LIVING THE DETAILS: NIEN PI-HUA SLIPPED THE KNOT OF FAMILY LIFE AND EMBROIDERED A NEW CAREER FOR HERSELF

  

By Leanne Kao

Photos by Huang Chung-hsin

 

It is not uncommon to hear married women talk about how marriage has buried their career and other pursuits in chores and diapers. Of course, some simply pick up where they left off after the children have grown up, but many more just nostalgically dream of days past. But for one Taiwanese woman, marriage and two sons have not been an impediment to becoming a reputed embroiderer and jewelry designer, author of several books, a newspaper columnist, college teacher, and even a graduate student in England.

Nien Pi-hua (粘碧華) says that as a married woman, she had more time than she ever had before she married. After graduating in 1971 from the foreign language department of what is now known as the Providence University in Taichung, Nien worked for a trading company. Two years later she entered the world of high-end youth fashion as the agent of an American company. In the absence of an in-house designer, part of Nien’s job was to come up with color schemes and knit varieties for patterns the company purchased from Europe before sending them to downstream manufacturers. It was a job that gave her a taste of what it was like to be a reallife designer, and not only that, she was good at it, tripling annual export sales to NT$ 10 million (US$295,000) in five years. “That sales figure was quite something at the time, but the best thing for me was I got to do what I had been interested in doing,” Nien says. “I’ve always liked playing with colors, woven patterns, and other handmade stuff. Not many of us were encouraged to spend time on such things back in our school days.”

Born in Taipei in 1947, Nien’s childhood was like many others, dominated by study and the goal of passing the college entrance exam. In school, the few classes not tested in the college entrance exam, such as fine arts and home economics were either not taken seriously or seen as bonus hours by teachers who taught Chinese literature, English, or math. The most that could be expected from such classes was, perhaps, learning to make some artificial flowers for Mother’s Day, to do some knitting, and, on occasion, to make some dishes or deserts.

In such an environment, it goes without saying that design was not on the students’ subject list, and it was not until Nien entered Providence University that she encountered the subject. This Catholic university held activities on special days such as Halloween and Christmas that did not become popular in other Taiwanese schools until many years later. Nien would design costumes for the younger students, and her work often won a number of prizes—from the best looking to the most amusing. Handmade paper gowns and flowers were among her specialties.

 “When movies such as My Fair Lady became a fad among school girls, I’d make crepe-paper gowns and accessories based on the actors’ wardrobe,” she says.

Everything you learn at school and in life eventually becomes a nutrient that contributes to your future strength, Nien believes. She says her desire to create beauty with her own hands was like a light dimmed for years by schoolwork and employment, and yet it blinked from time to time whenever opportunities presented themselves. So, when she became a full-time housewife, she was pleased to find that she could finally have total control over her schedule even as a parent. She began to teach herself embroidery to pass the time and entertained her baby with the small things she made.

While many women find parenthood all consuming, Nien cracked its secret and made it a dream job. “Babies cry when they are uncomfortable, hungry, or ill. Make sure they stay comfortable, and they’ll sleep instead of bothering you. Then you can do what you are interested in doing,” she says. Nien’s approach was to use cloth diapers rather than the paper variety, and she made sure that she prepared the baby’s milk before it got hungry. And somehow she bought herself enough time not only to work on her embroidery, but also to read ancient art history and find out everything she could about the craft.

By stealing an hour or two from her daily routine to visit public libraries, Nien soon began writing about the dress codes of previous generations, and how their clothes, shoes, socks, purses, and other accessories came together and reflected their social status.

“Many Taiwanese poets provided sources about how people dressed,” she says. “The more I read, the more they piqued my curiosity about the aesthetics of our ancestors.”

She became a newspaper columnist, writing about subjects such as the evolution of purses in Chinese and Western cultures, embroidery patterns and their symbolism, needlework techniques, and the jewelry of people from desert regions.

In order to stimulate the interest of readers, she often started with allusions and anecdotes related to the forms and functions of the objects to be introduced in the columns. For instance, in days past, writes Nien, the formal attire of the Chinese did not have pockets. And this made the purse or the pouch an indispensable accessory. When the rich or the nobility ventured out, a porter went with them, carrying all the pouches on a rack.

“These beautiful purses and pouches were seen as the necessary complements to formal clothes,” Nien says. “From the emperor to the courtiers of different hierarchies, everyone wore them.”

Understanding the past, for Nien, enables the creative mind to bridge the gap between innovation and tradition. In the early 1980s, Nien held embroidery exhibits in Taipei that made her an expert in an art that had virtually been forgotten. In the years that followed, her schedule included invitations from organizations such as the government’s Council for Cultural Affairs to tour and demonstrate how to make purses and fragrant pouches. Moreover, she published her first book on embroidered

jewelry in 1985 and the second one four years later on the folk-art embroidery of the Qing Dynasty.

