Kiss Day 2020: The Magic Of Kiss-mas Time

“If kisses were snowflakes, I’d send you a blizzard.”
Unknown
/
“You can kiss me whenever you want… No mistletoe needed.”
Unknown
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“If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello.”
Paulo Coelho
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“Never regret. If it’s good, it’s wonderful. If it’s bad, it’s experience.”
Victoria Holt
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“Love grows more tremendously full, swift, poignant, as the years multiply.”
Zane Grey

#200614#

My original idea for Kiss Day artwork this year was to have me kissing the tip of Taenggu’s nose, which instantly turns her into Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. However, it took me a really long time to figure out how I could execute this idea, whether in the form of a large-sized framed artwork or a folded card which you could flip open and close. But I wasn’t confident that such traditional forms of art would work well in this case. If I were an animator, I would think animation is the best option to portray this idea in motion perfectly. Since I don’t know how to animate, I had to compromise this idea and find a way to tweak things around.

Eventually, I came up with the simplest “shortcut” method that I have ever done for my artworks so far. I would print two high-quality 5R photos of Taenggu wearing a reindeer horns hairband taken at her “The Magic of Christmas Time” concert in Seoul, self-edited with words, to fit into the two spare identical green 5R photo frames from a recent Carousell purchase. Next, I cut two round circles from a red felt and pasted them on each photo, covering Taenggu’s nose. After framing the photos in the green frames, I pasted some lipstick mark stickers around Taenggu’s face and neck areas over the plastic film of the frame. (Originally wanted to just paste one lipstick mark on top of her nose but realised that her Rudolph red round nose would not appear obvious anymore if I do so)

Giving you more detailed photos of my 2 completed Kiss Day framed photos below! 📸

I can’t really say my Kiss Day artwork this year is really an artwork since it was done almost effortlessly without using any special art technique. They are just two simple DIY framed photos. 😂 But what’s more important here is the story I want to tell behind these two photos.

These photos of her wearing reindeer horns hairband were taken on the last day of her 3-day “The Magic Of Christmas Time” concerts in Seoul that fell on the night of Christmas Eve in 2017. It was the same concert I had attended by myself as part of my holiday trip plans in Korea with some friends back then. I was very muddled about everything that was happening back then. I only knew a few months earlier, I had undergone a period of depression and relapse of schizophrenia, which I later found out and believed to be related to Girls’ Generation members’, including Taeyeon’s, contract renewal with SM Entertainment during the same period of time that year. Just about 6 days before I was bound to leave for Seoul came the shocking news of SHINee’s Jonghyun’s suicide. I was very confused and unsure about all that were happening with the Kpop industry and even Taenggu’s new contract term (not knowing how long it was going to be) at that time. Despite all the negativity and uncertainties surrounding us, I still went ahead with my trip and attended the concert as planned with the slightest hope that I would be able to meet Taenggu somehow some way as the trip was already pre-planned with my friends since several months ago and it was too late for me to back out last minute. This decision to attend her concert and even travel around in Korea at this critical time proved to be painful and fatal for me for the remaining days of our trip and took months of healing and recovery thereafter.

I wrote this post LYRICS: BYE + WHAT IF IT WOULD BE MY LAST GOODBYE TO TAENGGU with a detailed account of my most painful concert experience thus far at The Magic Of Christmas Time concert. Remembering when the concert came to an end, I stood at the highest floor of the concert hall at the very last hidden row of the audience seats waving back at that tiny figure of Taenggu who was wearing that reindeer horns hairband on stage with tears in my eyes. I thought to myself that this would be our last goodbye to each other and I would be off on my own and would never want to go through the same bullshit ever again. Who could have expected that after the most painful goodbye I would quickly welcome a more delightful hello at her other combined concert at Kuala Lumpur in barely less than a month later? (Read: CONCERT EXPERIENCE: K-WAVE 2 IN KUALA LUMPUR – A DELIGHTFUL HELLO AGAIN)

My story at the 2 separate concerts were recounted at 5:39-8.48 of my self-made Movie Day 2019 movie below.

Recently there are rumours that the remaining GG members are going to discuss their contract renewals with SM again this year. The answer is finally made known to me now. If this is true, it means that the contract which Taenggu had renewed with SM in 2017 was actually for 3 years… Thinking back I felt cheated. I am definitely angered by the fact that nobody clearly explained the situation to me back then or else I would have made better and wiser decisions for myself in the past 3 years.

But I don’t really like to regret over what was done in the past. I see every pain and mistake that I went through and made as a learning experience for me to make better decisions in the future, although frankly speaking, many of these pains were unnecessary and could have been avoided had there been real communication between us. I could only wonder a dozen of what-ifs – what if things had turned out differently back then? What if she had communicated and gotten in touch with me early enough? Then I could have been more understanding of her situation. I could have felt more proud and dutiful as her girlfriend. I could have been in a better position to comfort her for the loss of her dear friend Jonghyun instead of getting unreasonably hurt myself in the opposite direction at her “The Magic Of Christmas Time” concert. I could have been in a more pleasant mood watching her as an audience with mutual understanding. I could have been fangirling over how cute she looked with that bling bling reindeer horns hairband on her head at the end and showering her with lots of virtual kisses all over her face and body like a crazy girlfriend.

I think this is the message I want to convey through my Kiss Day artwork this year. If I could turn back time, I wished I could spend my precious Christmas Eve with Taenggu at The Magic Of Christmas Time concert in 2017 in a more joyous mood and that there were no frustrations, grief and sadness of reality but only pure joy and happiness. Without my mind and eyes blurred by hate and anger, I would have easily seen her as the cutest Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer alive from afar!

Hope you like the idea behind my this year’s Kiss Day artwork for you, my deer 탱구!
It’s been hard, but I still love you…

Happy Kiss Day!
Lots of kisses to you. Muacks. 😘💋

Handmade with love,
Celeste Koh