The Young Artisan Playing with Leather Engraving

Photos by Xiao Hao

Edited by He Sai

A large piece of leather engraved portrait Guanyin took Wu Kun 6 months to complete,including the application of dyes and finishes吴琨创作的大型皮雕观音像基本完工，加上后期工艺及上色总共需要近半年时间

Wu has hundreds of engraving tools,mostly homemade几百件皮雕工具基本自制

A small workshop at home在家里开辟一小块空间进行创作

When our ancestors covered their bodies with animal skins for the first time,the art of leather came into existence.

As an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage in leather engraving,young artisan Wu Kun said that working with leather is not only a kind of artistic creation embodying culture and history,but also a unique way of being close to nature.

Wu had played with molds before he took interest in leather engraving.He used to work in a mold factory in Wuhan,dealing in high-end ship models,car models,and other models mainly for export.These models often needed to be equipped with leather bases and accessories,whose original equipment manufacturers were difficult to source.As a result,Wu had to work on it by himself.

As a graduate who majored in design in university,Wu quickly mastered various leather-making skills out of his inborn talent.To further advance his skills,he even managed to learn from a retired craftsman who once worked in the Wuhan Dongfang Leather Factory and gained a more systematic knowledge of leather carving.

In the eyes of artisans,leather has life and memories.Natural animal skins and hides enjoy good flexibility after being welltreated.Wu’s leather engraving requires molds first,which are made with wood or resin glue on a machine tool.Then he cuts and wets the leather before he stretches,kneads,rubs,squeezes,and presses it in the mold.The whole process helps fix the leather’s shape and present a three-dimensional pattern.Lastly,stitching and coloring are applied before a piece of work is completed.

In the hands of a leather engraver,leather has its temperaments.

Slowly run your hands through a piece of leather,you will find that cowhide is smooth and mild while horse skin is stiff and rigid,deer skin is soft and waxy while sheep skin is delicate and fine.Wu Kun,like many leather craftsmen,loves“horse buttock leather” the best—a small piece of skin on the horse’s butt,which is so fine and precious that it is called “the diamond among leathers.”

At Wu’s studio located in Haishan Culture and Art City,his clean and tidy workbench with all kinds of small carving knives neatly arranged in the toolbox and various leather materials lying chaotically all over the room offer us a striking contrast.

In his spare time,Wu buries himself in the world of leather engraving.Repeated rubbing,pressing,carving,and beating yield slow and subtle changes on the leather surface.Time seems to stand still here.The beauty and inner disposition of the leather are presented through his engraving of the cat’s careless beard,the horse’s flying mane,the sika deer’s complicated pattern,and the eagle’s sharp eyes...