The Loiminchay SNOW

Idea/Concept:
The first idea of the SNOW pen dated back one and a half years ago. At the beginning prototype stage of the Golden Mai (Rice) pen development, we thought of making a Urushi lacquer pen of minimal colors, simply a Black and White pen.

Memory of my first encounter of snow was still fresh and vivid, although I was merely a kid at the time. I was with my grandmother in China then. Being from the south, I have never seen the beauty of snow. From the window of our village home, viewing afar, snowflakes danced in hordes with various rhythm. The visual was almost like Jackson Pollack’s painting. Yet, up close, they looked more scattered and softer. I could almost see the different patterns and shapes of each snow flakes. The beauty of nature and the beautiful visual burned in my young mind. This memory formed the base of visual concept for the SNOW pen.

Since natural Urushi lacquer does not traditionally come in white color, we have decided to follow the centuries old traditions, using off-white color eggshells to achieve the soft white color effect. Hence, snowflakes would be represented by small bits of white eggshells on a black background. After many sketches, this Black and White Urushi lacquer pen begun to take shape. The challenge is to find a way to utilize this special lacquering technique to create the desired impressionistic and poetic picture.

Many months and close to hundred of sketches later, we’d decided on the present design solution. In the final design, we have divided the pen body into three different stages, time and space. The cap button and the cap became the stage for the sky (and the future) with heavy concentration of snow. Snowflakes are in various shapes and sizes, dancing their own dances with their own concerto of music, with the promise that more of the beauty would come. As the flakes flowed down to the tip of the cap and the barrel, the stage changed to earth and the present. The flakes became sparse and of similar sizes and shapes, floating in all directions, teasing and daring the people to touch and dance with them. Then, at the end, they gathered again on the ground (the barrel button). Snow only existed briefly, then it would bind with the earth and change its physical entity forever. Time became the past. The design of the snow pen is now complete. The sky, people and the earth, it is quite a nature’s concept as our early project — the Golden Mai (Rice) pen.

The SNOW or the Golden Mai pen would not be complete, without the people nurturing and holding them in his or her hands. Ah! The concept then is finally completed. The theme tied the nature — sky, earth, us — human lives in the middle, above the ground, beneath the air through time and space. This is my true conceptual thought and it is why I continue to make pens instead of expressing my thoughts through paintings or drawings. Up to this day, I still hold, use, draw with, admire and long for … my hand … your hand with the art object — pen, to form the total artistic statement. We, human, our relationships with the object together is to create the soul of the statement.

Technique:
Most pen collectors are quite aware of the Urushi lacquering technique more or less by now.
Regardless the lacquering technician/master-craftsman/artist (which I’ll call "artist" from now on) from Japan, China, Vietnam, France, Spain, or wherever else; this art demands patience, discipline and expertise. A true artist would have their own quality judgment in terms of skill, level of refinement and discipline to execute such fine works, time and time again. I have worked with individuals who are quite skillful, yet, lacking in discipline of keeping delivering timing and the consistency of quality are just not there. This lack of discipline and consistency in quality could turn out to be quite disastrous at the end.

For the SNOW, the first step is to prepare the all ebonite Qian Long pen bodies for the application of Urushi lacquer. This requires sanding, cleaning (may be priming) to turn the ebonite pen bodies to their ultimate condition to bind with Urushi lacquer.

The finest grade Urushi lacquer from Japan is being used in all process. The artist decided 5 pens a time would be appropriate to maintain the quality. The next step is to apply eggshells on the pen body. The Rankaku (eggshell inlay) technique could be applied in various ways. The artist preferred to use cleaned and dried bits of eggshells to glue on the pen body, one piece at a time. Urushi lacquer is used to glue the eggshells.

The pen bodies then were put to a Urushi bath with slow revolving mechanism to prevent dripping. 80% humidity and controlled temperature are needed for Urushi to "sweat" and harden. The bath would take a few days. Then a thin layer of black Urushi lacquer would apply in-between eggshells. The pen body then would be put to a Urushi bath again to "dry".

