We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Daun Jeong a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Daun, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
To be honest, I’m not sure if I’ve fully figured this out yet. But, recently there’s something I learned about how to keep my confidence and self- esteem. I always try to tell myself this: “Never doubt myself.”
It has been 3 years from now since I came to the U.S. for college. Looking back on my time here, especially at the beginning of school, I was just a raw immature baby chicken who was born and raised in Korea. Everything was new and hard to accommodate to- the language, culture, people’s mannerism, social interaction, food. That was when my confidence started to crumble.
Because I’m telling you, back in Korea, I was a really excellent kid. I did well academically, had a good social life, a decent sense of humor, and the ability to succeed when I really set my mind to something. I’m not trying to sound cocky, but that was how I was used to seeing and feeling about myself. But after coming here, everything felt totally different and challenging. I felt like I was incompetent. I wasn’t the person I used to be. My social and communication skills were very low, I would get so nervous just thinking about being left alone in a room with someone because I didn’t know what to say. My art didn’t necessarily feel special anymore because there are only so many mad talented and gifted peers at school. I always felt uncomfortable with myself and felt like walking on eggshells every time when I needed to encounter something that I wasn’t prepared for.
Those circumstances made me highly doubt myself and blame myself more and more. I compared myself a lot to all my talented friends, people around me, and blamed myself for my poor communication skills. I always reflected on any conversation or chat that I had with people at the end of every day in bed, wishing I could have done better. I used to assume I wasn’t entertaining or funny enough if people seemed to show disinterest towards me and always blamed myself. Why can’t I be better at something that I used to deal with easily back at home?
I’ve always wanted to be better. So I worked hard on focusing on myself to improve those aspects. I’ve been working hard on my art career, animation skills, social skills, and just trying to be a better version of myself. I would say I’m better at those things now since I’ve worked hard on it, and I consider myself a decent person and artist. Hard work definitely helps and it’s a good way to escape those shitty and bad feelings. But I don’t think that is the point; building my confidence by relying on working harder and criticizing myself until I feel good about myself.
What I’ve realized is that it takes time to feel okay with myself when I start a whole new journey. I began this whole other chapter of my life here, in a different country and a completely new and competitive artistic environment. I just needed some time to figure out how to compose myself and adapt fresh things. Of course, during that period, I might look like or be considered low-profile, strange, and less honed. And those steps were obviously challenging and overwhelming for me. I suffered a lot. But I know that the whole process has been a part of me to adapt to a new environment and society. Now I know what I should be aware of when it comes to me trying new things. It takes time.
And my beloved friends helped me a lot, too. I remember how often my friends told me how talented and amazing I am, as an artist/ filmmaker as well as a person. I couldn’t believe them at first and thought they were lying. When they complimented my work, I would deny it and convince myself their words were meaningless. I think I was trying too hard to appear humble too.
But there was one time where my friends wrote me letters and told me all the good and sweet things about me on my birthday, and that I should never doubt myself. I think that was when I slightly started to believe and trust myself. They were seeing all the positive things in me that I couldn’t see for myself. Since then, I decided to accept all compliments from others instead of rejecting them. Magically, I started to feel so much better about myself, what I create, and how I live my life now. I noticed that it’s important to believe in and trust myself even when I feel like I’m not good enough. It has to do with how I view myself and how self-giving I am. Sometimes it’s okay if I don’t feel good enough. But I got myself. The very fact that I’m trying to improve myself proves that I already am a decent person. As long as I continue to improve myself, I’m confident that I’ll get better at things.
What I’m working on is I try to comfort myself and tell myself that I trust my instincts, which are the strongest and the most positive energy that will always create the best outcomes for me. I feel confident in what I’ve been making, I’m proud of who I am, what I have around me. There have been so many challenging moments and unpleasant experiences with people who tried to bring me down. But now I know how to navigate how I should feel about those situations. I no longer blame myself. Because I’m as wonderful, talented, and worthy as everyone else.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’d definitely want to talk about my art career, which I’m pouring my whole passion and effort into. I just finished my third year of undergrad for Experimental Animation at the California Institute of the Arts and am entering my senior year. I’ve been making a lot of experimental animations using a diverse range of mediums and techniques including 2d, 3d, hand-drawn, paper collage, clay, stop motion, and more.
