Flowers that bloom at dawn but wither at dusk go gently into the dark night. The spring brings flowers back to life. But anguish and agony are on the part of us, people. And the flowers tell us as much. In March, winter slowly starting to give way to spring, I headed over to Gumi, Gyeongsangbuk-do, in the midst of what I could not tell if it was the hazy mist of early spring or simply dust lifted up into the air from the heat emanating from the thawing ground. I arrived at Okgye-dong, Gumi, breathing in the fresh fragrances of March. The Okgye Catholic Church sits right in the middle of a plot of land that used to be rice paddies and vegetable fields. And right next to that is my destination, Aulling Atelier. Looking out the window from the second floor of the house, I enjoyed the gracious scenery with the statue of the Virgin Mary just a stone’s throw away. Photographer Park Chanoo, who always seems on the brink of Samadhi enlightenment when left to his cameras, seems to take a moment and bask in the landscape. Surrounded by white walls and arches, as well as a handful of small paddies and fields nearby, Aulling Atelier is the family home and workshop of flower director Jung Da Yoon. As one might have guessed from the name of the place (“aulling” comes from the Korean word for “harmony”), Jung lives with her family and who she wants to live in harmony. Okgye-dong is the hometown of Jung.

Building a house! Ejecting out of our orbit

“I left Okgye-dong for Daegu when I went off to university. Then, I went further away to Seoul while I was learning about flowers. I think I spent two decades or so away from home. Then, I returned in my early 40s. It was a quiet neighborhood full of paddy fields. It used to be pitch black at night. Now, it’s turned into a modern neighborhood. My parents were the first to return, actually. At the time, my family had a house and a road shop in Daegu. But when my husband got an offer from a company in Sejong-si, we started our lives as a "weekend couple.” We also had a son who was almost about to start elementary school. That meant I had to work and take care of our son during weekdays all by my lonesome. So, I thought it was time to build a house for us.” Jung and her family were on the brink of a major shift in their journey as a family, and building a new house is known to bring out the best and worst in people during the process. What could she have been thinking? “Well, if I had to work and take care of the family, I wanted to build a place that could indeed accommodate both of those tasks more effectively. The fact that we were all going through COVID-19 made the decision an easy one as well. I thought this is the perfect chance to live differently. I wanted to muster up some courage and turn the values we had as a married couple into something tangible. I spent more than 20 years working with flowers. I had blinkers on trying to find new ways to express myself. It turns out, I was more burnt out than I thought. Flowers, you know, can be a tough business. So, I wanted to live in a neighborhood where my parents’ house was just three minutes away, a quiet neighborhood where I can enjoy leisurely walks in the evening.” Human beings cannot shed their skin or morph into different forms like some animals. Instead, what we can do is eject ourselves from our regular orbits to achieve a similar effect.

Humanity was forced to “hit the pause button” because of the pandemic, and most of us learned how to shed our skin, morph ourselves, or test out a new trajectory in our own little ways. For Jung, building a new house was her “eject” button. “Being in Daegu or Gumi didn’t change the fact my husband and I had to spend weekdays apart. And my classes brought people from across the country, so being in Gumu wasn’t going to be too big of a chance from being in Daegu. I also do most of my promoting online and social networking platforms, which meant I don’t really need a road shop in a big city. The decision was made. We decided to build a home workshop! Once we had made our decision, meeting people to get the advice we needed, and finding an architect who really understood our lifestyle and taste wasn’t too difficult.” What they did ask GunCheol Kim, an architect (Smart Architecture Office) who they found from a housing magazine, was simple. “We wanted a place where I could work and take care of our son at the same time. We also wanted a family study and a beautiful garden where we could have fun on weekends as a family.” The floor plan resembles the letter “L.” The regular “residence” part of the house and the “workshop” part of the house meet at a perpendicular angle with a small garden in the middle. The workshop faces the road, whereas the residence is tucked away past the arched front gate. What makes the house interesting is that every room has a tree outside the window. One room has a view of a Cornelian Cherry Tree, whereas another room has a view of a Maple Tree. All in all, the house is neat and serene with only what it absolutely needs. Even the books on the bookshelves in the hallway on the second floor are stacked with their text blocks (the opposite side of the spine) outwardly visible. “I like shapes that look beautiful, and I also like consistency. And when I want to make a change, I make sure what the point of emphasis is. These are books my husband and I have already finished reading. The colors, tones, and subjects were all different when you look at them from the spine side. So, we just arranged them the other way around. The neat and tidy nature of the house extends to its furniture and fixings. Even their son’s room has things all lined up like a showroom of sorts What’s surprising is that children his age tend to make a mess out of everything. But not Yoon Tae. His nickname? The “gentleman.”

