0-IV : if you leave it all on the stage, what else do you have left? ju
0-IV : if you leave it all on the stage, what else do you have left?
june fourteen. seoul arts high school. wordcount: 616
extra skill : speed finger painting !
there’s another moment of silence between the interviewer and jungeun. my extra skill should just be winning staring contests, she ponders for a moment. its the interviewer’s turn to clear histhroat now, mirroring jungeun’s earlier action towards him.
“so, speed painting?” the interviewer squints his eyes to check if he’s reading correctly. the blonde is a bit amused, as its the first time she’s heard him saying anything on script. something that isn’t monotone.
jungeun grabs her canvas bag, taking out a small ceramic tile and a palette. to save time—because who wants to watch someone mundanely prepare a palette—she prepared the colors she was planning to use the night before.
if she gained her love of dance through her mom, she gained a love of art through her father. okay, maybe not alove,she adds.but an appreciation. ( she was just “too cool” to admit she cared about her dad’s passions as well. )
one of the other staff members prepare to bring another desk forward to her but jungeun shakes it off. jungeun adjusts herself in a way that allows the camera to capture the small tile. without a word, jungeun starts her self-proclaimed extra skill, index finger picking up a bright blue paint. she dances her finger around the top portion of the tile, replacing white with blue.
the interviewer expects her to speak. after whatever absurd bsshe decided to say during her interview, how could she possibly stay silent?but she supposes that staying silent might be the best. have those words linger in his mind and hopefully the viewers’ minds forever.
after adding another color or two, she decided that she couldn’t just sit still and paint. she realizes that her skill gives her an extra opportunity to talk. it gave her an extra opportunity for the viewers to get to knowher.
“you know,” jungeun finally opens her mouth about one minute in, as she adds a darker color for contrast. “my dad always told me slow and steady wins the race."
"he lectures me a lot. i guess its natural, he’s an art professor. he also loves to tell me about rembrandt,” jungeun continues. “a name i could barely remember."
she says the word in english, adding a play on words. if she wasn’t going to impress with her main extra skill, she might as well add a few other skills she has in her arsenal. wordplay was one of them.
"he also says that everything is not what it seems at first—” jungeun adjusts her tile towards the camera more. one can tell that jungeun’s trying to paint a landscape. but it was a work in progress. it wasn’t the final product. so it could be interpreted in different ways.
and the interviewer was possibly interpreting it as a piece of crap.
jungeun eyes the interviewer glancing at his watch. she senses his impatience but she knows she has his interest. if she didn’t have it, he would’ve told her to stop secondsago.
jungeun reminisces her father’s words. the words uttered to the interviewer were words her dad said to her approximately a year ago. those words were consoling, words for a distressed jungeun unable to join the mgas that year. she supposes that its all full circle. she completely faces the tile towards the camera.
she switches surfaces, now using the edge of her index finger and nail to add more paint to the picture. “—things may seem uncertain at first."
waves, then birds are now seen on the tile. she completes the quick painting, facing it towards the interviewer.
“—but they always seem to work out in the end.”
