Jung Min, known by her initials MJ, has found her artistic voice in the heart of Las Vegas, a city more synonymous with neon lights and spectacle than with depth or introspection. Yet, within this glittering desert landscape, MJ has carved out a space where she explores the tension between her dual cultural identities, creating work that challenges notions of excess and superficiality. As an expat from Seoul, MJ brings to life a dialogue between East and West, using the symbolism of hair to unravel these complexities.
MJ’s medium of choice is black charcoal, which she uses to render flowing, twisting forms of hair that seem to pulse with energy and movement. Her drawings feature hair spiraling in knots, rolled in buns, or stretching out like meteors across white backgrounds. Each piece is imbued with a sense of dynamic tension—an elegant chaos that speaks to the artist’s personal struggles and cultural dualities. For MJ, hair is more than just a physical feature. It is a metaphor for identity, transformation, and the ties that bind her to two worlds, each with its own set of expectations.
Bun Series
The images she creates are not static but appear to animate themselves on the page, as if the hair in her drawings is alive and full of personality. Some of her works incorporate playful puns in her native Korean language, bringing a layer of wit to the tension she depicts. The tight buns in her drawings, often exaggerated in their form, take on distinct personalities, almost as if they’re performing for the viewer. These playful qualities add depth and whimsy to her otherwise charged compositions.
When asked about the core of her artistic practice, MJ explains, “My work has always been investigating myself.” This personal inquiry is reflected in her art, where she navigates the delicate balancing act between her Eastern heritage and her experience as a Western resident. The forms she creates are not simply representations of hair; they are symbols of the cultural, emotional, and existential knots that she untangles as she navigates her identity. In her art, hair becomes a vessel for the complexities of belonging, the push and pull between her roots in Korea and her life in Las Vegas.
The tension in MJ’s work speaks not only to her personal journey but also to the broader contradictions of the environment she inhabits. Las Vegas, a city famed for its excess and artificial allure, stands in stark contrast to the more contemplative, inward-looking practices of contemporary art. Yet, in this very contrast, MJ finds fertile ground for exploration. The superficiality of the city mirrors the external expectations she faces, while her art delves deeper, probing the emotional and psychological forces that shape who she is. In a place known for its glitter and glamour, MJ’s work is a reminder that there is more to life than what meets the eye. Her charcoal drawings are a quiet rebellion against the glitzy facade, a meditation on the internal landscapes that are often overlooked in favor of the shiny and sensational.
Through her charcoal portraits of hair, MJ invites us to reflect on the tension between identity and environment, self and society, East and West. In her hands, a simple, everyday subject like hair becomes a powerful metaphor for the complexities of being human, navigating multiple identities, and finding a space for authenticity in a world that often prioritizes the superficial.
MJ’s art is a subtle but striking statement: it is a meditation on the beauty of complexity, the messiness of identity, and the quiet strength that lies within contradictions. As she continues to make her mark on the Las Vegas art scene, one can only imagine the new dimensions she will bring to this ongoing exploration of self and culture.
During my second ever mushroom trip on March 2, 2023, I took approximately four grams of dried cubensis mushrooms, which I chewed and swallowed raw. Quyen consumed the remaining three grams of a total of seven grams we had purchased in San Jose Del Pacifico. For both of us, this was our first experience taking magic mushrooms in an intentional way.
We both began by sitting outside on the patio of our rental house in San Agustin Etla, a small pueblo thirty minutes drive north of Oaxaca City in the state of Oaxaca, México. Green leafy trees and shrubs canopied the patio and overlooked a larger property, also with various fruit trees, a neglected vegetable garden, a compost hole and covered in leaf and needle litter; the perfect place for a mystical experience.
