Heinrich Wang is a remarkable artist and craftsman, as versatile as the glass he molds with such skill. Thanks to him, the island has become a world-renowned center for fine crystal.
Several years ago, a group of Taiwan businessmen came up with what they thought was an idea whose time had come. People were just starting to take an interest in drinking good imported wine, but nobody on the island was manufacturing quality crystal wineglasses, and so they decided to fill the gap. They were right on the money in forecasting that wine drinking would become more and more popular, but the glasses they made failed to catch on. Local people were quite happy to drink the best wine out of teacups, rice bowls, or whatever came handy. "Don't judge by appearances" has always been a popular injunction for Chinese, and it turned out to be sadly destructive where marketing wineglasses was concerned.
The factory's failure was somehow a reflection of how Taiwanese feel about glass. They see it as a practical material to be used in the manufacture of windows, spectacles, and mirrors; but for most people it is not really in the aesthetic class. Thanks to low production costs, there was a time when Taiwan's glass factories made huge profits, but apart from goldfish, swans, and similar nicknacks made to order by original equipment manufacturers (OEM), the products could hardly lay claim to being "artistic."
It is inherent in the manufacture of OEM products that they can be made more or less anywhere, so competitiveness naturally weakened as costs rose. Ten years ago, foreign buyers would happily pay NT$35 [US$1.27] for, say, a glass bell. Now the price is down to $16 [58 cents], and orders are declining. "Overseas buyers still place orders for old times sake," says glass craftsman Heinrich Wang (王俠軍). "If you say you're not happy with $16, they know they can get it done for $8 on the mainland." Taiwan's glassmakers, like many other sunset industries, seemed destined to fade away. But it was not to happen. Taiwan glass is making a comeback--not by the OEM route, but through the creation of high-quality artifacts.
Artist Heinrich Wang, the man who is responsible for this extraordinary turnaround, came to the craft relatively late in life. He has been many things--ad artist, photographer, magazine publisher, movie actor, and film director, as well as fashion, furniture, and tableware designer. He was first attracted to glass by a paperweight from Lalique, the famous French manufacturer. That small glass cow gave him a spatial experience different from anything he had experienced before.
For Wang, the idea of actually making something tangible was intensely attractive. "In everything I'd done before, I was selling ideas," he says. "Life was busy, but it was empty. I'd always wanted to use my own hands to make somethingsomething concrete, so that I could look at it and be reminded of all the time and effort it cost me. The versatility of glass makes it the ideal material for me to create and express my ideas."
He is not exaggerating. Depending on the mix of ingredients, the method of manufacture, and the temperature to which it is heated, glass can be transparent or translucent, colored or colorless, thinner than a piece of paper, or many feet thick; it is so hard that only diamonds can cut it, yet so fragile that even a sudden change in temperature can shatter it.
Wang began to read about glass. He also sketched a few designs and tried to make them. For more than a year he made frequent trips to Hsinchu, the center of Taiwan's glass industry, hoping to learn something but always coming away disappointed. The factories there could neither manufacture Wang's designs nor teach him how to do it himself. "Those factories are just assembly lines," Wang explains. "Each worker spends less than ten seconds making legs, say, or ears, because everything has to be finished before the glass gets cold and hard. It was impossible to make anything that had a spirit of creativity and life."
Undeterred by local industry's failure to help him, in 1987 Wang headed for the College of Art and Design in Detroit, Michigan, to learn the craft properly. "I didn't tell anyone outside of my family why I was going," he recalls. "My friends would have thought it was a waste for a 34-year-old man to quit his career in favor of learning something that didn't seem to have any future."
In the United States, Wang studied the many different techniques of making glass objets d'art: lampworking (the process of sculpting glass by twirling thin colored rods over a gas-oxygen burner), blowing, fusing, cutting, grinding, pâte de verre, and many others. After a year he came home, equipped with numerous skills and renewed determination. "Even then, I wasn't planning to make this my career," he says. "All I had in mind to do was rent some equipment from a Hsinchu factory so that I could create my own pieces."
But fate chose otherwise. When Wang showed some friends a few of the items he had made in the United States, they at once became fas cinated and decided to throw in their lot with him. They bought a factory--the very one that had unsuccessfully tried to make wineglasses--and set up Taiwan's first glass workshop, with Wang responsible for design, supervision of the manufacturing process, and imparting his skills to others.
The workshop chose to focus on the pâte de verre molding technique, which facilitates production of numerous shapes, patterns, and other details that cannot be achieved otherwise. The craftsman first makes a wax model which is in turn used to make a heat-resistant plaster mold. Solid glass is then heated in a kiln until it liquefies and trickles into the mold, which is removed once the glass has cooled and hardened. Although the theory is easy to state, pate de verre technique is actually very expensive and difficult to master. "One mold, one product" naturally increases production costs. Because of the special shapes and angles that the technique allows, the plaster mold has to be chipped away from the cooled glass with the utmost care.
