Making Space

From Small Apartments to a Shared Studio Dream

The beginning of making space.

Hi!

Welcome—this is Woori Woori Studio.

Creating a studio and gallery space has always been a dream of ours. For years, Soo Jae and I—like so many other artists—created work from our home. In our case, that meant very small apartments.

We began in a 420-square-foot Upper West Side studio apartment, then moved through many other small spaces along the way. The absolute tiniest was our Tiny House on Wheels: just 200 square feet. And yet, we had the audacity to take up punch needle and tufting—at one point building a seven-foot by five-foot tufting frame right in the middle of the space.

How did we ever get this far, I wonder.

200 square feet. Big ideas.

That brings us to today, where we are finally able to open our very own studio space.

A studio space.
Space. What a word.

The privilege of having room—room to separate tools from living and lounging items. For far too long, all of our things were intertwined, creating unnecessary stress and making it difficult to separate one part of life from another.

And then there is the idea of a gallery.

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A gallery is inseparable from the idea of community. It is a place where others can appreciate art—where people can participate, observe, and engage. A gallery creates a symbiotic relationship, one that nourishes and feeds both the artist and the community around them.

If you are reading this, I hope it inspires you to believe that what you desire can become manifest.

For me, this moment has been a very long time in the making. For years, I distracted myself from this dream by chasing a career—one I pursued because it paid well. The artist’s dream simply wasn’t providing the income needed to sustain itself, and that felt, at times, like a quiet tragedy.

And yet, while I chased money, I continued to nurture those shelved dreams in small ways. I took after-hours classes, earned certifications, and accepted the occasional freelance opportunity. Little by little, I kept the dream alive—too stubborn to let it leave me entirely.

I encourage you to do the same.

This space is still becoming.

Keep your dreams alive in whatever small ways you can. Those dreams took seed in you for a reason. You may not understand that reason fully until much later—perhaps not even in this lifetime.

You gave that dream shelter for a reason.
Allow it to grow.

And if one day you are able to truly let it thrive, we will celebrate that victory with you—all of us who are still waiting for our own time to shine.

— Jeffrey