While waiting for the effects to arise, we sketched in our notebooks. I drew a stylized human figure, hoping to dredge up some long repressed creative impulses, while Quyen drew concentric radiating circular patterns, a feature of some of her larger art works. The first to notice changes in perception, Quyen handed me her notebook and asked me if I noticed any movement. As I rested my gaze on the center of a figure, the circles began oscillating within each other, like water rippling on the surface of a pond. The changes arose faster and stronger for Quyen, likely due to her smaller size and her high sensitivity and general intolerance to most drugs and alcohol. We soon gave up on drawing and simply began to observe the natural world around us which was becoming more and more acute as the sky began to darken and the day began its transition to night. Colors intensified and stratified. Details popped. The geometry of objects became more pronounced. The sounds of birds became louder.
More visuals followed; for example the patio itself, composed of hexagonal patio bricks set tightly together, but with a slight unevenness from the poor substrate, began to radiate an iridescent neon-green layer of intricate patterns which continually morphed and wiggled into new patterns as I alternated my focus. The tiles also began to move against each other, as if the ground beneath them was oscillating. Quyen recalls that the visual patterns reminded her of certain Mayan or other indigenous Mesoamerican patterns found in indigenous art and tapestries. It is not unimaginable that these ancient traditions were inspired by their own experiences with psychedelics in the form of psilocybin or Ayahuasca ritualistic ceremonies. This layering phenomenon added a density and thickness to everything I trained my focus on. Even the space between objects seemed more viscous as air particles themselves, catching the light of the rising moon, filled the spaces between with light and energy. The feeling of nausea arose only briefly during this time, about thirty or forty minutes after ingesting the mushrooms, but the ill-feeling quickly faded.
We then both decided to lay down on yoga mats we had set out on the patio. My body high had reached a peak; my head felt numb and tingly and my body heavy; and laying down became increasingly desirable. Looking up into the tree branches I saw that they revealed layers and a density I had not previously noticed. The branches writhed and swayed like serpents but in a welcoming, non-threatening way. A neighbors black cat slinked toward us. I watched her first circle us and then approach closer, moving across my field of vision in negative relief, so black was her fur that her shape appeared as a vacuum of light, as a black hole would appear set against the stars or galaxies behind it. The blackness radiated around her in geometric patterns which trailed behind her as she moved. I reached out and stroked her head and neck and she pressed back against my fingers and purred softly. She then stole off into the darkness as quietly as she had appeared.
A short time later, a neighborhood dog appeared from behind the bushes. Like most Mexican street dogs who spend their lives roaming the streets, often mis-treated and left to their own devises for protection, this dog was cautious around people, perhaps from prior abuses, but I could see that he was generally healthy and well cared for. I acutely remember his large, muscled, smooth-haired head bowing gently as he approached me, one cautious step at a time, his eyes shyly avoiding mine. I reached out to stroke his head from the area between his eyes back to the ears and felt connected in a profound way to his pain, fear and his raw “animalness.”
At this point, Quyen, who had been face down on the mat in child’s pose, sat up to cross-legged and began to sob and sway as she looked up at the understory of the trees. She was immersed in a great loss from her past and I wrapped myself around her sitting figure, laying on my side in a half circle, in a way I thought was supportive but not distracting. Once her tears subsided, I sat up next to her and we both bathed in the spirits of the trees and the moon and the stars. Both of us began to sway in unison, vibrating to the energy of the universe.
I remember a song from my playlist commenced in this moment, “Here Comes The Sun” by Nina Simone, and at the same time a procession of Mexican mourners making their way back from a gathering to honor their dead, carrying lanterns and singing softly. They marched two by two on the other side of a chain link fence separating our property from a dirt road leading to what we believe is a cemetery, or a place of significance for the deceased. I felt peace in the air, a lightness that signified acceptance and openness.
Quyen had come to some conclusions about our place in the universe and our purpose in life, and as the mood lightened, she became talkative, asking me penetrating questions; Did you get the message? Do you see what it all means? Are you awake now? To which I replied vaguely, I think so. She was in a deep place and I understood my role was to support her, so I said very little but continued to bath in the energy vibrating around me.
The hallucinations did not stop after we moved inside. I remember lying on the bed when the music of Santana arrived on our playlist. As a thirty minute live version of “Freeway” set the soundscape, a statue next to the bed depicting a skeletonized figure in a large sombrero and carrying a large-feathered bird in one arm while a blanket hung from the other, began trans-morphing into different entities; at one point a warrior, then a woman carrying a shawl, then a demon figure with the rim of its sombrero twisting around its head like a writhing serpent. When I turned away from the statue, I became transfixed by the azure rays of the moon flooding into the room from the large window opposite the foot of the bed. The blue light seemed extra-vivid and filled me with awe.
Then, bathing in the moonlight-filled room, with Ludvico Einaudi and Sigur Rós continuing to guide our journey, the tears began to flow. I do not know why the tears came except that I felt my wall of self-control begin to crumble, and emotion came pouring. I had not received answers to the questions I had posed when writing out my intentions for this experience, and the more I moved my focus toward the source of that emotion in an attempt to understand it, to possibly answer those questions, the more that source retreated behind a re-emerging wall, which I understood later to be my ego re-asserting itself.
Quyen asked me again if I understood the source of everything, to which I replied, again, I think so. In fact I could surmise, of course, what she was referring to, but expressing this with words felt ineffable. I felt that the window for clarity was closing, and the more I grasped for answers to her questions, and to my own, the more quickly they retreated. Through my tears, she tried to comfort me and help me release and let go, but my ego had already regained it’s grip on my psyche.
The complete letting go would have to wait. A few hours into the trip and I was back in my head, my ego fully in charge. The tension in the back of my neck re-appeared, and the narrator in my head once again re-asserted itself with all the usual questions, commands, worries and fears. Unable to fall asleep, I got up and went to the kitchen searching for food as I had not eaten since lunchtime. While snacking, I focused on the ceramic tiles on the floor of the living room and saw the patterns swirl and dance. Back in bed, my breathing and heart rate calming from exhaustion, I was drawn again toward the blue moonlight streaming in through the window, the light dancing off of the walls and the sheets over my body. I soon fell asleep to crickets and barking dogs.
I did not experience an ego death or a complete dissociation from my ego, as some claim to experience with a four gram psilocybin trip. I had nevertheless experienced something profound and beautiful, a connection with the nature of the universe, a different form of consciousness than our everyday waking consciousness. I felt a deep love towards nature and from nature at the same time, just as I had experienced ten years earlier during my first fortuitous experience with hallucinogenic mushrooms in Thailand. Since that day in Thailand, a crack of new awareness had appeared in my subconscious mind, and that small shift in perception was the catalyst for many priority shifts in my life. It followed and preceded many amazing experiences, and led me to the path I am currently on. It remains one of the most positive and influential experiences of my life.
Before Social Media became a part of our daily consumption, the commercialization of certain lifestyles was something that marketers did to sell products. If you identified with being an outdoors person, you would shop at REI, Patagonia, the Northface, whichever company that had products for your lifestyle. With Social Media, influencers not only sell products but also they are selling their life and wanting people to support them through Patreon, YouTube, Instagram, etc. #vanlife is one of the most popular lifestyle hashtags on Instagram so much so that the New York Times had several articles on it in the last few years with the latest about the camping ski culture in the PNW. It is not lost on us that we are living that hashtag as we travel to South America on a 2-3 year excursion. We’ve been conscientious about our travels not wanting to commercialize the way we live and see the world. Though, I understand why people do it. We live in a capitalistic system, afterall, and when you are young and without wealth, why not monetize the life you live in order to live it.
