Yesterday, I visited my friend, Duk Soon Fhwang, a Korean born artist whom you see peeking out at you from her New Jersey kitchen through her wonderland of hand-crafted art. As a child  in hard times under the Japanese and then during the Korean War, her mother told her that even if you’re poor,  you can bring beauty into the world through scraps of things, pieces of paper or cardboard you find almost everywhere. 

From scraps of things Duk Soon creates colorful streams, birds, flying creatures of all kind, an old man fishing. She’s blessed with a creative imagination. She sees beauty waiting in stuff others throw away.

Isn’t that a gift we all could use?