Changhua Leather Carver Li Wan-ling Wins Two Major UK Awards for Realistic Leather Carving
Here is some news that really lifted my spirits: Li Wan-ling, a leather carving artist from the Changhua County "Craft House," entered two works in the UK's Future Art & Design Award and took home a Platinum Award and a Gold Award.
What's interesting is that these two pieces did not do well in last year's domestic competitions. One was rejected, and the other earned only an honorable mention. She only learned about the UK competition in late February this year, with just seven days left before the deadline. Since the organizers did not limit the number of entries, she photographed her two older works, asked a friend to translate her creative statements and the leather carving techniques she developed herself, and sent everything by email. She received a reply on March 30, and only after asking another friend to translate it did she learn she had won.
The Platinum Award piece, "A Place in My Heart," carves the crumbling adobe house where she grew up, the banana tree that helped support her family, her father who worked tirelessly like a water buffalo, and the moon that tried to take her home but never could. The Gold Award piece, "Blue-Bellied Pheasant with Chick," shows the Formosan blue-bellied pheasant, a bird found only in Taiwan, along with yushan ladybell and moonflower. The chicks in the composition are always three, because she has three children.
What I found most compelling was her insistence on realistic leather carving. She says realistic technique must keep the texture of the leather itself: pores must be clearly visible, and even the fine hairs of a water buffalo or its eyelashes must still reveal the grain of the leather after many layers of color. She also stresses that dyed leather tends to fade over time, so the color has to stay stable for years. In her view, if leather carving loses the qualities of leather, it loses its value as an art.
After more than 30 years of leather carving, she says the hardest part is not the carving itself but gathering a large number of real photographs and blending them with her own ideas to create a new image. For anyone who loves leather craft, this is a good reminder that the language of the material itself is often what gives a work its greatest power.
Source: 聯合新聞網
What's interesting is that these two pieces did not do well in last year's domestic competitions. One was rejected, and the other earned only an honorable mention. She only learned about the UK competition in late February this year, with just seven days left before the deadline. Since the organizers did not limit the number of entries, she photographed her two older works, asked a friend to translate her creative statements and the leather carving techniques she developed herself, and sent everything by email. She received a reply on March 30, and only after asking another friend to translate it did she learn she had won.
The Platinum Award piece, "A Place in My Heart," carves the crumbling adobe house where she grew up, the banana tree that helped support her family, her father who worked tirelessly like a water buffalo, and the moon that tried to take her home but never could. The Gold Award piece, "Blue-Bellied Pheasant with Chick," shows the Formosan blue-bellied pheasant, a bird found only in Taiwan, along with yushan ladybell and moonflower. The chicks in the composition are always three, because she has three children.
What I found most compelling was her insistence on realistic leather carving. She says realistic technique must keep the texture of the leather itself: pores must be clearly visible, and even the fine hairs of a water buffalo or its eyelashes must still reveal the grain of the leather after many layers of color. She also stresses that dyed leather tends to fade over time, so the color has to stay stable for years. In her view, if leather carving loses the qualities of leather, it loses its value as an art.
After more than 30 years of leather carving, she says the hardest part is not the carving itself but gathering a large number of real photographs and blending them with her own ideas to create a new image. For anyone who loves leather craft, this is a good reminder that the language of the material itself is often what gives a work its greatest power.
Source: 聯合新聞網
Comments 0
Leave the first comment, in any language.
Log in to comment