Finding “Life Colors”

Jung Da Yoon is an orthodox florist who received a master's degree in floriculture from the Korea University Graduate School, and she studied in Germany, England, Belgium, and France (she earned the Flower-Designer Flower ART International certificate from Germany). Jung is an influencer who curates her feed with flower-related posts only, and she has more than 120,000 followers to date. She is also a popular lecturer often inundated with requests for in-person and online classes in Shanghai, Malaysia, and Singapore. It’s been over 20 years since she started working with flowers. Jung’s mother encouraged her all those years ago, “You're my daughter. You should get to look at nothing but the prettiest things in life.” Instead of showcasing the fleeting beauty of flowers, Jung creates flower designs that feel more like living organisms in and of themselves, a cluster of stars shining together. The architectural style of her arrangements is influenced by the German school of flower design. “The flower school I went to in Germany was located in the mountains, and the teachers gave me time to wander through the mountains for an hour a day just to observe and take in all that nature. Instead of giving me the right answer, they gave me a topic and told me to observe, think, express, and present what I thought was right for that topic. Those teachings have endured and you can clearly see them in my flower design. Aulling Atelier's brand slogan is “Life Color Findation” (a word created by Jung herself, it combines “find” and “foundation”). Just as the flowers in the mountains each had a different color, I believe that each person has a different color in their life. And it’s the person’s own mission in life to express and bring out their own color. And as a flower director, Life Color Finding is my mission. My job is to help find the distinct color of a flower, bring those colors together, and elevate them into a harmonious collective.” In the providence of nature, no line demarcates flowers into garden flowers and wild flowers. Every flower is as wonderful as the universe. Peonies are glorious, violets are simple, and daisies are bashful. All of this, you see from the flowers made at Aulling Atelier. The first thing to do is to find the innate color of each being, its “Life Color.” To accommodate flower design, which is close to installation art, Jung’s workshop has a studio with a lofty ceiling right at the center. Jung also takes photos for her social feed here at the studio. She prefers a misty, almost dreamy ambiance, which is why she went with European-style plaster (construction method using micro-cement made from mineral ingredients, it is unique in that the texture and color naturally rise over time). The studio space often serves as a stage due to the nature of Jung’s work, which is mainly for major flower directing projects such as weddings, banquets, and corporate events. For the same reason, Jung chose soft and flowing curves. Next to the studio is a separate space where she can talk with clients and condition flowers. Here, too, the walls are finished with European plaster, creating that perfect dreamy backdrop for her flowers.

Flowers wilting and withering are a part of spring.

The way “By the stream” sounds when sung by IU, who is in her 30s, is different from the way it sounds when sung by Jung Mijo in her 70s. The same goes for life. It tastes different at every turn. Jung and her husband are in their early 40s, a point where they’ve learned life is bittersweet. So, how would they rate the decision to build a new home? “I used to dedicate my life to finding and realizing my own values as a person. But around the 2021 mark, my life needed more balance. So I traded my road shop for a studio to be with people like me who are trying to navigate their dreams through flowers. And our family built this house as a place where myself, my husband, and my son can always come back to from various points of our own journey and really share our experiences. When we used to live in an apartment, it never felt like I was truly resting at home. But things feel a little different in this house. My husband recharges his batteries before going off to Sejong for the week. I work here at my workshop, and our son goes off to school, then we come right back on the weekends. And all of that just flows naturally like water.” For a person who works with flowers, every conversation comes back to flowers. Flowers that bloom at dawn but wither at dusk go gently into the dark night. The spring brings flowers back to life. But anguish and agony are on the part of us, people. And the flowers tell us as much. For Jung and her family, anguish and agony are welcome parts of life at home.