Rebirth of old crafts via design
Designer Jiang Wen Zhong is also creatively bringing new vitality to traditional crafts with his chicken-feather dusters and stands. Founder of the Hands craft studio, Jiang took the feather duster—a largely forgotten household item—and breathed new life into it by reducing it in size and turning it into a fluffy “healing utensil” that is installed in desktop stands and used for cleaning keyboards and wooden furniture.
The lead designer of Hands’ “Lucky Chicken” feather dusters, Jiang recalls attending a photographic exhibition and being moved by a photo of the master feather duster maker Chen Zhonglu in Changhua’s Puyan Township, together with his products. The sight of this nearly extinct household cleaning item brought back memories of childhood, when his grandmother would beat him with one. Later, when Jiang began to think about making culturally creative products, feather dusters once again floated into his mind.
Jiang first looked for suitably grained and textured wood. Choosing beech and teak, he redesigned feather dusters’ handles, emphasizing comfortable holds. Then he reduced their size, choosing suitable feathers from hens’ bellies to create small “chickens.” Suited to dusting computer screens and keyboards, these fluffy little birds have given an old craft product a new lease on life.
To make the dusters easy to store, Jiang matches these “Lucky Chickens” with ceramic stands made by craftsmen in Yingge. Dusters matched with stands featuring gold inlaid beaks are known as “Gold Beaked Lucky Chickens.” These creative names put a fun spin on household items. In 2018 Hands’ Lucky Chickens won a Golden Pin Design Award.
Jiang persuaded Chen Zhonglu to make the feather dusters he had designed. Now, not even two years later, Chen has taken orders for more than 4000 of them, which are sold at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park and branches of Maji Food & Deli.
Applying design to bring a traditional handicraft back into our daily lives, Jiang says: “I have a long-term dream of bringing together traditional Taiwan crafts and resources in a manner akin to the Japanese retailer Muji, but featuring products that reflect Taiwan’s own unique lifestyle.”
His remark brings to mind a passage from “Records from Examination of Craftsmanship” in The Rites of Zhou: “Those with knowledge create. Those with skilled hands preserve those traditions. That is what we call craftsmanship.” Using design to give new life to a traditional craft is like blowing out a tune on a mini trumpet to herald a new direction for an industry, or dusting off a traditional handicraft with a chicken-feather duster to welcome a new spring.
The Carol Brass Tourism Factory offers the public an opportunity to experience brass instruments up close.
With their supple lips, children need only basic instruction to blow sounds from horns. Those notes bring a sense of excitement and accomplishment.
From the first conception of a design to sketching and modelling, designers are always striving to make products that are both beautiful and functional. (photo by Jiang Wen Zhong, courtesy of Hands)
Hands worked with master craftsman Chen Zhonglu, a maker of feather dusters, to extend the life of this traditional handicraft. (photo by Jiang Wen Zhong, courtesy of Hands)
DIY educational activities give elementary school students an opportunity to experience for themselves the traditional handicraft of making feather dusters. (courtesy of Jiang Wen Zhong)
What a lovely, loving pair of Lucky Chickens in different colored stands! (photo by Lin Min-hsuan)