Seen as a symbol of nobility, perfection and immortality, jade has a unique place in Chinese culture. It has been used to make ritual utensils as well as other items such as seals, snuff bottles and penholders. Viewed as the essence of heaven and earth and a symbolic link between the two, it has been a custom in Chinese societies to place jade cicadas in the mouths of the deceased to comfort their souls and help with their "rebirth."
People also like to wear jade ornaments, as they are believed to have the power to protect the wearers from misfortune and bring good luck, while wearing the jade is also thought to improve its quality and color as it absorbs oil from the skin. It is employed for hat or waistband ornaments, inlayed on sword handles and scabbards and crafted into hairpins and pendants. The carving of such jade ornaments can be as simple as shaping a jade "coin" or as detailed and complicated as can be imagined, but the method of attaching a piece to a hat, belt or necklace is usually quite simple. Typically, there is some Chinese-style macramé or simply a piece of cord so that people can wear the jade as a belt or necklace pendant. The jade jewelry designed by Rita Chang from Taipei, however, is quite different.
Instead of the traditional Chinese jade and macramé design, Chang adds other precious and semi-precious stones like diamonds, rubies, black onyx and red agate to her jade creations, "assembling" all the parts together with precious metals like gold and silver. The result can be just a small accessory that enables the original piece of jade to be worn as a pin or pendant, or it can be as complicated as a butterfly with movable wings and antennae. But whatever the design, it is easy for viewers to identify the "boss"--the jade--at first glance. "Each piece of jade has its own personality," Chang says. "I'm just using other materials to bring out that personality."
The centerpiece stone of Chang's designs is usually white jade from the Ming or Qing dynasties (1368-1644 and 1644-1911 respectively) collected by her husband Yang Ping-shih. Yang, a professor of entomology at National Taiwan University, started collecting jade nearly 30 years ago when, while preparing teaching materials for a class on insects and arts, he hit upon the idea of using a few small jade butterflies and cicadas to illustrate his lecture. "I thought it would be much more fun if I could give the students something real to play with rather than just showing them pictures," Yang says. Whether the students found the class rewarding is another story, but it certainly kindled Yang's enthusiasm for collecting jade items.
As a junior professor, Yang's income at the time allowed him to afford only small pieces of white jade from the Ming and Qing dynasties, as they were cheaper than larger pieces from earlier dynasties. To make some extra "jade money," he spent a lot of time giving speeches or writing about insects and the environment for newspapers and magazines. "Major collectors weren't interested in this cheap stuff," he says, adding that a decent piece of Ming or Qing dynasty white jade only cost a couple of thousand NT dollars at the time and that there were plenty of examples of it on the market. Today, however, the price has risen at least tenfold and quality jade pieces are hard to come by.
Yang did not receive any support from his wife for his hobby, however, for the first several years. "I just didn't get it," Chang says. "I went nuts every time he came home with an empty paycheck envelope and some small pieces of useless white stone."
Happy Life Qing dynasty amber (3.2 x 4 cm) with red agate, 18K gold and diamond (Courtesy of Rita Chang)
Mysterious Power
Be it the mysterious power of jade or a case of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em," Chang gradually started to grow used to having those small pieces of white jade lying around the house. She started to listen when her husband talked about jade, learned how to judge its quality and generally grew to like it. And as a lot of the couple's free time was spent in jade markets and antique shops, the quantity of their collection inevitably mounted. Yang and Chang collected hundreds of pieces of jade, which were mostly stored in velvet boxes except for when they were brought out to share with members of a collectors' club. Eventually, though, Chang started to toy with the idea of doing some modifications to pieces that had "room" for it, as she has been interested in designing since childhood.
Her first attempt involved the use of Chinese macramé, but she soon gave up on the approach. "Just about every piece that you see uses jade and macramé cord, so all of them turn out to be kind of similar," Chang says. "It's very Chinese and looks great, but there seems to be a lack of diversity in styles." She then came up with the idea of using other precious stones and metal to "dress up" the jade. The combination of different materials and colors, she thought, would bring a new "face" to the old white jade. "Every piece is centuries old and represents part of history," she says. "The number one rule for me, therefore, is to dress the original piece up without directly modifying it." By this, she means that she does not drill new holes or use tools or glue on the original piece. Under this design philosophy, all the jade pieces in a design need to be removable and are therefore attached using their original holes or with other metalwork techniques.