What’s exciting about this major and what I’ve been creating is that I almost have no limitation in terms of making narratives but also experimental films, regardless of type of medium as well. I think I’ve been seeking and looking for a place where I can fully let myself express and portray what I think on a regular basis. Sometimes I hate rules. It’s a great tool to discipline myself, but it feels like a chained up jail too. Because I believe the way my creativity works is unique and sometimes it doesn’t align with the traditional and strict rules or the basic standard that industry wants. Any ideas are supposed to be captured in the best way that I imagine in my head. And this means every artistic choice of mine can vary into lots of different forms such as films (ex. Narrative, and experimental in genre, and digital, stop motion, hand-drawn, collage, traditional in medium), painting, illustration, art education, art shows, comics, music, and doodles. I know it’s hard to believe, but these things are something that I’ve been doing all along. I have many approaches to make art and have lots of freedom in a nice way to say, but to be frankly, it’s kind of all over the place. What I’m studying and where I belong to has allowed me to challenge my creativity, and my department at CalArts has been a great example of letting me create whatever I want so I can experiment with those qualities. I love it!
What I want to say and talk about in my animations overall is something about our society and humanity, which has been my strongest interest over the past few years. I love hearing and listening to people’s stories, and I care about individuals, community, society, and the world. It’s interesting how everyone’s story is different, and every unique individual inspires me a lot as an artist. For example, there is an animation I made during my time at CalArts called “Loving Change.” It’s a story about two best friends, torn apart by their completely opposite personalities and worldviews, who nevertheless try to work through their differences by holding onto a profound love that comes from the depths of their hearts and souls.
I’m preparing my thesis year film, and am going to get into production soon. It’s about my journey that I’ve experienced after coming here and all the people who inspired and impacted on me. I know it sounds very vague, but please stay tuned and you will see what I’m talking about soon!
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
First of all, finding my voice. I’ve had a lot of difficulty with this because I used to think that I didn’t have a strong and distinctive artistic style. All my friends have their favorite artists or something to like and look up to, which I’ve never had and made me feel I wasn’t a legitimate artist. Additionally, it gave me the impression that I’m a very generic artist with no style.
I genuinely believe all kinds of art, and art related activities have impacted me hugely in a creative way and that’s how I find my voice and interest. Little things help me to have opinions and form my taste in art. I share tasteful art, films, animations, and passion with my peers through compassionate discussions and debates about how these great and awful outside resources have affected us. I go to lots of art fairs, local film/animation screenings in LA, social events with animators, art shows/ museums. I collect posters, zines, merch from markets, fairs, and my artist friends and decorate my room. I love writing reviews on letterboxed. I make whatever I want; animations, zines, sculptures, painting, music. I read books and write poems. I make playlists of my favorite songs and go to my favorite musicians’ concerts. I believe it is important to just simply follow what I like to make, hear, find, smell, and feel. The more I immerse myself in those activities, the more I feel that my artistic taste and personality are becoming cohesive, unique, personal, and stronger. Now I have a clearer vision of what I want to do and create with my personal traits. And that strong taste is a powerful source of inspiration for my films.