But the hardest part is the process of annealing--a cycle of heating and cooling that can last hours or months and is necessary to protect the glass from becoming brittle. During the cooling cycle heat must be allowed to escape slowly and evenly, or the glass will break, and because each piece is unique there is no comprehensive formula for annealing. Workshop staff liked to say that in the early days they spent most of their time learning from a long succession of failures.
Little by little, the workshop's reputation grew. It held several exhibitions in Taiwan, Japan, and even on the mainland. Following a three-month exhibition in Beijing in 1993, some of Wang's designs were chosen to be included in the first permanent collection of modern art in that city's Palace Museum. But the exhilaration of this success did not last long, and shortly afterward Wang severed relations with the workshop. It is not a period in his life that he cares to tal k about, or even remember.
For a while Wang actually thought of quitting glass for good. But then he received an invitation from the Glass Art Society of the United States asking him to deliver a speech on behalf of Taiwan's glass artists. He knew that this was a great opportunity for his homeland to boost its international reputation. He was also forced to the realization that if he gave up, there was no way he could claim to speak on behalf of his fellow artists.
Another factor that helped persuade him to change his mind was the strong support he received from his brother, Wang Yung-shan (王永山), and some of his former workshop students. Their positive influence, coupled with his abiding passion for glass, finally led him to set up another studio, Grand Crystal Co., in 1994. This time, it did not take the company long to come up to speed. Over a period of just six months the group of dedicated craftsmen created forty-seven pieces--a degree of productivity that surprised even themselves. Aided by Heinri ch Wang's existing international reputation, Grand Crystal soon became a valued member of the global world of glass. Its pâte de verre works, along with glass crafts manufactured with other techniques, began to appear at major exhibitions, where they attracted fulsome praise.
Overseas artists, collectors, critics, and gallery representatives now flock to Grand Crystal's studio, located in the Taipei suburb of Peitou. Knowledgeable visitors are virtually unanimous in saying that Grand Crystal's artistry, especially as illustrated by its pate de verre pieces, is already far beyond that of most other artists in the field. "We wish they could teach us something, but they say they have nothing to teach," says Wang Yung-shan, who is now general manager of the company. "They tell us we're pushing the envelope of the material."
Beside the self-evident expertise, many overseas artists point to the unique style of Wang's works. "Say you're designing a vase--thousands of other people are also designing vases," Heinrich Wang says. "What distinguishes your design from theirs is the 'story' you give that vase." Wang likes to give his creations quintessentially Chinese "stories." For example, many of his blown-glass works contain images of ancient Chinese tripods, which he admires for their sturdy, stable construction. In his pâte de verre pieces, he frequently uses designs and patterns inspired by Chinese myths, utensils, or architecture.
All Grand Crystal's craftsmen are encouraged to aim for this particularly Chinese style. They first serve two-year apprenticeships at the Peitou studio. They are then sent abroad for four to six weeks during each of the next three years. While overseas they must visit as many as fifteen museums, noting the similarities and contrasts between local and foreign collections of Chinese art, and between Chinese and Western art. In that way, or so the Wang brothers hope, their craftsmen will achieve a better understanding of what "Chinese" really means. "Skills can be universal," Heinrich Wang says, "but style is unique."
Encouraged by the success of its easily recognizable Chinese style, and the growing chorus of praise from world-class experts, Grand Crystal now feels confident enough to tackle the international market, using the brand name Wang Fine Crystal. Wang Yung-shan believes that the company's products will eventually become one of the world's three leading handmade glass fine crafts brands. "If you like this particular style, Wang Fine Crystal is your only choice," he says. "And when people see one of our fine crafts, we want them to know that it's a Taiwan glass--just as they know Toyota is a Japanese car."
But although universally hailed as glass artists, Heinrich Wang prefers to see himself and his colleagues as glass craftsmen. "What artists want to express is a concept or an idea, so they're allowed greater freedom of expression,& quot; he says. "But a craftsman works on the nature of the material, and pursues precision. And, you know, standing in front of a 1,300-degree furnace, waiting for days beside a kiln, or getting dirty, burned, and cutthat's not exactly how most artists see themselves." Wang Yung-shan agrees. "Passion drives an artist," he says, "while responsibility--heavy responsibility--is what drives a craftsman."
But a successful company needs more than artistic passion and craftsmen's precision, however admirable, to generate profits. Fortunately for Grand Crystal, Wang Yung-shan spent twenty years in business management, and under his stewardship the company has set up departments responsible for design, manufacture, research, and sales. The result is that Grand Crystal functions more like a factory than a studio, thus keeping down production costs. According to Wang Yung-shan, when it comes to pate de verre, Grand Crystal's costs are half those of the only other local manufactur er, and one-third those of Daum, the famous Nancy-based glass manufacturer.