Chang soon began trying to bring some of her designs to life, but found that the execution was beyond her ability. After graduating from National Chung Hsing University in 1976 with a major in statistics and having worked for Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. for 28 years, she has never had the time for any formal art education. She designed her own dresses as a girl, but the actual making of the dresses was done by professional tailors. Likewise, interior designs for her home and her son's café were carried out by craftsmen. To find someone who was capable of executing her designs, Chang took her drawings to a neighborhood jewelry shop where she had previously done some business.
Difficult to Convince
Convincing the jewelry smiths to take on her project, however, was not easy. "When I first saw her design, I really wasn't interested in it," says Qiu Qing-xiang, owner of the shop. "It's very time consuming to make things like that, which means there is not any profit for the smith." Qiu explains that jewelry smiths are paid by the quantity of pieces they handle instead of by the hour. Mounting a diamond onto a ring, for example, pays NT$50 (US$1.50) per stone, no matter the size of the stone or the amount of time it takes. Smiths receive NT$2,000 (US$59) for crafting the ring itself. While experienced smiths can complete a ring or two in the average workday, Qiu realized it would take a month or two to complete Chang's design. To add to the challenge, Chang would rely totally on Qiu and his smiths to figure out how to put different parts together. Unlike simply placing a stone in a setting on a ring, Qiu knew he would have to devise and create entirely new attachment methods to realize Chang's vision. "The level of technique [for Chang's designs] is high," Qiu says. "I need to first figure out how to proceed and then keep communicating with her throughout the entire process to make sure that all the details are exactly what she wants." Drawing on her experience as a public relations manager, however, Chang managed in the end to find a way to persuade Qiu to take that first job.
As soon as her first design--a brooch made of a Qing white jade ring mounted with a small green-jadeite butterfly--was completed around 1996, Chang wore it everywhere. "You know jewelry is probably the most popular conversation topic among women," she says. "Mine is usually the cheapest compared to what others wear, but mine is one of a kind and therefore usually becomes the center of conversation."
Wonderful Life Qing dynasty white jade (3.6 x 6 cm) with green jadeite, black onyx, ruby, 18K white gold and diamond (Courtesy of Rita Chang)
Encouraging Success
Encouraged by the brooch's success, Chang continued to come up with more designs. She always carried pieces of jade with her because, as a career woman, the only time she could work on her designs was while riding the bus between work and home. Ten years after that first brooch, she had completed 140 pieces. Back then, as now, the most common comment on her designs was the Chinese saying that they were like "a heavenly steed soaring across the skies," meaning that the styles of the designs were totally unconstrained. Chang thinks the reason for her unfettered approach is her lack of formal arts education, which has freed her from the limits of design principles. And designing as a hobby also frees Chang from the market stresses professional jewelry designers have to deal with.
For about 10 years, admirers of Chang's works consisted mostly of her friends and fellow collectors in jade clubs, as she did not sell any of her designs publicly. It was not until 2006, when Huang Yung-chuan, director of the National Museum of History in Taipei, saw her works and immediately asked her to hold an exhibition at the museum, that Chang's jewelry became more widely known. "Integrating modern design concepts and techniques with different materials, she has given old jade pieces new looks and restored their elegance," Huang says.
After the exhibition, Huang told Chang that although her pieces had been displayed in a narrow corridor on the second floor of the museum, her "Old Jade with New Looks" exhibition had proven to be one of the most popular shows the museum had held in years. Chang was then invited to exhibit her work in Kaohsiung, Taichung and recently the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei. Each of the shows proved to be a hit with jade collectors as well as the wider public.
Jewelry smith Qiu Qing-xiang and his craftsmen who have worked with Chang were also invited to the exhibitions. "She is still one of the pickiest customers I've ever had and I'm still not making money from doing her designs," Qiu says. "But you know what? You just can't beat the sense of achievement of seeing your own works showcased in a national museum."
Meanwhile, on the Yang Ming Marine Transport Corp. bus from her office in Keelung to Taipei, Chang keeps toying with her white jade, visualizing possible designs. There are long stretches where nothing comes to mind, but Chang is in no hurry. As all collectors know, "fate" plays a key role in finding the perfect new piece for their collection. Likewise, Chang is content in the knowledge that inspiration for the perfect new setting for a piece of old jade will come when fate sees fit.
Write to Jim Hwang at jim@mail.gio.gov.tw