Nien’s thirst for knowledge even stretches to ancient Roman and Arabic jewelries.

 “Jewelry design wasn’t just a product of the West even in ancient days; the love of jewelry is universal,” she says. “Excavations of metalwork and jewelry from the past always grab my attention. They show evidence of early cultural exchanges between the East and the West.”

It is an observation that once inspired her to make embroidered card cases and coin purses based on the unearthed artifacts of the Han Dynasty—creations that attracted the public eye.

In 1988, she applied to the Royal College of Art in London to study metalwork and jewelry design. But, with a portfolio made up entirely of embroidery designs, when the deadline approached and no news was heard from London, Nien made a call to England and persuaded the school to take her on. To help Nien familiarize herself with the subject, the department head arranged a series of special crash courses—one instructor every two weeks to teach basic techniques. Nien stayed on for a year. 

"The best thing about studying abroad is I learned to take multiple perspectives as I compared different cultures," she says. "Interaction be-tween cultures is a necessary and positive stimulant. Taiwan is now inundated by exotic cultures, but the one big question we must ask our-selves is: where and what is our own culture? We must sort it out quickly. It's alright to absorb from other cultures, but we need to develop our own views and generate a way of expression that can be identified as unique to Taiwan." 

On returning to Taiwan, she went into fine-jewelry design. The Nien Design studio is a small private space hidden in one of the crowded buildings in Taipei's eastern district, with a display area set next to a study and frequented by a string of loyal customers. Every piece found here is one of a kind and made to complement the owner rather than emphasize the designer. 

In addition to custom designs, Nien manages to devote part of her time to writing on jewelry design and working on experimental creations. Her embroidered jewelry challenges conventions with experiments involving steel, copper, and enamel wires with silk, resulting in products that are simultaneously stiff and soft. "As a designer," she says, " failing to seek breakthroughs and to discover in our cultural roots what's valuable and closely linked to our lives is for me a sign of laziness and irresponsibility." 

Nien herself puts her obsessions down to her eccentricity in turning to a craft that history has left behind. In 1995, she returned to Nottingham, England, at the behest of a friend, to get a master's degree in fashion and textile. Although jewelry design has become the main focus of her career, she still finds time to write about needlework and to pass on her skills. Indeed, she teaches classes at the Caiyuan community in central Taiwan's Lukang, her father's hometown, where a 10-year project aimed at bringing about a renaissance of traditional crafts for house-wives began in 2002. 

One of the goals of the project is to create an embroidery village. Huang Chih-nung (黃志農), the man behind the undertaking and a project manager of a local art studio, says these women learn their skills not for economic reasons, but to bring old crafts back into their lives. He says he met Nien when they were the judges of the annual National Crafts Awards, and when he asked her to teach a class at Caiyuan she agreed immediately. 

"Nien considers herself as having come from Lukang and wants very much to do something for her hometown," he says. "It's not easy to find a skilled teacher who is also patient and able to stimulate the students, and we're lucky to have Nien. She fits that description completely, and is amiable, gentle, considerate, and happy to help other people out." 

Huang says Nien's embroidery design cleverly adds a dash of modernity to an old art. "She does everything with her heart, including the Caiyuan classes," he says. So that students come away with a sense of having achieved something, she started the classes with projects that were easy to complete, such as purses. Moreover, she teaches technique only, urging the students to come up with their own plans. Meanwhile, she adjusts her lessons according to the students' perform-ance, Huang says. 

Huang likes to tell the story of how Nien once came across a metalwork factory that was about to close down. She bought its equipment and tools and shipped them to Caiyuan at her own expense. "That's how dedicated she is to what she does," says Huang.

(From: Taiwan Review, December 2004, pp.58-64.)

Living the Details - Taiwan Today

Nien Pi-hua, “The Arcadia,” 46 x 68 cm, 1997

Nien Pi-hua, “Ring,” Emerald, fire opal, diamond, gold

Nien Pi-hua, “Ring,” Coral, karat gold

 

Nien Pi-hua, “Ring & Pendant,” Onyx, karat gold

Nien Pi-hua, “Crack Pattern Plum Blossom Lace,” 118 x 83cm, 1995-1997

Nien Pi-hua, “Embroidery Necklace & Earrings,” Embroidery on silk 

Nien Pi-hua, “Necklace,” Ruby, diamond, white gold

Nien Pi-hua, “Fragrant-sachet Pendants,” Embroidery on silk 

Nien Pi-hua, “Flames,” 68 x 46cm, 1992

Nien Pi-hua, “Dragonfly,” 12 x 8cm, 1995

Nien Pi-hua, “The Moonlight,” 46 x 68cm, 1997