Detail and concentration
After Kuan had completed a substantial number of egg carvings, their durability began to be a concern among those who had collected them. But Kuan is not worried that his art is invariably transitory. He gives the example of the 100-year-old Russian "Faberge egg" that the Tsar gave as a present to the King of England and which still remains very much intact in Buckingham Palace. "The crucial point in storing egg carvings is simply whether or not they are well protected," he said.
Zen lover Kuan Chun-mai recognizes walking, standing, sitting, and lying down all as Zen. Time spent carving eggs provides a superb opportunity to "sit" in Zen meditation. Others speak of posture, etiquette and so forth when they discuss sitting meditation, but he attains Zen samadhi while working on his creations. This is reminiscent of what the Fifth Zen Patriarch, Bodhidharma, said: "Outside, each and every connection is cut off. Inside, not a whisper in your heart. Have a heart like a wall. This allows you to enter the holy path." This is the kind of spiritual skill that makes it possible for him to concentrate on the most minute details while maintaining unbroken vigor. Thanks to this he was able to carve the 18 Arhats over a period of 18 months while keeping his thoughts as clear as still water throughout.
If one of his creations is destroyed after he has completed it, out of strict self-discipline he will never make the same thing again. This guarantees that each of his works is one of a kind. "Allowing myself to carve the same thing over again would merely encourage laziness, and soon I wouldn't be able to create anything new," he says.
In the pursuit of perfection, Kuan normally spends 30 to 40 hours on an egg before he considers the work finished. If at the last minute a small crack appears, to avoid letting anyone see it as well as to avoid planting the seeds of regret, he immediately throws that egg away. "In carving eggs it is one hundred percent or nothing. There is no such thing as ninety-nine percent perfection," he proclaims. This attitude toward creativity permits him to make only about ten or 12 finished works a year.
The underside of the forefinger of Kuan's right hand has become a series of six "chicken eyes" (corns) from holding the knife so long, and a hard callus has grown on the outside of the knuckle on his little finger from 20-some years of pressing it against the eggshell while carving. He has experienced "snow blindness" from carving too long under the rays of a magnifying lamp. He would feel pain in both eyes and see nothing but white everywhere. Only after going to the doctor did he recognize that the extremely close-up work of carving combined with the reflection of the white fluorescent lamp light from the white eggshell was, after long-term exposure, injuring his eyes. At his physician's suggestion, he changed the fluorescent lamp for an incandescent bulb and his condition improved somewhat.
Creating a new category of art
Because Kuan has no interest in doing business, the works of art that he has invested so much of his heart and soul in are kept safe for the long term by Lin Cheng-cheng, a friend who is a great fan of egg carving. For Kuan this means that he never has to worry about them and can freely create whatever he wants. Lin says that 15 years ago when he saw his first egg carving, he just couldn't believe that a work of art of such miniature detail could really exist. Then as he discovered that Kuan Chun-mai had already been engaged in learning the art for nearly ten years, and as he himself could see the devotion Kuan put into his carving, Lin came to feel that each carved egg was a one-of-a-kind work of art, and he thereupon began to collect carved eggs.
Twelve years ago, a well-known mainland miniaturist responded to an invitation to visit Taiwan. He, too, expressed his deep admiration for Kuan Chun-mai's carved eggs. He went on to say that he had never seen any purely manual eggshell carving like this on the mainland.
Lin Cheng-cheng, with his long-time interest in the art of egg carving, points out that even though there are currently those on the mainland who have started to practice egg carving, they all enlist the help of machines to one degree or another. For 100% purely manual egg carving, there is only Kuan Chun-mai.
In recent years, Kuan Chun-mai has accepted a few students. But they have yet to achieve his level of mastery of the art. This fact too highlights the rarity and value of Kuan's works.
Twenty-some years of being engaged in this work has led Kuan to believe that there is nothing impossible under the sun. His persistence at egg carving led to eventual success, but he doesn't see this as a reason to be especially proud of himself. It simply means that in the process of succeeding at carving eggshells, he has given mankind yet one more medium for artistic expression. "In the very weakness of the medium lies the challenge of this art. One day all of my carved eggs will be broken. People will have forgotten my name. But I'm optimistic that the art of egg carving will flourish, and that this kind of fighting spirit will persist, unbroken through time," Kuan stresses.
For many years now, in addition to accepting the usual invitations to shows on the Taiwan art exhibition circuit, he has been showing abroad, in the United States, the Philippines, and other places. In all of his works-be it in the modernistic "New York Skyscraper," the secluded and elegant "Peonies in a Mirror," the Zen-inspired "Arhats," or the contemporary abstract "Mother and Child," we see innovation arising out of tradition. Precisely this lies at the very source of Kuan Chun-mai's creative life.
He has broken out of the restrictions of traditional carving by using a completely new medium and new techniques to unveil a previously unseen art, the art of carving eggs. Not only has he given us works of startling beauty, he has added another milestone to the traditional sculptor's art.