Wang Yung-shan divides Grand Crystal's products into two categories: fine crafts and artwork. Fine crafts are the company's major source of income, covering running expenses and supporting the artwork. But it is the latter on which the company's reputation is built. "We're not trying to make a fortune here," says Wang Yung-shan, the general manager. "But in any company you have to have steady income to feed your staff first, and then you can support your artistic leanings after that."
How to draw the line between fine crafts and artwork? Heinrich Wang uses the failure rate as a rough differential. For artwork, it can run as high as 80 or even 90 percent. One item, entitled "Joy from Heaven," depicts a spider crawling down a wall; only one or at best two spiders out of every ten survive the kiln. "We make these difficult and rare pieces to prove to ourselves that we are progressing,&quo t; Heinrich Wang says. "It's not very pleasant, because the stress imposed by such a high failure rate is heavy, but it's a challenge we have to face."
On the other hand, pieces with a failure rate lower than 50 percent are designated fine crafts. They are mass-produced, but Wang is at pains to emphasize that their design and production are still treated with exactly the same degree of seriousness as artwork. "The 40 to 50 percent failure rate for these pieces is still high," he says, "and when something costs so much, you don't want to see it go out of fashion in a few weeks and then be consigned to the storeroom. We want our crafts to be timeless."
Whether considered commercial or artistic designs, pâte de verre pieces are still the most popular of Grand Crystal's creations. But Heinrich Wang has also been experimenting with other skills, trying to combine some of the techniques he has mastered. He is well aware that while different skills may gi ve glass different appearances, they also have individual limitations. "Blown-glass works look brighter and more colorful, though the shapes you can make are limited, while pâte de verre allows detailed design but is less forgiving, because it comes from a mold," he says. "What I've been trying to do is use these different skills to express my feelings and ideas about life." Blown-glass items, according to him, are becoming increasingly popular with Taipei's up-and-coming generation of designers, architects, and artists.
The Wang brothers do not limit themselves to the goals of creating new pieces and establishing an international brand name. What they really want to see is growth in the number of people who understand and appreciate their craft. "A Japanese friend, a well-known artist, told me that if I wanted to promote glass in Taiwan, the first thing I should do is set up a glass school as a way of teaching and communicating," Heinrich Wang says.
The process is already under way at Grand Crystal. All staffers are required to take classes on sculpture, sketching, Chinese calligraphy, and foreign languages. Some are sent to established foreign glass studios or art schools on short-term study assignments. Much to their surprise--and pleasure--staff in the latter category often find themselves teaching, instead of learning. One of the first employees to go on such a course was appointed the teaching assistant on the third day. Why wait so long? "Because he couldn't speak English," Wang Yung-shan explains. "They needed to wait for another Chinese student to act as translator."
Beside honing employees' knowledge and improving their craftsmanship, Grand Crystal also tries to enhance their sense of beauty, which Heinrich Wang believes to be the key to success in any craft. "A lampworked swan made in Italy may cost ten times as much as one made with exactly the same degree of skill in Taiwan," he says. "The only visible differen ce might perhaps be in the curve or length of the neck. The price is determined not by skill, but by some attribute that just makes people feel comfortable. The curve or the length of the Italian swan's neck stems from the Italian craftsman's innate sense of beauty, and that is something we want to cultivate in our staff."
Heinrich Wang has been greatly encouraged by the changes in attitude toward glass that he has encountered in Taiwan since returning from the United States. He attributes this partly to the island's growing prosperity. "You can only appreciate art once you no longer have to worry about where your next meal's coming from," he says. "When people go abroad, they get to see fine glass manufactured by Hoya, Daum, or other factories with an international reputation."
Many government agencies and private enterprises now present foreign guests or important clients with glass, rather than the chinaware they used to give. More and more people come to Grand Cryst al's studios to learn something about the characteristics of glass, or how to appreciate a glass creation. Some have even asked to join Grand Crystal as a first step in making a career out of the medium.
In just two years, the company has expanded from its original staff of seventeen to more than one hundred. One of them, the owner of a local glass factory with twenty years of experience in the business, joined the company because he wanted to get to know glass all over again from scratch. But perhaps the achievement that gives Wang the greatest pride is that his craft has at last won recognition from the educational system: in 1996, Chaoyang Institute of Technology established a glass studio as part of its department of industrial design, and at least one other school plans to follow suit.
Something that all students learn at an early stage is that the properties of glass vary with the temperature to which it is exposed during manufacture. At 650 degrees Celsius, it starts to soften and melt, but if the temperature rises to 750 degrees it will stick to anything it touches. In Taiwan, attitudes toward glass are approaching softening point. For Heinrich Wang and his team at Grand Crystal, however, the temperature long ago exceeded that magic 750 degrees. They are sticking to their craft, bound to it forever by the wonders of this centuries-old, man-made glue.