Taiwan Today

A family-owned business in central Taiwan is adapting the traditional craft of lacquerware to contemporary times.
 

This summer at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Team Taiwan strode into the Japan National Stadium in style to attend the opening ceremony. The country’s star athletes were decked out in uniforms custom created by local fashion designer Justin Chou (周裕穎), who has taken part in a number of New York Fashion Week events in recent years. Adorning the uniform’s blazers was a small taste of home—a set of lacquer buttons painstakingly made using traditional processes by Lai Hsin-you (賴信佑), whose work left a lasting impression on Chou after he encountered the artisan’s pieces in 2019 at the annual Ministry of Culture-organized Creative Expo Taiwan in Taipei City.

 

Lai is the third-generation operator of Kousan Craft, founded in 1946 in central Taiwan’s Taichung City, and has become one of the pioneering forces for lacquer art development in the country since taking the helm in 2016. The first in the family to enter the trade, Lai’s grandfather attended Tokyo Fine Arts School, today called Tokyo University of the Arts, to learn oil painting and the art of urushi, or lacquer. Lai’s father followed in his footsteps, studying at Japan’s Kanazawa College of Art. More than seven decades after its establishment, Kousan continues to utilize its original techniques in modern applications of the craft tracing its origins back to classical China.

 

According to Lai, refined sap from the lacquer tree is typically applied to wooden household objects such as bowls, chairs, cupboards, kitchen utensils and tables as a protective coating. The resulting high-luster product is not only aesthetically appealing, but also highly practical due to its decay-, heat- and water-resistant properties, he explains. For this reason, lacquer trees were widely planted in Taiwan during Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945), when lacquerware production saw its golden age on the island.

 

The local industry continued to thrive up through the post-World War II era. In the 1980s, however, mass-produced plastic commodities began eating into the market share of lacquerware and other handicraft items. Consequently, the Lais shifted away from making household goods and instead toward artwork like paintings. As a painting medium, lacquer’s unique characteristics allow artists to inlay eggshell and seashell fragments or apply gold powder to add one-of-a-kind touches to their work. “It usually takes six months to one year to complete a painting,” Lai said. Like other lacquer products, the resulting piece resists deterioration much better than its oil counterparts, which need to be kept in climate-controlled environments, he added.

 

Head Start

Lending a hand in his family’s workshop as a child, Lai began picking up the craft at an early age. Once he mastered the technique of coating items, his training moved on to a more complicated method of creating stand-alone lacquer objects that involves applying layers to a temporary base. Once the lacquer reaches a certain thickness, the base is removed, and the material is carved into the artist’s desired shape. The process, which was used to create the buttons on Team Taiwan’s Olympic uniforms, dates back to China’s Tang dynasty (618-907) and can be employed to fashion elaborate articles such as jewelry boxes.

 

Lai’s education was supplemented by courses taught by his grandfather and father as part of a Taichung City Government project aimed at conserving local cultural heritage. In the classes, a teenage Lai polished his skills alongside adult learners, among whom were established artisans seeking to expand beyond their area of expertise. Though Lai went on to major in filmmaking in university, he set up his own lacquer art workshop not long after graduating. However, unanticipated difficulties vending his work forced Lai to close down operations after only a year. The following five years saw him cultivate expertise in designing, packaging and promoting products as a marketing specialist in the pastry industry. The experience was critical to his later success in the family business, he said.

 

Today Lai jointly runs Kousan with his partner Liao Shu-wei (廖書瑋). The pair have returned to the craft’s practical roots, simplifying the traditional procedure to produce affordable bowls, chopsticks, cups and spoons rather than the luxury pieces Lai’s father made. “The change in focus combined with modern design concepts and sophisticated marketing campaigns is bringing lacquer art culture back to daily life,” the artisan said.

 

Ensuring Continuity

Ranking high among Lai’s most popular products are those composed of broken ceramics repaired with a mixture of lacquer, lime and powdered gold or silver. Called kintsugi, meaning “joined with gold” in Japanese, the method celebrates imperfection as an element of beauty. In recent years, Lai has been invited to share his expertise in classes held around the country. Other courses offered through Kousan teach maki-e, or “sprinkle design” in Japanese, a practice that involves dusting gold or silver powder into patterns engraved on lacquerware’s surface.

 

Lai’s educational endeavors are part of his strategy to make sure the craft gets passed down to the next generation. Recent efforts include a trip to National Taipei University of Education to instruct aspiring elementary school teachers about the art and help them incorporate it into lessons. “Everything starts with education,” he said. “I expect to see considerable results 10 to 20 years later.”

 

The Kousan operator is hopeful that reinvigorating his brand will act as a catalyst for repopularizing lacquer in everyday life. In addition to its use as a coating on small household objects, the material has potential applications in larger-scale work to beautify and protect wooden structures, according to Lai. Ultimately, the artisan envisions lacquer cultivation returning to Taiwan, which he believes will prove instrumental in preserving the tradition while developing the country’s agricultural sector. “There’s a close connection between a craft and the land it lives on,” he said. “When one flourishes, it lifts the other up too.”

Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw