“Tin” and “art” are words that seldom meet in the same sentence, but the determination of one man to breathe life into a disappearing craft has resulted in a creative journey of exploration that has paired them all the way from Lukang to New York.
It was 1970, and 28-year-old tinsmith Chen Wan-neng was at a crossroads. He had just completed two innovative sets of ceremonial tinware, and had decided to travel north from Lukang Township in central Taiwan--back then, six hours by bus --to Taipei to try his luck at a sale. Perhaps he would sell them to one of the city’s last remaining shops dealing in ceremonial objects: incense burners, candlestick holders, fruit trays, lamp stands, and spirit glasses. Then again, perhaps he would not. He only had enough money for a one-way bus ticket; a no sale would mean a long journey home on foot.
His eldest brother was against the idea--and for good reason. Tinware might once have been a booming business, but since the Japanese colonization from 1895 to 1945, it had fallen on hard times. The good old days belonged to the period of great prosperity during the late Ching Dynasty and the early years of Japanese rule, when Lukang was not only Taiwan’s tin capital but one of the island’s three major cities. By 1970 such days were long past, and demand for ceremonial tinware was minimal.
Before the arrival of the Japanese, ceremonial tinware depicted the myriad deities worshipped by Taiwanese in their daily lives, and affluent families would often include tin pieces as part of their daughters’ dowries. But trade slowed when the colonial government banned local religious practices, and as time went by the tradition came to be thought of as outdated by those who could afford it, while others sold off the collections they had in times of economic hardship. By the time Chen started learning the craft from his father at the age of 14, the family could no longer rely on tinware alone for its income. Chen was forced to take other jobs such as painting movie billboards for theaters to make a living.
To make matters worse, in August 1959 a flood ravaged central Taiwan killing around 1,000 people and also sweeping away most of a set of 50 stone molds that Chen’s family had used since his grandfather’s day to produce traditional ceremonial tinware. Describing tools as “the lifeblood of a craftsman,” Chen says that at first he saw the difficulty of replacing the molds--made of a soft stone imported from China--and the fact his father was very ill as equivalent to “watching the death of a beautiful craft.” That is, until he began to explore using local materials to replace the molds, and entertaining the idea of combining his craft with his painting skills to continue the family tradition.
Chen had decided to make his career as a tinsmith at 25, a move that forced him to consider why the craft was losing its appeal. His conclusion was that it had long been failing to keep abreast of social change. “Today’s traditions are yesterday’s innovations,” he says. “And today’s innovations will become tomorrow’s traditions. I decided to start with tinware aimed for traditional use, but also to reflect contemporary needs and aesthetics.”
The result was the tinware innovation Chen took to Taipei: a reconstituted altar accessory that combined separate elements--the candlestick and the lampshade--and was both economical and aesthetically pleasing.
While his brother was skeptical, pointing out that the six or seven tinware shops that once lined Lukang’s main street were now shuttered up, for Chen this was the innovation that would jump-start his career in a dying tradition. And so it was --both excited and uneasy--he arrived in downtown Taipei’s west side, where the only likely buyer had a shop.
The response was a prompt dismissal from the shop owner, who told the young craftsman not to even bother unwrapping his creation.
“There’s no market for things like this anymore,” the shop owner said.
Refusing to give up, Chen protested, dropping the name of a mutual friend who had recommended him to the shop. Grudgingly, the shop owner agreed to take a look, and when Chen unwrapped his work, a long moment of silence followed.
“I knew right away that I wouldn’t have to walk all the way home,” says Chen, who sold the two sets without bargaining for NT$1,200 (US$36), a price that sent his spirits soaring. He was now certain his innovation had a future. And he was right. Before long, Chen was using a truck to transport his cargo to Taipei, and as business grew so did his ambitions.
Chen began a personal journey into the history of tinware, discovering that the form’s potential extended far beyond ceremonial purposes. Tin, he learned, was among the earliest metals introduced into ancient Chinese culture, and the word “tin” in ancient Chinese had the dual meaning of “bestow,” making it an auspicious material. Meanwhile, by the time of the Ming Dynasty, tinsmiths had started to develop an interest in literature and the arts, which led to embellishments featuring poetry, landscape themes, and other artistic elements appearing in their works. Chen had also long been interested in Japanese tinware, and had bought damaged examples left behind after 1945 from junk collectors.
“Even with the damaged pieces, you could see that they were fine works of art,” he says. “It didn’t seem right to have to melt them down, even though we were often forced to by poverty.”
So it was that forgotten history, and the discards of the Japanese colonial era provided Chen with a rich template for his own creations.
Tin-making involves techniques such as hammering or casting basic parts with stone, copper, or iron molds, soldering parts to the main body, and burnishing, painting, and carving out or inlaying embellishments. Practitioners call the craft “hitting tin” in colloquial Taiwanese. Craftsmen often mingle tin and copper to produce different effects, or even reduce their costs by using a higher portion of lead. However, Chen was looking to achieve a realistic appearance in his works, and experimented with materials to overcome the softness of tin and its tendency to blacken due to oxidation. He molded his hardened materials using techniques such as casting, detailed carving, and cold forging (beating tin sheets into shape) to render realistic expressions of his subjects and produce a lustrous look to the finished pieces.
The subjects of Chen’s repertoire are legendary gods and creatures of folklore and their exploits--Bodhisattva Bodhidharma, Great Literatus in Heaven, Arhats, the Goddess of the Sea, and the fabled beasts such as the qilin . Chen’s attention to detail--facial features, the eyes, expressions, gestures, outfits, and musculature--brings the creatures and their stories to life.
Chen’s work is so powerful it is hardly surprising that tinware has now become a family affair, with three of his sons joining him. One of them, Chen Chih-yang, has been praised for taking the craft a step beyond his father’s work artistically. In 1992, at the age of 20, he won the National Handicraft Award for Struggling Upstream Against the Current, and in 1994 he won an award for The Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea , and yet another in 1995 for Peony Beauty.
That spells good news for tinware, which at least for the Chens has been reborn as a family tradition, and as a creative endeavor, with two of Chen’s sons having spent time in New York studying fine arts.
It has been a long journey for Chen--from Lukang to Taipei, and finally to New York.
His faith and perseverance have paid off. When in 1980 a popular TV show kindled curiosity about disappearing traditional crafts, Chen suddenly found himself in the spotlight, becoming known as the most representative craftsman of his profession. In 1988, he received the National Heritage Award from the Ministry of Education, simultaneously setting two new records as the youngest award recipient and the first metalwork winner.
That was the same year Chen’s work went international for the first time, with the Confucian Temple in Nagasaki, Japan, buying two of his works. But even that was nothing compared with the crowning moment of his career to that point--a 1992 solo exhibition sponsored by the central government’s Council for Cultural Affairs featuring the 12 animal signs of the Chinese Zodiac in New York. Further exhibitions followed in Paris and other international capitals, but it was that first US exhibit, says Chen, that made him realize just how far he had come.
“I had tears in my eyes as I stood there looking at the Rockefeller Center,” Chen says. “I never pictured myself coming so far as to be able to showcase tinware in a foreign, artistically vibrant city, and it made me realize that I had succeeded in preserving the craft for Taiwan.”