However, on another level there is something missing when freedom and travel become work. When I post something on Instagram I find myself checking for likes and the instant high I get when I receive them. And because of that I find myself thinking about my posts and stories, how to get more out there. Social media is addictive. So with these lifestyles that seem carefree and spontaneous, I wonder if they are. Often they are highly curated, the shot of someone looking at a beautiful scenery, the butt shot of an attractive woman lying on her perfectly disheveled bed with an enviable view of a sunset or another shot of a woman in yoga pants having just climbed a cliff. I’ve seen influencers on my hikes take these photos and what I’ve noticed is how not in the moment they are. The majestic landscape becomes a backdrop for them to advertise their lifestyle or themselves. It’s not about sharing. It is about the ego, the addiction for likes, for more attention. And I guess this is something that I find quite sad about this time in the world. The connection we think we are getting from social media is just a facade. More and more, I find people using it to brag or to highlight themselves. I think it can be used differently to make real connections to really share one’s experiences of travel, adventures, and other things that make life meaningful to us. But often times those who live the #vanlife are doing so because they look cool doing it and can monetize it to keep them going.
We’ve traveled about two and a half months in Mexico. Before we embarked on this journey, I had plans of writing and making art more often. It’s proven more difficult for my lack of discipline and for the unsettling nature of our travels. Even though we travel slowly, opting to stay in places 2-5 days and not planning everything out, allowing for spontaneity (for things to just to happen), I still find it hard to settle in my quiet place for writing and artmaking. Sometimes, it’s just being in a new place of wonder where I zone out or feel rootless as we’re always on the move. This life on the road of constant change, of being in a land where I am a stranger to the language, people, and customs, of fear for what has been fed to me about Mexico and Mexicans, all of this causes me to be out of my element these past few months even without obvious stressors. Now, however, I feel more in the flow, less wary, and more relaxed. It is almost a cleansing of the mind to travel like this, like a thru-hike that purges me of preconceptions and anxiety.
Coastal Mexico is surprisingly (to me) full of foreigners but not many overlanders like in Baja. We’ve been to only one tiny fishing town, Puerto Vicente Guerrero, where we were the only foreign travelers present. And the Mexicans couldn’t have treated us better. Our waiter who spoke no English was so attentive, even cutting up our coconut for us to eat the flesh without having asked to. The owner allowed us to camp in their parking lot and use their bathrooms without payment. He did ask me to mention his restaurant on Instagram, which I was going to do anyway. My favorite states so far in Mexico have been deemed not safe for travel by the U.S. State Department. They aren’t necessarily my favorite because of their beauty. It’s a combination of the people and the landscape. While Nayarit and Jalisco are scenic with a coastline rivaling the western U.S., the overdeveloped tourist industry made it less appealing. Michoacan and Guerrero on the other hand had dusty, underdeveloped towns that had the nicest people. La Ticla and La Saladita were two of our favorite surf towns.
Now, we are in Mazunte, a hippy Pueblo Magico in Oaxaca State. It has all the charms of an artsy community without the commercialization of Sayulita or San Pancho. There are a lot of tattooed expats with dreadlocks and colorful styles here. The coast of Oaxaca is not lined with resorts and the beaches are accessible. It’s a nice combination of travelers, expats and Mexicans.
Arriving in the dark on a winding road, we turned on a small street crowded with walkers. More and more people came our way as we drove closer to the campsite. We had the same thought, “Where are we and why is it so crowded? Did we make a mistake coming here?” It was too late to turn around. It’s dark and we had to camp at least one night in this mysterious community with hippies. On a small dirt road, our campsite had one spot where Humboldt fit. We parked and decided to go to the beach. Right away the place seduced us. It was open mic in an open air restaurant. An expressive Spanish man recited poems and later on two talented travelers sang. A woman said, “Welcome.” And so, we stayed.
The tug on my ankle was more aggressive than in previous wipeouts. I knew immediately that I was being dragged by not just my own board, but by another and its owner, all linked up with me at the tail end. The five long seconds of being pulled towards the shore, face-up under the churning surf, was long enough for my face to flush with embarrassment and regret. I had done the kook thing, I had dropped-in on another surfer’s wave, his silhouette still flashing before my mind’s eye as the scene replayed in slow motion.