I should mention technical skills. It has been a wonderful experience to be able to learn and educate myself utilizing all the great resources and equipment for making my films at CalArts. I grew so much in terms of knowing how to do more animation techniques such as various types of learning software, puppet fabrication, animating, experimenting with a lot of different mediums. I’ve basically learned every skillset and requirement that I need for the film production. It’s important to improve the technical side and try as much as I can to visualize fully from what I imagine and picture in my head. If you have this great and amazing idea, but can’t capture it through proper visuals, isn’t that the saddest thing that can happen? Haha
The last one for the tactic knowledge is… finding my own community! Finding people and my own community that are supportive, creative, and fundamental has been enormously significant to me. Since I’ve been in college, I found myself spending a lot of time collaborating and communicating with other artist friends. We have a core animation production class for making our films every year. In it, we get to see each other’s progress and have time to give critiques/ feedback. Especially during the filmmaking process, seeing my work with other people and having their perspectives and opinions help a lot because sometimes it is a long and tedious journey to create films by myself, to be honest. And I get lost if I stare at my animation work for too long. It’s a completely different feeling and experience showing your work to random people who don’t know you and people who know you well as both an artist and person. Since art is strongly linked to interpersonal traits, the more your peers know about you and your identity, the more constructive criticism you will receive from them on both a professional and spiritual level. It’s not about just receiving feedback- it’s about seeing others’ works and understanding the difference between what you have and what they have. While you repeat the process, understanding how artists’ brains function differently and uniquely will help you better understand yourself. I became a better artist and peer by being able to observe other people’s work, offer criticism, and take criticism. And the ability to communicate with my thoughts, opinions, background will become the knowledge of power I would get. Because once you have it, you will own it forever regardless of the people or community you meet. They are my investment.
I’m saying this in a very formal way, but what I mean is just making some friends who share similar values and appreciate what you do. Because my friends know me the best as a person, they have a better understanding of what I pursue and want to express through my animations as an artist. And I can confidently say that this experience has been tremendously positive and educational.
Before we go, maybe you can tell us a bit about your parents and what you feel was the most impactful thing they did for you?
I believe I formed my personality in a very specific way which has made me who I am. My name is Daun Jeong, but in Korea, we say our last name first and then first name. So my full name can be read as Jeong Daun. In that order, my name literally means ‘friendly’ in Korean. I’m pretty sure you can sort of figure out what type of person I am and what personality I have. Yes, I am very friendly, easy going, and sweet. Also my parents told me that they wanted me to be a person who can spread warmth to people and help people who are in a vulnerable and difficult situation with my energy when they named me. I think that was what my parents were going for. And I do really think I’ve been growing exactly as my parents wanted me to be.
I believe a lot of my personality came from learning and seeing the good side of my parents, especially my dad who has super affected me to become who I am now. I still remember vividly the moments of my dad always trying to help people whenever they needed some help. When I was young, our family had a shared rented farm with other people to grow vegetables and fruit. We used to go there, plant the seeds, and harvest them. Just like a usual day with boiling hot weather, we were getting ready to leave our farm. On our way back home, we saw this one old lady in a wheelchair stuck in a big hole on the ground, struggling to get out of it by herself. There was no one but her. I was just staring at her and kind of having no clue what to do in that situation. But my dad immediately started to walk towards her and try to help her out while I was hesitating about what to do. I went next to my dad and just witnessed him helping her by grabbing the chair handles. I think he took legit around 10 minutes to get her out of the hole. And I just stood there and watched him. I have no idea why this memory is so still vivid to me. I guess I was really impressed by his immediate action and mindset he had at the moment. No hesitation, just doing what he could to help her. A lot of my memories about my dad have always been like this. I have a lot of moments when I encounter him always trying to help people and prioritizing them, no matter what. I think seeing him and growing up naturally has formed me as the way my dad behaves.
I’ve always wanted to help people in any way that could be possible- financially, physically, mentally, spiritually. That’s why I started to make art to share my art with people who can resonate with my thoughts or vulnerability. I’ve always wanted them to notice something in my art and feel different or reassured. People have always been really important to me, and the thing I care about most. I get excited, happy, heartbroken, furious, sad, and healed when it comes to the most down to earth thing that happens to me. And that’s how I feel alive and dynamic inside of me.
It’s so weird because my dad never taught me to be that way or said anything related, but I just get it and behave like him a lot after watching him for a long time. So that’s the most impactful thing that my parents gave me.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://daunjeong2.wixsite.com/mysite/portfolio
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nuadgnoej/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daun-jeong-5a5a422b8/
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