The same process would be repeated, over 20 times, so the gaps in between eggshells were filled. At the end, layers of Urushi lacquer would be put on the whole pen, covering the eggshells as well. Yet, there are three parts of the pen should be void of Urushi. They are the cap ring area, barrel ring area and the thread section of the barrel. If Urushi was applied accidentally, the artist must take care of the problem by wiping it off right away. Otherwise, the ring section would not fit the ring later. With the many pen parts of our Qian Long body: top cap button, cap, front end, barrel, and barrel button, according to the crafts-master, our Qian Long pen bodies cost them at least 30% more work to get it right.

When the pen bodies were dried and resembled an overweight version of the Qian Long pen, polishing specialist would be called to hand polish the Urushi laden pens. 5 to 10 times of rough polishing are needed to reveal the eggshells underneath. In between polishing, holes and imperfections were filled/removed carefully until the pen look smooth on the surface. By now, several months work have been put in.

Similar process would take place for intermediate polishing, except a finer polishing agent was used. After another 5 to 6 times of intermediate polishing, the pen body became very smooth with dull black color.

Finish polishing then took place, with a mixture of fine powder and oil. Extremely thin layers of Urushi would apply after each finish polishing in a dust free environment. It is vital not to have dirt and dust on the pen from this stage onward. No part in the pen should be touched by hand at this point. The whole pen would let dry for five to six days. The artist would buff the pen parts with his palm since any other material would be too rough. This procedure would be repeated until the pen showed a slight glow.

During the final stage, after final polish with a mixture of extremely fine powder and oil, the pen would then be cleaned and a last final coat of clear Urushi would apply. The pen then would be put aside to let thoroughly dried, it would be hand-buffed with the artist’s palm until the pen showed a brilliant glow. The whole pen took approximately 37 steps from preparation to finish. This lacquering business depends a lot on nature, quality of lacquer, expertise and most of all, patience and discipline. No one can afford frustration.

Let’s say the first five pen bodies were completed in 4 to 5 months time, then we would send the parts to our pen maker in France to assemble, with the BOCK #8 nib from Germany, large ebonite feeder from Microtech in France. The pen studio also provided us with heavy gold plated rings to hold the cap and the barrel and put in the ink pump system. This procedure would usually take 5 days to complete. Therefore, the total turn around time for each SNOW is approximately 5 months or so.

Overall, the technical difficulties of SNOW lies on: the even application of each bit of eggshells, matching the curve shape of the cap, barrel and buttons; even application of Urushi in between eggshells while maintaining the shape of the pen; and the most crucial part — sufficiently polishing to reveal the eggshells. Too much polishing would remove the eggshells, while not enough polishing would retain small particles of dried Urushi on surface of the soft white eggshells.

While the pen looks simple, it is composed of many pieces of eggshells. Sometimes simplicity is the most difficult since there are no room to hide any mistakes. The artistic statement relied on the unification of 5 new parts together. While each part is different; have its own individual technical difficulties; yet at the same time they share a certain likeness, a certain unity when pieced together. Meanwhile, for the Maki-e pens, the painting on the pen is so striking that demand all attention from the viewers, the wholeness of the SNOW re-stage the beauty and serenity of mother nature. It is not my intention to say one is technically more challenging than the other, such as my Erotica series, or the Door Gods, I am merely stressing on their individual challenges.

I always hesitate to talk about technical aspects and difficulties on Urushi technique. By showing the SNOW pen with photos and writing about the production process this way, I hope to present a clear understanding of the hand lacquering technique to the public.

Up to this point, one noticed that I had not mentioned the jade clip production. I omitted this part in purpose. Jade crafting is another very specialized field, and to apply jade crafting to a pen was a totally new adventure to me and in today’s pen making. Since 2001, I hope, Loiminchay has been proven to the world that we are capable of providing the best quality and technically know how to merge jade with Urushi lacquer on ebonite fountain pen.

I would like to mention that the first prototype took a good six months to complete. Before that we had encountered two sample failures due to the many technical difficulties. Therefore, we did not start the final production till the middle of year 2003.

The Stages:

- Concept development
- Design development
- 1st production
- 2nd production
- Production Quantity: 70 pcs. + 3 Complete set of 6 pens.
* 10 pcs. with Solid Silver clips
* 10 pcs. with Black Jade clips
* 20 pcs. with White Jade clips
* 10 pcs. with Purple Jade clips
* 10 pcs. with Green Jade clips
* 10 pcs. with 18K Pink Gold clips
Total 70 pcs.

Patrick Chu
Loiminchay NY