He appeared in my peripheral as the nose of my eight foot Odysea soft-top teetered just beneath the lip of the wave, my hands in the cobra position, back arched, ready to stand-up on my board. It might have been a perfectly timed take-off, but his sudden appearance interrupted my flow and instead of popping onto my feet I briefly hesitated, slid onto my knees with my eyes still gazing down toward his vapor trail snaking in front of the nose of my board, and my body quickly followed, diving over the falls and taking head-on the most turbulent and energized part of the wave. All I could do was cover my head with my forearms, relax my body and allow that wave to rag doll me and release me after its energy was spent.
“Your leash got tangled with my board,” his only words to me, swimming up and tossing my leash off his board. That was all it took to untangle our two boards; and then him hopping up and paddling away with a side glance. “Sorry man, that was my fault,” with the awkward, “I apologize,” thrown in for extra emphasis in case he didn’t understand that I was definitely not THAT person.
But I was that person. I was the only beginner on a big soft-top at a non-beginner beach. “Cerritos would be better,” I was warned from a friend back home. “You might be ok,” he followed up, “if it’s not too big. Sharp rocks tho. Wear booties…and watch for rips and currents. Surf when the wave is breaking slow, and not fast and throwing a lip. Or just go to Cerritos with all the other gringos.” All really good advice I knew, but still my booties and wetsuit were in the van; the water being too warm for my only wetsuit, a 3/2 I had picked up in Huntington Beach three months earlier; and I just couldn’t seem to find any slow breaking waves that were not also close to shore and breaking near rocks, which I was keen to stay far away from. It was fast and steep everywhere out back, but I was willing to take some falls for the experience. Also, had my friend been to Cerritos recently?! That place is a zoo.
At first I stayed way down the line on the outside of the main breaking sets, waiting for occasional swells that broke farther down. These were right breaking waves, and I was all the way right, away from the crowded lineups, where I had the space to work on some basics like recognizing the swells as they appeared on the horizon, practicing pivoting the board, and keeping enough space around me for inevitable kook moves when a swell came through that I thought looked make-able. I had managed to catch two or three per session, angling slightly from the pop-up, and riding them either straight down the face, or even getting the angle sharp enough to keep alongside the whitewater as it broke next to me, but I was not yet able to keep a high line and ride out in front of the pocket. Most times, however, I would paddle too slow and the wave would stand up beneath me as I slid off the backside. Still other times I was too far in front and my tail would lift too fast, pushing my nose into the steepening part of the wave, tumbling me head-over-heels into the surf.
After a period of time on the outside, I slowly, hesitantly paddled in closer to the group, popping up to seated to occasionally scan the horizon for incoming swells, my hand held in front of my face to screen my eyes from the setting sun and its reflection on the water. When I would glance to my right, into the pocket of the forming wave, I was in prime position to watch as several short-boarders paddled into position and with others dropping back, the one positioned best taking three or four quick strokes near the lip before moving to their feet in one fluid motion, snaking up and down along the green face of the wave with the whitewater twisting and foaming behind them. The sun was low and shadows were long with oranges and deep reds refracting through the waves. These waves typically flattened out by the time they got out to where I was sitting, so I pushed closer to the group.
Soon a few surfers were posting up on my left side, having just paddled out from the shore, and were now floating near me. Did they not see the big green soft-top between my legs? I briefly thought about warning them, or apologizing in advance, having some kind of precognitive insight into how this was about to unfold. Too late though, a swell was coming right towards me and there was no time to explain, only time to swing around and paddle for my dream wave.
