Mr. Nguyen Kim Xuan's eyes light up whenever the conversation turns to bamboo. He studied forest product processing in Prague during 1972 and returned to Viet Nam to work in a factory making wooden furniture. He talks about the bamboo groves of his childhood, the village hedges, the thatched roofs, the furniture, and the window screens. All his life, Mr. Xuan has wanted to work with bamboo.
Mr. Xuan lives outside Ha NOi on a side road bordered by a dike, green fields, and the Duo:Mg River. The ambiance is rural although the site is only a ten-minute ride from the city. His gate leads into a courtyard with his house and two buildings, one of which is a large art gallery with nearly a hundred lacquer paintings. Lacquer ware has existed in Viet Nam for nearly 4,000 years. Sometimes artists paste egg shells, sea shells, or gold under the lacquer. Bamboo, an age-old symbol of Viet Nam, would seem a natural decorative material. However, Mr. Xuan was the first person to think of combining traditional lacquer and bamboo.
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Mr. Xuan made his first lacquer painting with bamboo in 1988. "I thought that lacquer was a traditional Vietnamese art form and bamboo was a traditional material, so it seemed natural," he said. After Mr. Xuan tried a few different pieces on his own, he invited other artists to join in the process. Mr. Xuan studied thousands of bamboo samples to develop a method of treating the bamboo to resist termites and preserve its natural colours and textures.
Ha N(ii's Department of Science and Technology learned of Mr. Xuan's skills in 1994 and backed him with their project, "Developing Techniques for Manufacturing Bamboo Products for Export." The department helped him focus on scientific aspects of his artistic technique. Mr. Xuan managed the project himself and has spent the past few years perfecting his craft.
Most of the young people in Mr. Xuan's workshop are orphans or disadvantaged children. His initiative has given them a vocation and a place to live. He has also trained craft workers from other areas. Recently, Bic Can Province sent him twenty youths for training so that Bic Can can develop its own lacquer crafts with inlaid bamboo.
Today, Mr. Xuan supports a team of fifty artist-technicians, who cut the bamboo and fit it into mosaic grid sketches for the final pictures. Six artists design the scenes and supervise the work. Pictures portray traditional Vietnamese images, such as the rat's wedding, picking coconuts, banyan trees, river wharves, and communal houses. Mr. Xuan sells lacquer art with bamboo in more than sixty countries.