creates a hospitable environment for you to grow and flourish,” she says. Her series of paintings, “Practice Love,” is the manifestation and meditation of her process as an artist. Colors materialize and migrate like petals whirling in wind, like bubbles rising to the water’s surface, as Yoon Soo constructs and deconstructs her identity on the canvas. In her artist statement, she says, “My paintings