It’s been over two months since Russ and I left our home in Portland, Oregon and headed for the road in our van, Humboldt. We had talked about this lifestyle when we met more than seven years ago and actively planned for it in the last five years. Since then, the world has changed. The pandemic affected every aspect of normal life, ushering us into a world of unknowns and uncertainties. Everything seemed chaotic and the thin veil of social cohesion unraveled. We witnessed a man’s death in the hands of policemen meant to protect us over $20. For the first time some famous men were held accountable for rapes and sexual misconduct. We saw Americans attacking the White House and politicians because they lost an election. Young adults asserted their individuality and sexual freedom by questioning gender norms and demanding more inclusion of those outside the female/male binary. A war waged between two countries, once united with a shared history and culture, sent global energy prices soaring world-wide.
Now we live in a post-truth time where social media platforms feed whatever information confirming one’s biases. Facts and truth seem to matter less as more influencers and media outlets look for ways to manipulate and keep us fearful and craving. Amongst all this we quit our careers earlier than planned. It seems like now is the time to leave this conventional life. To do so is a big jump for me. I need to reboot and get my mind in a place where fear rules less and uncertainty is normal, a part of being alive.
We both had experiences resetting our minds and bodies through meditation retreats and thru-hiking long trails. We knew that to start on this journey, we needed to hike a trail long enough for us to unwind and slow down but also short enough to enjoy the summer before heading to Baja. At 490 miles on the Collegiate West, the Colorado Trail was a fitting thru-hike to transition to an unpredictable but adventurous path.
Thru-hiking is an experience like no other. It is mostly a mental exercise of highs and lows. If time is not an issue, it largely depends on how much discomfort a person can handle whether they will finish it in one go. This makes it sound tortuous, but it isn’t. The discomfort is where the mind has a lot of control. All those who hike long trails have physical pain at one point or another, and some of us feel pain everyday.
So what is it that keeps us going? The views, the connection to nature, the simplicity, the ease of knowing that all you have to do is walk, eat, and sleep. Thoughts that occupy our mind in daily life simply float by as one notices how everything comes and goes. I can walk through a hail storm with wet, cold feet, and two hours later, the sun comes out, warming me up. The dense fog lifts revealing a majestic valley of pines and wildflowers. And we find ourselves pitching our tent at an Alpine lake surrounded by rocky mountains. My mind, then, eases into the beauty, forgetting about achy feet and legs. I see animals like pikas, marmots, long-horn sheep, bears, deers, and so on and notice how they keep a distance but are also curious. Wild animals, like much of nature, do not harm for no reason.
Walking through wild places and looking back at the passes and mountains I’ve climbed gives me confidence and engenders trust…trust in myself, (my body and mind), and trust in nature that it won’t hurt me. I learn that it is the subconscious that plays into my fears of the unknown, imagined, read in the media, or heard through someone. When all is quiet in the wilderness, magic happens. Rainbows emerge. Edible mushrooms reveal themselves. Birds sing. Pikas squeak and run along collecting food for the winter. Marmots forage and bask in the sun. And I find myself a part of this peace and splendor. All that I describe here exists for everyone, mostly free, or at least outside the capitalistic system keeping us fearful and craving.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” HenryDavid Thoreau
I am excited to share my art, ideas, investigations, and pursuits in life with you on this website and blog. It is a new venture for me to dedicate my life and work to art. Art, travel, adventures in the outdoors has been my passions since childhood. But similar to many of you reading this, economic circumstances and a lack of belief in my creativity led me to pursue the safer route of a 9-to-5 profession. After years of working in academia as an administrator and seeing all the inequities of higher education, I decided last year to walk away from my job. With the backdrop of COVID and the social landscape of injustices and inequities, I like so many Americans (and probably others around the world) simply had had enough and left my economic security. It was a long winding road of ups-and-downs to get here. But here I am! With all the vulnerabilities and insecurities of living a life with less money and stuff, I step toward the horizon with both elation and trepidation. And I invite you on this journey. Visit this blog for news on my art and inspirations, overlanding travels, and hiking adventures.
This watercolor sketch “Adventures w/Humboldt,” 2022, represents the adventures awaiting me and my partner as we seek the unknowns and experiences this year and beyond.
