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For master kitemaker Buteo Huang, the sky's the limit |
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20 August 2007 |
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Master kitemaker Huang Ching-chan (黃景楨), or Buteo Huang as he is commonly known, can literally make anything into a kite. Among his collection he has an Orchid Island Flying Boat kite, a Beijing Opera Mask kite as well as many insects, birds and even a lion head.
Having crafted thousands of kites from hundreds of designs and shapes, Huang has perfected a unique style of kite that flutters between the traditional and modern, while tethered along a uniquely creative road.
In one respect Huang's kites are a symbol of the traditional culture of Taiwan, but they are also infused with modern ideas giving them a special vibrancy. Huang's overflowing creativity and enchanting artistic nature hoists the traditional children's toy to an entirely new stage. His kites are, of course, fine works of art.
Huang quit his job in 2002 and since then has been devoting his time solely to kite making. His art has taken him to the US, France, Spain and Holland, where his displays have attracted considerable attention. He has exhibited at the Winter Garden in New York City and at the International Kite Design Competition in the Netherlands and in the US. His latest exhibition at the National Taiwan Museum in Taipei ended last month.
Foreign companies and businesses continually approach Huang for product contracts and patents, and he has propelled kite making far beyond a traditional art form.
He says he feels that kite flying is a form of performance art as he liberates a kite into the currents of a breeze and tugs on a draft unlike any other in different environments and in different situations.
"There are sometimes thousands of foreigners watching when one of my kites catches a breeze. Afterwards they pepper me with comments like, 'Your kites are marvelous!' and 'Where are you from?'"
Huang half-jokingly says that he plans to develop "a new approved era of kite flying" where teachers can rediscover the beauty of the children's toy and the manifold wonders of science, and have a new model to explain how Mother Nature, artistic beauty and science education entwine; and Taiwanese businesses can garner new potential for the lucrative kite market.
Huang emphasizes the art's affinity with science, and also the necessity for artisanship and beauty. Huang's kites may hover between traditional art and contemporary aesthetics, but they are all well grounded in the science of mechanical equilibrium.
He insists that his kites must be easy to fly, durable, impermeable, and possess a tether-tension that permits anyone from three to 93 to operate them with complete safety.
Huang has spent nearly 30 of his 40 years flying kites and was a young boy of ten when he spliced together the bamboo frame for his first kite. Since that time, kites have remained the favorite subject of his imagination.
At first making kites was his hobby, now it is his magnificent obsession. He dramatizes his work as a tug-of-war against the fickle nature of the four winds.
Over the past 30 years, Huang has collated a photographic record of every single model of the many thousands of kites he has created. He has also published a book that introduces the general outlines of his designs and the results of his failures. This record is the true crystallization of his sweat and blood. Huang pointed out to me: "Here are my construction plans. Look over here at this kite and compare it with the plan; see the round one with the mustache? See here, how the bamboo struts are arranged just as in the plans."
Huang is altogether a unique kite master. He says his records are "for future kite enthusiasts, so they may at least see the responsibilities earlier kitemakers shouldered; so they do not have to start from scratch, like me". This dedication to passing down his culture is his most ennobling characteristic.
I asked Huang the secret of constructing a successful kite, he replied: "I have flown kites now for over 30 years. If you had seen me 30 years ago, you would have seen that only one out of a hundred could ride the wind. Now, after 30 years, it is exactly the opposite, only one out of a hundred plummets to earth. But that single kite is the one that stays behind with me. Flying these things is both beautiful and boundless."
Flying a kite has nothing to do with manipulating the tether; the structure must adhere to principles of physics, says Huang. His design shop is named the "Buteo Hawk Studio"; buteo means hawk in Latin. Huang worked in interior design after graduating from an architectural studies program in college, but his first love was always for kites. After several years, he left interior design to focus all of his energies on his passion. He turned away from interior design because he felt the profession catered only to the rich, but flying kites provides a sense of wonder to complete strangers. He began to study aerodynamics, and immediately set himself to solving the problem of making a snail-shaped kite to fly. He studied every aspect of design; the mollusc's shape, the transfer of the details to a construction model, and the choice of the right pigment and ensuring its permeability. He spent 2 years before arriving at his conclusions. He then studied the 9,000 species of birds and their various wing characteristics, and experimented on various lightweight materials. He assiduously studied the unique changes in Taiwan's island breezes and weather patterns. He understands the vicissitudes of wind currents and if you were to release one of his kites to catch the wind, you would understand how well his designs perform. When you stand beside one of his creations, and see it ride a wind current, you understand how stable his kites really are.
Huang tugged his first twine as a young boy, and loved the feeling of seeing something liberated and escape the earth below. The classmates he has kept in touch with all say that they never imaged that all these many years later, Huang would still be found playing with kites, drifting his way to fame, and fluttering his way into a commercial enterprise.
He even tries to make a ripped piece of newspaper float: "The naked truth behind the fragmented and broken news reports," he wryly quips.
"Duplicating my previous designs is the most painful part of my work," he says. Because of this, he conscientiously makes a true scale model of every kite he makes in a year. Whenever he meets fans who would like to collect his kites, he copies one from his models. He laughs at their requests because duplicate kites are leftovers from his previous experience, and he is always making faster and better flying kites. But he never sells the original model, because he believes that within these lie the creative energy of the moment.
Huang sighs and laments that as with so many traditional arts, kites seem ever more inconsequential in an era of fast food, and few artists try to make a living at it. And when you do commit yourself to this hobby, there is always that faint, bittersweet feeling when your kite fails to catch the wind, and simply drops. Dreams and courageous perseverance are the real secrets of the kite master.
Huang expresses his unique self through kites, and he strongly feels that Taiwan's future lies in the creativity of its people. As he himself gently waltzes between his destiny and his art, he knows that perfecting his kites rests within himself. He hopes one day to establish a legitimate kite museum, as a final home for his wayward kites.
Written by Perry Hsieh
for culture.tw
Translated by Mark Hennessy
Photos by Perry Hsieh |
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Last Updated ( 03 December 2007 )
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